Thrive Themes Review - Summary
I've been a paying customer of Thrive Themes since October 2015. I've been impressed with their laser focus on the many customer conversion features built into their products. Included with this is their excellent training on how to succeed in the online business space using their tools. For me, their combination of tools and online entrepreneur skills development is why I offer a positive Thrive Themes review.
As I finished writing this review's words, being a Thrive Suite member, I received an email from Shane Melaugh with a link to a Google Survey. It was short, brief, and to the point. He was asking my opinion on what Thrive Themes could do next to help my business. Thrive Themes is not only obsessed with conversions, but they're focused on its customers.
Overall Rating: 4.8 / 5
Pros
Cons
Thrive Themes Review - Who is Shane Melaugh?
I've followed Shane since his days with Backlink Battleplan and SwissMadeMarketing, creators of SECockpit, with Sam Hänni. Together, they took the product from zero to the 7-figure revenue mark in 15 months.
About that same time, Shane also formed a partnership with Paul McCarthy. Together, they developed WordPress standalone plugins while Shane also developed online courses.
The partnership with Paul grew into what we know today as Thrive Themes. Their Thrive Suite is a collection of WordPress theme builder, plugins, and a whole lot of information and courses on how to grow a sustainable online business.
“In the online marketing space, everybody loves the quick win. The shortcut. The "growth hack."
The truth is, chasing those shortcuts is a well-trodden path to failure. Here, we focus on building real entrepreneurial skills.”
Shane Melaugh
As a college dropout, Shane considered himself as the least likely to succeed person. He didn't start as an entrepreneur but worked hard to get there. He made many mistakes along the way, but he always learned from his mistakes.
Shane doesn't try to forget his entrepreneur learning process. Instead, he embraces it and uses it as an example that anyone can develop the needed skills and succeed as well.
Shane has documented his learning experiences in what he calls his ActiveGrowth Manifesto. The three principles of which, in summary, are:
"We don't just sell products. We sell experiences."
- Thrive Themes
"For me, creating an online business isn't primarily about money. It's about freedom. You can easily become a slave to chasing the ever-larger paychecks. What's the point in escaping the corporate rat race, only to join the startup rat race?"
Shane Melaugh
What is Thrive Themes?
Armed with an understanding of the principles behind Thrive Themes, our review now turn toward what they offer.
Thrive Themes is teaching you how to build an online business. They are conversion-focused, meaning tools with a focus on turning prospects into customers. They have a great deal of information on using their tools toward this end goal.
The Thrive Themes blog is much more than a new product release update. They provide practical and detailed steps on how to succeed online.
"You can't be lazy and scatterbrained and build a company that's highly effective and focused."
Shane Melaugh
Professional and Personal Development Review: The Craft and the Brains
Thrive University Review
Our Thrive Themes review would not be complete without discussing the many training courses they offer. Thrive University is a collection of online courses built using their very own Thrive Apprentice WordPress plugin.
Many of the courses are free and open to the public. Some of them are exclusive to Thrive Theme members only.
Courses can include many lessons and can be in videos, pages for reading, or recorded webinars.
Premium courses cost additional money for even Thrive Theme members, although at a discount from retail.
The one premium course released so far was worth every extra penny, in my opinion. Its entitled Course Craft - Discover the exact, proven system to create, launch and sell high-quality, high-value online courses.
Free courses typically contain, on average, between 2 - 6 lessons in each class. The premium Course Craft includes 53 lessons. Shane over-delivered a large amount with all the details he provided in this course.
Example courses you can take for free include the following.
The RAPID Landing Page Building Course
Web Design Crash Course
The About Page Formula
How to Build an Information Product Empire You Own
Multi-Step Mastery: Build a Targeted Mailing List
SEO if You Don't Want to Learn SEO
WordPress Themes and Plugins Review: The Tech
Our Thrive Themes review next turns to their software products. WordPress Themes and Plugins are the reason most people purchase their Thrive Suite Membership. It's a great suite of products for the affiliate marketer.
The tool suite is indeed great, but without focus and direction on using them to succeed, your online business ends up being more of a hobby. Not the success you hoped it would be.
Thrive Suite Membership Review
A Thrive Suite Membership is the only way to access all of their WordPress themes and plugins.
Their membership provides:
Hopefully, with all of the highlighted Case Studies I've shown so far, it's clear that Thrive Themes stays informed on the current state of Internet Marketing.
Their toolset is at the forefront of WordPress internet marketing tools and will continue to be so in the future.
The membership ensures you will never get left behind again.
Existing plugins are regularly updated and improved. I've never had a plugin break or breach the security of any of my sites.
A couple of things to note about their two different membership plans:
Integration Support
Their list of supported integrations with all your other digital partners is long. All of these come with the Thrive Suite membership. There is no need to purchase additional levels or add-ons.
One of the best parts of their membership, though, is the pricing. The price you join with is the price you will continue to pay each year after that as long as you remain a member.
Inflation happens. Costs go up. But my membership price remains the same as it was four years ago.
The Thrive Suite membership keeps getting better, and their new features continue to grow.
All Thrive Themes products have a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee!
Note: This Thrive Themes review does not include any of their WordPress themes. Those are being replaced with Thrive Theme Builder.
Thrive Architect Review
A Thrive Themes Review would not be complete without a discussion about their page builder. Thrive Architect is a visual WordPress Page and Post builder ("What You See is What You Get," or WYSIWYG).
With the Thrive Architect editor, you don't need to be a web designer to create beautiful, professional-looking pages. You drag-in-drop the elements and add your content.
What Makes Thrive Architect Different Than the Rest?
Advanced Featured Thrive Architect Provides
The Content Lock-In Problem
A common problem with using visual WordPress editors these days is What Happens With Your Thrive Architect Content if You Delete the Plugin?
Or better yet, what happens if you stop paying for your Thrive Themes Membership?
Thrive Themes has addressed this issue entirely and built-in to Thrive Architect to handle it properly.
You can find the complete details at The Content Lock-In Problem: What Happens With Your Thrive Architect Content if You Delete the Plugin?
All Thrive Themes products have a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee!
Thrive Leads Review
Thrive Leads is a lead generation plugin for WordPress.
Furthermore, a team of experts who are obsessed with conversion optimization built Thrive Leads.
There Are 4 Big Benefits
The Complete Thrive Leads Feature Set
Integrates with most autoresponder or email marketing service (see complete list above).
All Thrive Themes products have a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee!
Thrive Quiz Builder Review
Website quizzes are not just for fun anymore. They are a valuable business-building tool.
Based on the answers to your quiz, you'll be able to make a specific and expert recommendation. It's a fun way to segment them based on their needs and desires.
The information gathered from a quiz can also be used to segment your visitors on your mailing list signup.
Thrive Quiz Builder allows you to build complicated quizzes with zero coding experience. It does this using three quiz templates:
Thrive Quiz Builder also provides plenty of aggregate statistics from visitors who have taken your quiz:
Quiz Builder Additionally Offers:
All Thrive Themes products have a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee!
Thrive Ultimatum Review
Thrive Ultimatum is the ultimate scarcity marketing tool for WordPress. It adds the "fear of missing out" to your marketing and will boost your conversion rates like nothing else.
Thrive Ultimatum allows you to create an evergreen campaign. It is a sales funnel with a time-limited offer for each prospect who enters it.
Each new prospect has its time limit and has their countdown and time limit. It works much like a regular product launch with a fixed end date; only it's prospect specific.
When the time runs out, the lockdown feature ensures that the countdown will always stay true. Even if the user switches devices, uses a different browser, or clears their cookies.
How Can You Use Thrive Ultimatum on Your Website?
There are many, many features included with Thrive Ultimatum, including design templates and fully mobile-friendly.
All Thrive Themes products have a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee!
Thrive Ovation Review
Thrive Ovation is an all-in-one testimonial management plugin for WordPress.
It does this in 3 simple steps:
Gather Testimonials Without Hassle - Get a library filled with ready-to-insert testimonials you can choose from when needed.
Time-Saving Testimonial Management - Save hours, always have the most relevant testimonials lined up.
Display Dazzling Testimonials - Always show the best testimonials wherever needed to boost conversions.
All Thrive Themes products have a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee!
Thrive Comments Review
Thrive Themes built this plugin with speed in mind. They use it on their website, where they can get over 600 comments per blog post. It has to work fast!
What do you get with Thrive Comments?
Engagement and Interaction
Conversion Focused Comments
Customization
All Thrive Themes products have a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee!
Thrive Optimize Review
What exactly is A/B testing, and what can it do for you?
Simple, create two versions of your landing page. Call one A, the other B.
Send the same amount of visitors to each page. During this time, you record which one converts more and use that one for all your traffic.
The big companies do this. They measure and measure again to get the maximum number of conversions.
In the past, your options for doing A/B testing were pretty limited:
Thrive Optimize decided to change this. It is now a simple A/B testing add-on for Thrive Architect.
It's easy to use with four simple steps:
All Thrive Themes products have a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee!
Clever Widgets
Clever Widgets is a simple plugin that adds many different display options to your existing default widgets.
These display options give you the ability to customize which widgets appear on which posts or pages.
Clever Widgets is most natural to explain using a couple of images.
Once the plugin is installed and activated, it adds an option to each of your default widgets:
Clicking on that link brings up many options you can use to configure when that particular widget should appear on your website. You can select:
All Thrive Themes products have a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee!
Thrive Apprentice Review
Thrive Themes provides you with everything needed to build professional online courses.
It's not complicated, and lesson pages are created with your familiar Thrive Architect editor.
What exactly can you do with Thrive Apprentice?
Note: Thrive Apprentice is NOT a membership plugin. It provides your course content only. However, Thrive Themes has integrated it to work seamlessly with SendOwl. And it can also be used with MemberPress, WishList Member, or Member Mouse to handle membership access technicalities.
All Thrive Themes products have a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee!