Thrive Themes Review : My Favorite Suite Of Plugins For 2019

​Thrive Themes is a set of powerful WordPress Themes and Plugins created by Shane Melaugh (the creator of SE Cockpit, Hybrid Connect, and the blogger behind ActiveGrowth).

These are the current list of Plugins included when you purchase a Thrive Themes membership: (save more than $700 by using this affiliate link and when you get the annual plan (recommended).

​I've been using it for more than 2 years and I've used it for this website as well as my other niche sites.

I've also ranked websites created with Thrive Themes to the top of the search results (yes, sites built on Thrive Themes get free traffic from Google and other search engines).

But rather than repeating the information that's already available on the official website, I'll share my personal favorites and frustrations when using Thrive Themes.

Disclosure: This website is using most of the Thrive Themes plugins available. You'll discover my top Thrive plugin favorites (and why) as well as those that I avoid using or didn't have time to use.

Here's a screenshot of what it looks inside the membership area of Thrive Themes​. Once logged in, you can get immediate access to your Plugins and Themes.

Download them and install them like any WordPress Theme and Plugin. (Don't know how? watch this)

Just in case you didn't know it yet, Thrive Architect used to be Thrive Content Builder. Actually, it had the same purpose, but Thrive Architect was completely re-coded (read my full review) and very much differ from how you use Thrive Content builder.

So if you're using Thrive Content Builder before and have planned to migrate to Thrive Architect, you might encounter some incompatibility issues. It's best to contact us to help with you the migration process just to be sure your elements and design transfers properly.

That's a very good question. The reason you want to use a visual editor is to help you design better and more engaging content. If your content appeals to your readers because of design and it's aesthetic beauty then you'll have higher conversions as more people would stay longer and engage on your website.

You maybe wondering, why not design your WordPress posts and pages with Photoshop or HTML? You can, but that would definitely take longer.

Thrive Architect allows you to quickly design your posts and pages without the need for third party design and graphic tools like Adobe Photoshop. And there's no coding too* as Thrive Architect is a FULL Drag-and-Drop plugin! 

*You can still write code like HTML but that's entirely optional, but it's available if you want to use it.

If you're building your email list of subscribers who said "YES" to receive your marketing materials then you're ahead of the game. Most website owners are not even doing email marketing. 

Research shows that email marketing is still ONE, if not the channel that brings the highest ROI when it comes to online marketing efforts and campaigns.

And while there are many ways to capture and get more email subscribers, I don't know of any other tool like Thrive Leads that matches it's capabilities, features, and function at the price point it provides.

If you're subscribed to the monthly or annual membership of Thrive Themes, you'll even get Thrive Leads for FREE!

Here's a FUN FACT about me. At first, I've hesitated to purchase Thrive Themes because most of the plugins back then are already duplicate functions of what I already have (from Free and Paid Plugins).

But when I saw the video about Thrive Leads, I didn't hesitate and purchased it immediately.

I got a really great deal for it but after a few months, I saw the additional improvements and plugins in Thrive Themes, that I've now purchased the entire suite: Thrive Themes. (screenshot here).

​Thrive Leads has very advanced targeting and design capabilities. 

The challenge is NOT being able to find what you need. The challenge is being able to DECIDE on what to use. Resist the temptation of using everything, because TOO much "popups" will ANNOY your readers.

Here's what I used for my own websites (you should try them too).

1. Popup Lightbox - Some people don't like this because it annoys some readers. But this is also one of the best ways to grab the attention of your website visitors.

PRO Tip - Use popups with EXIT INTENT (when they are thinking of leaving your page) as you can recapture people before they leave your site for good.

2. Two-Step Optin Form - On Clickfunnels, it's called Click Pop, on Leadpages, it's called a Lead box, but the idea and strategy is the same. Click and then another Popup shows. I believe there are some research that shows that these are converting much better than regular optin forms because of the principle of "micro commitments" which says that people are more willing to take positive action if the commitments are smaller (clicking on a YES button instead of an OPTIN form).

PRO Tip - Use these on your sidebar, buttons, and images as well.

There are more ways to grow your email subscribers with Thrive Leads. And it's best that you check out the entire list of features inside Thrive Leads. Click here to check out Thrive Leads. 

​PRO Tip - With the addition of Thrive Architect as the built-in editor of Thrive Leads, you can now optimize your Optin forms in different devices: Desktop, Tablet or Mobile.

This is important because if you want higher conversions, your Optin forms should look great on ANY device.

​This is the latest plugin from Thrive Themes. I have just installed it on this blog, so I don't have results to share yet. If you'd like to look at all the features of Thrive Comments click here. 

The feature that I'm really excited about this plugin is the ability to upvote comments (like Facebook and Reddit) because that can increase conversions. 

​In 1995, Jeff Bezos (from Amazon) change the way the world perceived reviews when they've made customer reviews and testimonials available publicly. They weren't received favorably in the industry at first, but look at us now... 

Consumers are looking at Testimonials and Reviews before they make a purchase.

Before Thrive Ovation, it's really hard to collect and display customer testimonials in your WordPress blogs. But that is NOW going to change because of this plugin.

I use Thrive Ovation to capture and collect feedback and testimonial. I also use Thrive Ovation to display these reviews in my sales pages.

​Urgency and Scarcity are great ways to increase conversions on your website because of the principle of Loss-Aversion. We humans are more likely to take action if we know that we'll lose something important if we don't take action. 

​If you want to implement this principle on your landing pages and website, then you'll be able to do that with the Thrive Ultimatum plugin.

The major difference of Thrive Ultimatum over other countdown timers is that it can create standard and evergreen countdown timers.It also has powerful expiring links and bulletproof tracking to prevent people from gaming your "scarcity offers".

That means that you can run visitor specific countdown timers and it will be different per person. It's a great way to automate the sales of your products and services.

​Thrive Headline is a plugin that you can use to split-test headlines. The idea here is that you could increase your clicks through increasing the CTR (click through rates) of your articles through split-testing headline ideas. 

This is one of the plugins that I have really used extensively on my own website. Again, it's simply because I didn't have enough time to try all of the features inside the suite of Thrive Themes plugins.

​This plugin is only relevant for those people who are going to implement sidebars on their website. From now on (2018), I'm going to implement a full width blog on my sites, starting with TRAFFICSALAD.

​I love sidebars, but I've also noticed that my traffic from mobile devices have increased significantly in the previous months.

So sidebars would not even be noticeable. I'd rather format my site as a mobile-first design as Google has decided to do a mobile-first indexing as it responds to consumer behavior changes.

But just in case you're still using Side bars and you have different topics or categories you should be using Thrive Clever Widgets. Here's how it would look like.

PRO TIP: For those who are using Full-width designs on their website, you can still use Thrive Clever Widgets on your Footer widgets. Some ideas would be to have different widgets based on the awareness level of your customer (are they browsing, hunting or buying).

​Ever wanted to create your own membership site and sell online courses? With Thrive Apprentice you can do that. It is Thrive Themes' built-in membership and course plugin.

I liked it, but I didn't fully implement it on my websites because I already have a membership plugin that I'm using. It does look promising because it contains various features that can help with motivating your customers to finish your courses. 

I'll be doing a thorough and detailed comparison of different membership plugins like AccessAlly so make sure you're subscribed to my newsletter to get my updates on this.

And the next plugin is Thrive Quiz Builder.

I'm really excited for this plugin, and unfortunately I wasn't able to create a lot of these quizzes. This is a great way to engage your readers with your content and brand.

It's also a great way to start segmenting your readers based on the topics they are interested in.

And the last plugin (for now at least) is Thrive Optimize.

If you've been wondering how you can split-test and analyze traffic to your landing pages just like those built with Clickfunnels and Leadpages, you can now do that (sort of) with Thrive Optimize.

IMPORTANT: As of this moment, you can only use Thrive Optimize on WordPress Pages and not on your regular blog posts. 

Let's take a quick look inside Thrive Optimize:

I'm personally NOT using the themes from THRIVE THEMES on this website. I prefer to use the Elementor PRO, the Studiopress Framework or the DIVI Theme from Elegant Themes. For this website: TrafficSalad, I'm using Elementor PRO as the Single Post/Page Templates.

But I'm using the Thrive Architect Plugin to format ALL my posts, pages and landing pages.

It's a powerful combo because you get the benefit of both worlds. The Powerful Capabilities of Elementor PRO and the Visual Editing (WYSIWYG) capabilities of Thrive Architect.

If you decide to go with Thrive Themes, check out the Focus Theme which is a popular theme for bloggers and niche site builders. 

​When you compare these two tools, you're not really comparing apples to apples. Thrive Themes is less powerful and it's a plugin/theme for WordPress which means it will only work with WordPress sites.

Clickfunnels is self-hosted and will work on ANY domain that you have "server control". You can use Clickfunnels together with Shopify, WordPress, Magento, etc.

If you don't have a domain, you can still use and launch your sales funnels.  It will just be under a Clickfunnels subdomain (name.clickfunnels.com).

Clickfunnels is the PREMIER sales funnels creation machine. It crushes the features of Thrive Themes.

​I would recommend using Clickfunnels if you have the monthly budget for it (starts at $97-$297/month), but if you don't have that budget then Thrive Themes is a really great alternative.

​Similar to Clickfunnels, Leadpages is a landing page platform that is self-hosted. Which means that you don't need WordPress to build your landing pages with Leadpages.

Leadpages is much cheaper than Clickfunnels, but Leadpages has less features than Thrive Themes as well. The only reason I'll use Leadpages over Thrive Themes is if I want a NEW funnel or landing page quickly tested.

Creating landing pages with Leadpages is really quick and easy. But the downside of that is it's limited in design functionality (not enough spacing and padding options).

For my main website, posts and pages, I didn't hesitate to use my StudioPress and Thrive Architect combo settings.

​Divi 3.0 is a serious contender for Thrive Themes and Thrive Architect. For now it has the capability to include a VIDEO background on specific sections of your website. 

But aside from that, I've noticed that Thrive Architect has most of the features available in Divi 3.0 and more. Thrive Themes also has more plugins and functionality built-in the suite.

Divi 3.0 is a great alternative to Thrive Architect and you may check it out here.

​Optimize Press has started the craze on easy to use landing page builders with WordPress. With Optimize Press 2.0 launched last 2012-2013, it was the best in it's heyday. 

But that time has passed. Now, I seldom use Optimize Press 2.0 because Thrive Themes is way much easier to use.

The major benefit of using Optimize Press though is if you're in a really tight budget. For $97/year you can have your personal license of Optimize Press for up to 3 websites that you personally own.

​Because Thrive Themes is an online purchase you can immediately get it and start installing it on your websites. Just click on the links or button in this article and it will redirect you to the official Thrive Themes website.

Affiliate Disclosure: I'm an affiliate of Thrive Themes which means that if you liked this article and decided to purchase Thrive Themes using my affiliate links, I'll earn a small affiliate commission which will help me continue creating great content for readers like you. Thank you for your support.

​When you purchase Thrive Themes via my affiliate links, I'll also throw in these extra bonuses for more value for your purchase. Check out my bonuses in the next section.

If you grab Thrive Themes via my affiliate links, you'll get these bonuses (sign up below for access).

1.  Free Thrive Themes Templates You Can Use
2. 45 Point Landing Page Checklist PDF
3. Split Testing Guide PDF
4. Traffic Generation Guide PDF 
5. Lead magnet Guide PDF

Getting these bonuses is simple! Just grab Thrive Themes via this link. Purchase it and send me an email!

The first bonus that I'll send you several Thrive Themes templates. Use these templates to help you get started with your designs and landing pages.

The second bonus that I'll send you are my personal traffic generation guide, split-testing guide and landing page guide which will help you get more conversions.

Getting these bonuses is easy.

Just purchase Thrive Themes (or any of the Thrive Themes plugins separately). Create a support ticket asking for your Thrive Themes bonuses and include your transaction or receipt number in your email.

​Wait for 24-48 hours for me to send you the bonuses. That's it!

Thanks for reading!