WPZOOM Review: Functional Themes for Sites That Get Things Done

When it comes to themes, there are plenty of fish in the sea.

You can spot thousands swimming around in the internet’s many theme shops.

But you only want to zoom in on the right ones.

You don’t want to be casting a huge net and looking at lots of lower-quality themes.

So when you’re looking for the perfect theme—and particularly a high-quality, premium theme—where should you start?

Allow me to point you in the right direction.

When a theme store has been around for a long time in the digital era, having picked up a good number of reputable, big-name customers along the way, you can pretty much guarantee that their products are going to be worth paying for.

Enter WPZOOM—a perfect example of what I’m talking about.

This popular theme shop is run by developers who know what they’re doing and who’ve kept getting better at the theme shop game since launching.

They’ve built a diverse product range that caters to every kind of business and solo blogger, and they continue to keep improving on their existing designs.

It’s quite refreshing to see, actually—they really do appear to be dedicated to simply helping people and businesses find success through strong, well-built and practical themes (that also happen to look pretty darn good).

WPZOOM has a lot to offer as a WordPress theme store, starting with a solidly-built, exclusive framework that everything else is built upon right up to an industry-leading reputation and attentive customer support. If you’re looking for a reliable place to start your search for a good website theme, I would highly recommend WPZOOM.

Read on for all the details!

The WPZOOM Story

WPZOOM was launched in 2009 by Pavel Ciorici and Dumitru Brinzan, a pair of developers in Moldova with a passion for WordPress and creating complementary products for it that balance form and function. The pair has since grown to a small but dependable team of six, spread out over three countries and specializing in various areas of development, design, marketing and customer support.

Since their launch, the WPZOOM team has built approximately 100 themes which are used by hundreds of thousands of customers in more than 115 countries around the world. The quality of their customers is pretty impressive too, with reputable organizations like UNICEF, Groupon, Bloomberg, Barnes & Noble and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology all choosing to use WPZOOM themes for their websites.

I always find it comforting to know that such well-known companies trust a particular theme or theme shop—in this case, WPZOOM at large—because their success depends on having a reliable, usable and appealing website.

And it’s not just the big names that like WPZOOM, either. Having found consistently good customer reviews and a strong reputation in the WordPress universe, I can safely say that you’ll be in safe hands with this theme shop.

Where WPZOOM Stands Out

There are many things to like about WPZOOM, but a few features in particular work to give your website the edge you need.

ZOOM framework

The first thing that deserves a mention is their very own ZOOM framework, the powerful foundation upon which they build all their themes.

This framework is robust and feature-rich, yet it still manages to run seamlessly in the background of every WPZOOM theme without you having to install it or update it separately (yep, it updates automatically, too!).

The ZOOM framework gives you access to a wide range of customization options without the need to touch any code, which is great for site owners who don’t have development experience or technical knowledge—or who just want that taken care of for them.

You can configure and customize all the finer details of your website including color scheme, fonts, backgrounds, layouts, sliders, banners, sidebars, social media icons and more.

Backup

The ZOOM framework allows you to back up your theme settings, which is a handy little feature that could save you a whole lot of time one day.

Shortcodes

WPZOOM themes come with a variety of shortcodes included, so you’ll be able to do even further customization without the need for complex code.

These shortcodes let you build tabs, columns, lists, buttons—even slideshows!—all in the name of providing your users with a more dynamic and customized experience on your site.

Updates and support

On top of automatic framework updates, WPZOOM also provides regular theme updates to make sure your website is always compatible with the latest version of WordPress—as well as feature updates to give you plenty of new things to play around with and keep your site fresh.

Their support is top-notch too, especially given that they’re such a small team. Being based around the world, they’re available across various time zones, which is a nice plus. They’re happy to help you modify your theme and troubleshoot any problems—even non-theme-related problems—that are affecting your site’s functionality.

You should be aware, however, that updates and support are only accessible to you while you’re paying for a membership subscription. Of course, this is typical of any premium theme.

Plugins and widgets

On top of their themes, WPZOOM also has a range of free plugins and widgets available to complement any one of them.

You’ve got general social media icons, Twitter and Instagram widgets to display your latest tweets and posts on your website, and a customizer reset plugin which will reset all your theme customization settings when you want a blank slate to start again.

Demo content install

This is a nifty little feature for the extremely time-poor, or for anyone who just really loves a particular theme demo that they tested out.

Choose the theme with the demo you love, and you can replicate that demo for your own website.

WPZOOM allows you to apply the structure and look of any of their demo themes to your own site with a one-click demo content install, found in the theme options panel.

Using this will import the dummy content, widgets and anything else from the demo straight to your theme, so you can get started in seconds—literally. All you need to do is replace the content with your own.

Product range

The actual product range is also worth a mention, with a diverse collection of more than 38 themes and complementary plugins to suit any number of websites, including some very specific industries and niches.

The themes are all well built, reliable and visually appealing, and each one has plenty of ways for you to truly make it yours.

Premium focus

WPZOOM is predominantly a premium WordPress theme store, and they currently only offer two free theme options.

Pricing on the premium themes is reasonable, and there’s even an All Themes Package which we’ll get to in depth later.

If your website is at the stage where you need the extra functionality and support that a premium theme offers, you should definitely check out what this theme store has to offer.

The Highlight Reel of WPZOOM Themes

Now, for a snapshot of the huge WPZOOM theme range.

These are just some of the most popular themes from the collection, so feel free to click through the entire selection at your leisure.

Academica Pro 3.0

This one’s ideal for education, corporate and non-profit sites, as well as for any other industry that can benefit from a highly-organized layout and smooth events integration.

Academica Pro 3.0 is a huge step up from the previous 2.0 version. It comes with multiple homepage templates, both a two-column and three-column layout, and you can even adjust each layout on a page-by-page basis depending on what you need.

You get three menus in the header (which you can use any number of all at once), a built-in events calendar plugin, three customizable widget areas below the slideshow and WooCommerce support so you can set up a full online store.

Get Academica Pro 3.0 from WPZOOM

Balance

Balance is a beautiful business and e-commerce theme, designed to put the focus on your products.

With a clean product grid and the clever use of white space, it manages to draw attention to your products while still remaining understated and minimalist.

The drag-and-drop page builder makes creating and customizing pages a breeze, and there’s even a handful of pre-built templates for the homepage, about page and contact page that you can import to your own site if there’s one you really like the look of.

Balance is powerful enough to handle any size of inventory and can be tailored to suit both start-up and established businesses.

Get Balance from WPZOOM

Presence

Now this one’s a flexible one. Presence is probably WPZOOM’s most flexible theme, coming pre-built with ten different demos to use together with two separate layout options. These demos cover a range of website types including music, real estate, hotel, agency, fitness, magazine and more.

That doesn’t mean you can’t create a website from scratch with this theme—Presence also lets you work from a blank slate and customize a variety of elements like the background, menu, widgets, colors, fonts and logo.

Not to mention, there are a few cool little extra features like infinite scrolling and custom widgets that really make all the difference.

Get Presence from WPZOOM

VideoBox

VideoBox is an impressive theme that’s all about performance—particularly when it comes to showcasing high-quality images and videos in an immersive way.

Video creators, you can rest assured knowing that this theme was designed to put your videos in the spotlight.

The homepage features multiple widget areas and a popular videos tab so you can make an impact the second users land on your site.

The theme has full support for embeds from YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook Video, Instagram Video and many other popular video sites, and most of your embedded videos will even automatically generate a thumbnail to save you the time and effort of finding and uploading your own.

Get VideoBox from WPZOOM

Delicio

While Delicio was designed with restaurants and cafes in mind, the theme can be tweaked to work for just about any type of business website.

What makes it work so well, specifically for the hospitality industry, is the included menu page that you can easily modify as needed with the smooth, drag-and-drop functionality.

There’s also a great restaurant reservations plugin that comes supported, for simple bookings through your website.

On the whole, Delicio offers a heap of great features versatile enough to enhance any site like a live customizer, sliding sidebar panel and e-commerce support. Plus, I’m always a fan of a sticky menu!

Get Delicio from WPZOOM

Foodica

In keeping with the food theme, Foodica is a great option for food and recipe-based blogs, magazines and websites.

The theme is big on full-screen, high-quality imagery that’s just perfect for food photography (and the Instagram scroller in the footer helps a lot with that too).

There’s a great recipe index and a bunch of custom recipe shortcodes for ingredients and directions so you can show them off.

The six available color schemes are well thought out too, blending subtle, appealing colors that are known to stimulate the appetite—but if none of them appeal to you, you can use the live customizer to create your own.

Get Foodica from WPZOOM

Inspiro

Inspiro is a bold and modern theme with a focus on professional photo and video.

It’s great for putting your portfolio on display, offering a host of features to bring out your best work including a full-screen slideshow with support for YouTube and self-hosted videos, a gorgeous gallery module and exclusive Portfolio Scroller and Portfolio Showcase widgets to create beautiful, image-centered homepage layouts.

I also really love the hero banner, which you can create using the included Single Page widget. A captivating and engaging addition to your homepage, the hero banner lets you display a beautiful featured image to win over more visitors.

Get Inspiro from WPZOOM

Venture 2.0

Venture 2.0 is another beautiful option for a professional or business site, offering flexible and versatile layouts that don’t tie it to any particular industry or niche.

There’s a smooth, built-in portfolio that you can use to highlight any sort of product or service and a dynamic, widgetized homepage so you can customize the entire look and feel of the site.

The sub-pages widget is another great feature that lets you create and display practically anything you require, from a business directory to a list of team members. With the level of customization you get with Venture 2.0, you could quite easily build whatever type of website you need.

Get Venture 2.0 from WPZOOM

Domino Magazine

If you didn’t guess from the name, Domino Magazine is a theme built for magazines. Yup.

Its clean, spacious layout makes it perfect for displaying posts in a way that’s pleasing to the eye and doesn’t look cluttered or crowded.

I also really like the built-in breaking news ticker, which lets you highlight breaking news across the top of your site with a sense of urgency that will entice more clicks.

There’s also a number of other features that make it stand out as a magazine or news theme, like the weather widget which lets you display the current weather of any location—great for news sites—and the beautiful typography that perfectly balances readability and white space.

Get Domino Magazine from WPZOOM

Insight

Insight is another beautiful magazine and blog theme that uses minimalist, distraction-free designs to put the focus purely on your posts or portfolio.

The homepage is designed with widgets, making it incredibly easy for you to move items around the way you want, and the featured image widget is a stunning full-screen display of the content you want to highlight.

I like the color schemes. They’re very simple and earthy with subtle highlights that draw the eye down the page. There are three of these pre-defined color schemes included with Insight, but you also always have the option of creating your own.

Get Insight from WPZOOM

Meeta

One of WPZOOM’s only two free themes (along with Academica), Meeta is an excellent alternative for a simple blogging website if you don’t want to (or aren’t at the stage where you can) pay for a premium theme.

It offers a range of great, premium-quality features including exclusive custom widgets, custom headers and a unique archive template for listing your posts.

Meeta is a versatile and capable free theme option that would be a great place to start for emerging bloggers and brands.

Get Meeta from WPZOOM

Pricing

The majority of WPZOOM themes are premium themes, requiring either a one-off purchase or an ongoing membership subscription to purchase.

Prices range from $59 to $69 for a single theme, with one year of support and updates automatically included. The other option is to subscribe to an All Themes Package, which for an annual fee gives you access to all 38+ themes plus any future themes from WPZOOM as they’re released, regular updates and support.

There’s a basic package and a pro package designed for developers, priced at $99 per year and $149 per year respectively, and then at 50% off for every year you renew.

Every theme comes with a 14-day money back guarantee which I always appreciate—it’s nice to have the peace of mind knowing that you can try out the theme for a while and if it doesn’t work for you, you’re not stuck with it.

Final Thoughts of WPZOOM Themes

I was very impressed with WPZOOM. For a premium WordPress theme store, they offer great value for money, a huge range of products to choose from and plenty of customization options made possible with a strong and powerful framework.

No matter which WPZOOM theme you decide to go with, it’s exceptionally easy for you to create a stunning website that will stand out.