I built my site in 2021 with Thrive themes. Its become a nightmare in the last year, with FATAL ERRORS and plugin in updates. Im so sick of it I feel like screaming with the nonstop issues. I would not recommend building a site with thrive themes now. Every month now Im having to send a ticket to support to fix something. Performance issues are awful, mobile is a nightmare.
Hmm... that's unfortunate. While I have my issues with Thrive now, I can't say I ever saw a quality problem with their stuff causing fatal errors or breaking anything.
I'm also here after two critical errors in two weeks. Considering changing over to something else. It is frustrating when you spend hours updating after 1 critical error then a week later it happens again.
11:56 - "It's bullcrap" - David, I've followed you on your email list and social media since the early days on the Interwebs and THIS right here is why I love your content. Maybe BS can score a quick win in the very short run, but it's honesty like this that builds loyalty in the long run.
They say on the site they will keep those who started with them at the same level. I just got a PayPal notice my annual subscription was cancelled. I sent a support ticket. We will see what happens.
Thanks David as usual for your honest, no-BS take on this. Could you at some point update what your tech stack is nowadays since switching to Kadence theme and away from page builders? Thanks!
what about making courses, and quizzes, what can I replace what the whole Thrive Theme system has to offer? I have been using TT for years, I have always felt that I am over-paying and my site is slower on top of that. And what happens to the URL structure if I go from TT? The new company raised the price and I´m not happy about that, so if I can find something that is better I´m gone especially since I paid with another PayPal address they are asking $599 which will be charged next year and that date is coming in few months so I don´t feel good about this.
Oh wow, they're actually now charging $599? I thought that was just a fake price so they could make it seem like a discount. $599 would indeed be a pretty steep ask. Courses? Learndash or TutorLMS. Quizzes? Depending on your need, you could use a forms plugin like Fluent Forms. URL structure? Shouldn't change. But, even if something did, just use redirects. BTW, unless they changed something else I don't know about, your Thrive software will still work if you let your subscription lapse. It will bug you about an expired license, but it will still function since you're the one hosting it. That gives you time to figure out your next move.
Wow, you're right. $599 is the real price now after the first year. Yet another damn tactic from these people where they make that fact kind of hard to see on the pricing page. Look as good as I think the actual software is, I think $599/year is a pretty steep ask. Can't believe they doubled it like that.
@@BlogMarketingAcademy You were on point with their shady tactics, I have been having a bad taste in my mouth having my whole site built with TT and now I need to find the simplest and cheapest solution on building my site that needs to have my different courses that I want to offer, different quizzes that shows to each relevant category blog post to get emails. I have my categories as static pages, not blog rolls and I hope I can keep making that type of page as the category with the new system I will use to build my site again. I am tired of paying too much every year to these software companies because they are taking too much $ from my marketing fund and that is bad business. In your opinion which one is better/simpler Learndash or TutorLMS both for me and my students. And to get payments? So if you were going to switch & build your site that will be selling multiple courses on different topics, what would you do/use to build your site, add new content that will be simple both for you and for your students, and blog visitors. And that will keep the cost down. Here is what a website owner has to pay besides the marketing cost and most of them are monthly or yearly, one time is rare : ________ Domain.
The pricing section isn't fully right. The price is $600 PER year now since they got bought out, what you get is a discount on the first year. So you pay $299 the first year then get slapped in the face with a renewal at twice the price. Which is something the REAL Thrive Themes team was against, they didn't do any discounts or shady pricing schemes. To top it off, they also changed the affiliate commission so you only get 50% off the FIRST payment, which is extremely convenient for them to only have to pay $150 on the $299 first year and not have to share a single cent of that juicy $600 renewal. I also don't think Thrive Themes is worth recommending at $600/year with other more affordable options right there like Elementor. I haven't checked Kadence yet. PS. Yes, I'm salty cause I used to LOVE thrive and recommended it to everyone I knew. But I can't do it anymore.
@@BlogMarketingAcademy indeed. This new company goes against all that the real thrive themes stood for and what made it great for so many years. Sigh... I'm glad I'm not alone in feeling this way though. Thanks for making these videos :)
They will double the price after a year. I bought a 1 year Thrive Theme licence for 99USD and in my dashboard it shows it will renew at 199USD after a year! Shane, the original founder of Thrive you really let us down selling the company to these people! I've cancelled and looking to move to another theme builder.
Yeah, Awesome Motive does that with most of their products. They say so on the pricing page, but it is in tiny little print behind an asterisk and they're kinda counting on people not to notice.
I'm still paying my price from over 8 years ago. If they're trying to raise the price contact support and ask why your price isn't being grandfathered like other users.
Im here because suddenly i cant use most of my products without a time based subscription... if they don't re-enable me im suing for all the cost ive paid because i b]never paid on that basis.
Yeah, when I recorded this video, I didn't realize they outright disable content editing if your Subscription isn't active. I'm so done with Thrive Themes, at this point. The new owners killed the Suite. Perhaps intentionally, I dunno.
So far they said some apologies and some technical advice re enabling it which I have yet to do because of other issues at present, but hopefully they have restored this function to grandfather in us long standing users. Will update if it works out, @@BlogMarketingAcademy
Your audio and video are out of sync. Makes for very distracting viewing. That said, I've been using TT for about 9 years. I was guaranteed that the cost would NEVER go up, and so far, it hasn't. However, I'm now interested in developing online courses and am concerned about some of the comments I've read here and elsewhere about "additional" costs that never existed in the past. I once tried Elementor with Astra for developing a course, but found it to be very cumbersome and inadequate. Have you ever used Elementor with Astra? If so, what's your opinion.
Yeah, they're not increasing costs for people who stay active. The big issue is that if you ever cancel, they'll lock you out of your content. That's really bad. I have used Elementor with Astra. Works fine. But, that's not exactly relevant to posting courses. How you post a course has a lot to do with what kind of setup you require. If really simple, then just a custom post type would work and it could be built using Elementor no problem. But, if you need fancier functionality for your courses, you may want to look into LearnDash, TutorLMS, LifterLMS or something similar.
They cut my Affiliate Commision nearly in HALF. I had 50% commission. Now only 35% commission. Without saying a word. I only saw it while checking my dashboard. A shitty move.
Yeah, also not recurring. Kinda doesn't make sense anymore. But, even more importantly, you're sending people you refer into a trap with their pricing now. So I wouldn't even feel comfortable promoting it even if they didn't change the affiliate program. Wouldn't feel right at all.
Ha it's funny. I'm a js developer and developers tend to not love anything nocode because they are not performant, non precise and laggy. I just got into Elementor, and although I can confirm the deficiencies above, the positives far outweigh the negatives ... The ability to launch a landing page with email sequences connected in an afternoon is just incredible..
Once you start building with something like Kadence, tho, you'll find you can do the same thing just as quickly, but it doesn't bog down performance that much at all.
I built my site in 2021 with Thrive themes. Its become a nightmare in the last year, with FATAL ERRORS and plugin in updates. Im so sick of it I feel like screaming with the nonstop issues. I would not recommend building a site with thrive themes now. Every month now Im having to send a ticket to support to fix something. Performance issues are awful, mobile is a nightmare.
Hmm... that's unfortunate. While I have my issues with Thrive now, I can't say I ever saw a quality problem with their stuff causing fatal errors or breaking anything.
I'm also here after two critical errors in two weeks. Considering changing over to something else. It is frustrating when you spend hours updating after 1 critical error then a week later it happens again.
11:56 - "It's bullcrap" - David, I've followed you on your email list and social media since the early days on the Interwebs and THIS right here is why I love your content. Maybe BS can score a quick win in the very short run, but it's honesty like this that builds loyalty in the long run.
Thanks. I appreciate that.
They say on the site they will keep those who started with them at the same level.
I just got a PayPal notice my annual subscription was cancelled.
I sent a support ticket.
We will see what happens.
Yeah, I've seen 2 or 3 people now tell me that their pre-existing pricing was not grandfathered in. The whole thing is sketchy.
Thanks David as usual for your honest, no-BS take on this. Could you at some point update what your tech stack is nowadays since switching to Kadence theme and away from page builders? Thanks!
Yeah. I realize trying to see what I use currently feels like wading through my blog post archives. Perhaps a one-stop page for it makes sense.
Do you have a tutorial on how you migrated from thrive to kadence? Im at that point now but dreading the migration.....
No. It is basically a re-build of the site. Once you learn the in's and out's of Kadence, it goes faster than you might think, tho.
what about making courses, and quizzes, what can I replace what the whole Thrive Theme system has to offer? I have been using TT for years, I have always felt that I am over-paying and my site is slower on top of that. And what happens to the URL structure if I go from TT? The new company raised the price and I´m not happy about that, so if I can find something that is better I´m gone especially since I paid with another PayPal address they are asking $599 which will be charged next year and that date is coming in few months so I don´t feel good about this.
Oh wow, they're actually now charging $599? I thought that was just a fake price so they could make it seem like a discount. $599 would indeed be a pretty steep ask.
Courses? Learndash or TutorLMS.
Quizzes? Depending on your need, you could use a forms plugin like Fluent Forms.
URL structure? Shouldn't change. But, even if something did, just use redirects.
BTW, unless they changed something else I don't know about, your Thrive software will still work if you let your subscription lapse. It will bug you about an expired license, but it will still function since you're the one hosting it. That gives you time to figure out your next move.
Wow, you're right. $599 is the real price now after the first year. Yet another damn tactic from these people where they make that fact kind of hard to see on the pricing page.
Look as good as I think the actual software is, I think $599/year is a pretty steep ask. Can't believe they doubled it like that.
@@BlogMarketingAcademy You were on point with their shady tactics, I have been having a bad taste in my mouth having my whole site built with TT and now I need to find the simplest and cheapest solution on building my site that needs to have my different courses that I want to offer, different quizzes that shows to each relevant category blog post to get emails.
I have my categories as static pages, not blog rolls and I hope I can keep making that type of page as the category with the new system I will use to build my site again. I am tired of paying too much every year to these software companies because they are taking too much $ from my marketing fund and that is bad business.
In your opinion which one is better/simpler Learndash or TutorLMS both for me and my students.
And to get payments?
So if you were going to switch & build your site that will be selling multiple courses on different topics, what would you do/use to build your site, add new content that will be simple both for you and for your students, and blog visitors.
And that will keep the cost down.
Here is what a website owner has to pay besides the marketing cost and most of them are monthly or yearly, one time is rare :
________
Domain.
You recommended WPFusion two years ago - which is better: that or Kadence?
They're not the same at all. That's like asking what's better between a car and set of screwdrivers.
The pricing section isn't fully right. The price is $600 PER year now since they got bought out, what you get is a discount on the first year. So you pay $299 the first year then get slapped in the face with a renewal at twice the price. Which is something the REAL Thrive Themes team was against, they didn't do any discounts or shady pricing schemes.
To top it off, they also changed the affiliate commission so you only get 50% off the FIRST payment, which is extremely convenient for them to only have to pay $150 on the $299 first year and not have to share a single cent of that juicy $600 renewal.
I also don't think Thrive Themes is worth recommending at $600/year with other more affordable options right there like Elementor. I haven't checked Kadence yet.
PS. Yes, I'm salty cause I used to LOVE thrive and recommended it to everyone I knew. But I can't do it anymore.
Same here. Even if the affiliate commissions were OK, wouldn't matter to me. The suite is now overpriced, IMO. And the issue of lock-in is no bueno.
@@BlogMarketingAcademy indeed. This new company goes against all that the real thrive themes stood for and what made it great for so many years. Sigh... I'm glad I'm not alone in feeling this way though. Thanks for making these videos :)
What do you recommend?
I use Kadence Theme now.
They will double the price after a year. I bought a 1 year Thrive Theme licence for 99USD and in my dashboard it shows it will renew at 199USD after a year! Shane, the original founder of Thrive you really let us down selling the company to these people! I've cancelled and looking to move to another theme builder.
Yeah, Awesome Motive does that with most of their products. They say so on the pricing page, but it is in tiny little print behind an asterisk and they're kinda counting on people not to notice.
Let me know what you find.
I use leadsleap for affiliates but it doesn't have all the bells and whistles
I'm still paying my price from over 8 years ago. If they're trying to raise the price contact support and ask why your price isn't being grandfathered like other users.
It is shame that Shane sold Thrive Themes to "Awesome Motive". It is a shame that "Awesome Motive" raised the prices.
Im here because suddenly i cant use most of my products without a time based subscription... if they don't re-enable me im suing for all the cost ive paid because i b]never paid on that basis.
Yeah, when I recorded this video, I didn't realize they outright disable content editing if your Subscription isn't active. I'm so done with Thrive Themes, at this point. The new owners killed the Suite. Perhaps intentionally, I dunno.
So far they said some apologies and some technical advice re enabling it which I have yet to do because of other issues at present, but hopefully they have restored this function to grandfather in us long standing users. Will update if it works out, @@BlogMarketingAcademy
They have now doubled the price
Yeah, it isn't worth it anymore.
Apparently their motive is less than awesome.
My thoughts exactly.
It's way worse because all the AM products renew at the 2x price (in this case $599)!!
Yeah. They do state that, but it is in tiny little print and you need to be a sleuth to see it. Frankly, I find it rather deceptive. Not a fan.
Love your information on this. Definitely love Kadence purchase the deal with Kadence 2.5 years ago best product in my opinion.
Your audio and video are out of sync. Makes for very distracting viewing.
That said, I've been using TT for about 9 years. I was guaranteed that the cost would NEVER go up, and so far, it hasn't. However, I'm now interested in developing online courses and am concerned about some of the comments I've read here and elsewhere about "additional" costs that never existed in the past.
I once tried Elementor with Astra for developing a course, but found it to be very cumbersome and inadequate. Have you ever used Elementor with Astra? If so, what's your opinion.
Yeah, they're not increasing costs for people who stay active. The big issue is that if you ever cancel, they'll lock you out of your content. That's really bad.
I have used Elementor with Astra. Works fine. But, that's not exactly relevant to posting courses. How you post a course has a lot to do with what kind of setup you require. If really simple, then just a custom post type would work and it could be built using Elementor no problem. But, if you need fancier functionality for your courses, you may want to look into LearnDash, TutorLMS, LifterLMS or something similar.
They cut my Affiliate Commision nearly in HALF. I had 50% commission. Now only 35% commission. Without saying a word. I only saw it while checking my dashboard. A shitty move.
Yeah, also not recurring. Kinda doesn't make sense anymore. But, even more importantly, you're sending people you refer into a trap with their pricing now. So I wouldn't even feel comfortable promoting it even if they didn't change the affiliate program. Wouldn't feel right at all.
Ha it's funny. I'm a js developer and developers tend to not love anything nocode because they are not performant, non precise and laggy.
I just got into Elementor, and although I can confirm the deficiencies above, the positives far outweigh the negatives ... The ability to launch a landing page with email sequences connected in an afternoon is just incredible..
Once you start building with something like Kadence, tho, you'll find you can do the same thing just as quickly, but it doesn't bog down performance that much at all.
Did you see that they raised the price again? The affiliate program is no longer recurring commissions either...
Yeah. I think they're murdering Thrive Themes on purpose, honestly.