Welcome to my in-depth Thrive Themes review for 2024. In this review, I’ll be providing a comprehensive look at their core offering – Thrive Suite. Thrive Suite is a collection of WordPress themes and plugins designed to help you build high-converting websites that grow your online business.
We’ll take an in-depth look at what each Thrive Suite product offers, alternatives in the market, detailed features and functionality, real user reviews, technical considerations, and ultimately help you determine if Thrive Suite is the right choice of products for your needs.
Let‘s get started!
What is Thrive Suite? A Look at Thrive Themes
Thrive Themes is a company that has specialized in building WordPress products focused specifically on boosting conversions for over 10 years.
Their flagship offering is Thrive Suite – a bundle of their core products that work together to help website owners quickly build high converting websites without needing to know code.
Here is a run-down of the main products included in Thrive Suite:
- Thrive Theme Builder (includes Thrive Architect visual editor)
- Thrive Leads (lead generation plugin)
- Thrive Quiz Builder
- Thrive Ultimatum (scarcity & countdown campaigns)
- Thrive Apprentice (LMS plugin)
- Thrive Ovation (testimonials plugin)
- Thrive Automator (workflow & marketing automation)
This collection of products provides website owners a fairly complete set of tools to build, design and market their online business directly on their own WordPress site.
Thrive Theme Builder Walkthrough
One of the core products in Thrive Suite is Thrive Theme Builder. This is an advanced WordPress theme that gives you the flexibility to customize your website design however you want it using a visual drag & drop builder.
Thrive Theme Builder comes packed with 150+ pre-made conversion-focused templates out of the box to help you get started quickly. Whether you need landing pages, sales pages, opt-in forms, etc. – template options are available.
But you‘re not limited to just using the ready-made templates. You can use the Thrive Architect visual editor to further customize any template, or build your own custom page designs from scratch.
Adding content elements is easy using the block-based editor. Simply drag & drop sections, rows, text, images, buttons or any other elements onto your page via the intuitive interface:
Some key things that make Thrive Theme Builder stand out:
- Speed optimization – Comes with integrated support for caching plugins like WP Rocket to load pages faster.
- Customization – The Thrive Architect editor provides endless customization capabilities for advanced users.
- Conversion focus – All features & templates designed specifically to boost conversions.
Let‘s take a look at how Thrive Theme Builder stacks up to some alternatives…
Thrive Theme Builder vs Elegant Themes
The Elegant Themes subscription provides access to dozens of WordPress themes across various niches. However, the themes are more design-focused rather than conversion rate optimization focused.
When comparing Thrive Theme Builder to Elegant Themes packages like Divi and Extra, the customization options, conversion elements and advanced features (like built-in support for optimization) provide more robust functionality.
Thrive Theme Builder vs Beaver Builder
Beaver Builder is a popular WordPress page builder plugin. The editing interface is quite intuitive but tends to cater more towards a developer audience.
It lacks some of the conversion-focused templates and onboarding wizard available in Thrive Theme Builder which is designed specifically for business owners rather than only developers.
Overall, Thrive Theme Builder competes as one of the top options when it comes to customizable WordPress themes focused on building high converting websites.
Thrive Leads Walkthrough
Thrive Leads is the lead generation plugin included with Thrive Suite.
It makes it really easy for anyone to create attractive opt-in forms, sign up boxes, email subscription popups and embed them across your WordPress site – without needing to know code.
Choose from an extensive library of ready-made form template styles. Or easily customize one to match your own brand style using the drag & drop editor:
Display your forms as popups, notification bars, embeds in posts, slide-ins, and more. Thrive Leads is one of the most versatile lead generation plugins for WordPress when it comes to types of forms available.
Some key features that make Thrive Leads a great conversion tool:
- Easy integration with all major email marketing platforms
- Real-time behavior tracking and analytics
- A/B testing form designs
- Countdown timers & scarcity triggers
Let‘s compare Thrive Leads to some competing options:
Thrive Leads vs OptimizePress
OptimizePress is an all-in-one WordPress landing page builder with its own forms builder. Though the popups and slide-in forms are quite basic and lack some of the compelling designs available in Thrive Leads library.
Thrive Leads vs ConvertKit Forms
ConvertKit Forms, as you may have guessed, tightly integrates with ConvertKit email marketing platform. The customization is decent but Thrive Leads provides significantly more template choice, animations and integrations across email platforms.
Thrive Leads vs MailChimp
Comparing Thrive Leads to MailChimp forms – the Lead Generation toolkit wins hands down. More customization, more choices and works with all major email platforms – not just MailChimp.
Thrive Leads is certainly one of the top options when it comes to lead generation and list building plugins for WordPress.
Thrive Quiz Builder
Quizzes and assessments represent an excellent opportunity to engage visitors, collect leads and build your email lists. Hence the Thrive Quiz Builder plugin.
This nifty plugin allows you to quickly create all sorts of viral-style quizzes, trivia games, assessments and calculators using a user-friendly drag & drop builder.
Just choose from ready-made quiz templates, customize the design, add your questions and publish.
Thrive Quiz Builder comes packed with plenty of options when publishing your quizzes:
- Embed quizzes into posts & pages
- Social sharing capabilities
- Lock content behind quiz gate
- Collect user emails & data
Let‘s see how it fares against the competition:
Thrive Quiz Builder vs Quiz Maker Plugin
Comparing with top quiz plugin Quiz Maker – Thrive Quiz Builder wins in the conversion-focused opt-in forms and overall template design options for creating more high quality, professional quizzes faster.
Thrive Quiz Builder vs WordPress Quizzes by HubSpot
The HubSpot Quiz plugin provides a free quiz builder but lacks compelling templates, custom reporting and integration with email marketing platforms which Thrive Quiz builder is designed specifically for conversion optimization.
Other Thrive Suite Products
To quickly run through the rest of the tools included in Thrive Suite:
Thrive Ultimatum
Run scarcity campaigns, timed offers and evergreen countdown promotions across your website. Great for limited-time discounts or urgency triggers.
Thrive Apprentice
A learning management system for selling online courses directly on your WordPress site. Includes support for multi-tier pricing, drip content, user portals and integrates with payment solutions.
Thrive Ovation
Makes it easy to display social proof and convert visitors into happy customer stories. Collect testimonials, display on your website and leverage them in marketing.
Thrive Automator
Connect your plugins, email platform, affiliate system and more. For example, add tags when someone joins a course or trigger sequences when visitors click opt-ins without needing code.
As you can see, the range of conversion optimization tools included in Thrive Suite is quite expansive.
Next, let‘s walk through my pros and cons from using Thrive Themes products over the years building WordPress sites.
Thrive Suite Pros
Here are the main advantages I’ve experienced using Thrive Suite products over the years:
- All-in-one conversion suite – Has all the tools needed from lead generation to sales funnels for WordPress.
- Regular updates – Thrive has a strong track record of maintaining & improving their plugins.
- Mobile responsive – Most page builder plugins still lack proper mobile experience but Thrive Architect has you covered.
- Visual customization – The drag & drop editor provides endless options for customization in Thrive Theme Builder.
For anyone looking to build a business-focused WordPress site, you‘ll be hard-pressed to find a more complete conversion package than what Thrive Suite provides out of the box.
Thrive Suite Cons
However, there are some downsides to be aware of with Thrive Suite too:
- Steep learning curve – With great customization power comes complexity. Expect a learning curve using Thrive Architect builder.
- No lifetime deal – You need an active subscription, unlike a one-time theme purchase.
- Bloat concerns – Too many plugins can slow down site so be selective in what you activate.
While that seems quite an extensive list of downsides, here is my take as an advanced WordPress user:
The learning curve is well worth it for the power, customization and results Thrive Suite delivers. Just set aside sufficient time for learning.
Secondly, the subscription is justifiable given that Thrive Suite basically replaces needing dozens of other plugins. And updates are guaranteed, unlike one-time theme purchases.
As for bloat, that comes down to being selective regarding which Thrive plugins you activate rather than using everything at once.
Alternatively, Thrive Suite products can all be purchased standalone now as well. So you could simply get Thrive Architect with Thrive Leads for lead generation needs for example.
Thrive Suite Review Verdict
So, what‘s the final call? Is Thrive Suite worth investing in?
For solo entrepreneurs, small agencies and local business owners focused on conversion rate optimization – Thrive Suite delivers tremendous value.
You get access to a complete set of beautifully designed WordPress tools to quickly build high converting sales funnels, landing pages, lead forms, calls-to-action to grow your online business or client websites.
While services like Leadpages and ClickFunnels work for high-traffic info products, they lack the marketing automation and native WordPress integration available in Thrive Suite.
For advanced WordPress users, the suite does involve a learning curve. But delivers customization power beyond any other content creation platform once mastered.
However, local businesses such as restaurants or brick-and-mortar stores may find Thrive Suite overkill – with simpler WordPress themes likely suiting their needs better.
For anyone running an online business based on consultations, information products, courses, memberships or promotions however – I highly recommend giving Thrive Suite a try with their 30-day money back guarantee.
Disclosure: This Thrive Suite review is an independent, unbiased assessment based on 7+ years using Thrive products across client projects and personal sites. If you purchase Thrive Suite through links on this page, I may receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you.
