Thread: How 'painful' will it be to move from a free WP theme to a paid one over time

Hello all,

I want to start offer counseling services on weekends while working a full-time job in another domain for the time being.
I want to test the waters and build an 'experimental' website at minimal cost for the time being.
If I see things pick up, I would like to invest more on the website. Is it a bad idea to start with a free WP theme for now and later on move to a paid one if required?

Thank you

Just pick a high-quality free theme and you'll be fine.

Unless the theme offers some very exotic functionality and/or design, you will be fine when switching themes later on.
Your pages and posts will remain intact. And, depending on how much theme-specific layout customization is done, so will your general website layout (menus and all).

Either way, it's not too much of a problem when switching themes.

P.S.
I use and recommend GeneratePress and OceanWP, but those are far from the only high-quality WordPress themes.

Up front, I should say that I have a bit of a Swiss mentality: Function matters more than Form, to me. Which translates into: I'm pretty easy to please when it comes to Themes.

Given that disclaimer, by far the safest bet, to avoid future grief, is to stick with the standard WordPress themes that are created and supported by WordPress themselves. As well as the "year themes", Twenty Twenty-Two being the current one, there are a few others, like Storefront, which is also supported by WordPress parent Automattic.

By far, the biggest risk with Themes in general is that the creator, who is usually the support person for it forever, stops keeping the Theme up to date so that it still works with the latest version of WordPress.

Years ago, I did a WordPress Conference seminar on "Future Proofing" your WordPress site, from the point of view of what plugins, themes and custom code you chose when building a WordPress site.

Free themes usually aren't worse in terms of quality, just have less features.
Also, many themes offer a free version and when you upgrade you unlock many paid features.
If this is a concern finding a theme like that might be a good idea.