14 DAY TRIAL // Automattic, the company behind the hugely popular WordPress blogging platform and the WordPress.com blog host, is actually quite small and its revenues are dwarfed by its importance for the web at large. But it's making strides trying to drive up revenue, the latest being the introduction of premium, paid themes on WordPress.com.
There are only a couple of themes for now, with a one-time fee, but Automattic plans to launch a lot more this year.
"We’ve been thrilled to watch a thriving marketplace of commercial themes drive innovation and quality in theme design while producing an amazing variety of theme choices for self-hosted WordPress sites," Automattic's Lance Willett wrote.
"Now we want to bring the same level of theme choices to the WordPress.com community — it’s time to give you a chance at not only more themes, but a chance to showcase your site with beautiful designs that will blow you away with their style and quality," he announced.
WordPress.com users can already install two premium themes, Headlines and Shelf. The first is a magazine-type theme, it's fairly standard but looks to be rather complete and should be everything that a WordPress.com blogger seeking a more professional look needs.
It comes with 15 color schemes and is priced at $45. You can check it out in the Theme Showcase and buy it from the Appearance > Themes section of the Dashboard.
Shelf is a really snazzy looking theme with an unique design and a horizontal layout. It also supports post formats, giving individual post types a different look. It sells for $68.
Automattic says that this is only the beginning and that a lot more premium themes should be coming soon. But free themes are not taking a back seat, the company said that you can expect more of those as well.
