I’m curious about how other Ghost users navigate the theme ecosystem, especially when it comes to premium themes. I’ve been using a free Ghost theme for a while, but I recently decided to explore premium options to level up my blog. After researching major providers like [mod: list of providers removed], I’m honestly shocked at the lack of professionalism I’ve encountered.
I purchased theme bundles from the providers offering them and reached out with some basic questions:
Can I customize the homepage? (I’m happy to pay for customizations.)
I noticed issues like the portal not loading and the dark mode toggle not working.
I also asked about theme-specific problems, like header images not showing on posts and footers getting cut off.
Can I take elements from different themes and combine them? (I have learnt since that this is not possible-so this is on me)
It’s been three weeks since I bought the bundles/individual theme, and here’s what’s happened:
No responses. Despite most providers claiming a 2-business-day response time, I haven’t heard back from any of them. I followed up in week two and again last week—still nothing.
No contact info. None of these providers list their location, office address, or direct contact details on their websites, making it nearly impossible to get in touch. And so, I do not know where these theme companies are based?
Broken contact forms. Some providers have contact forms, but after submitting, I got no confirmation email—just an on-screen message saying it was sent. Most form systems send confirmations by default; how hard is it to enable this?
No social media presence. These providers have little to no activity on social media, which makes it tough to gauge their reliability.
So, I’m turning to this community for advice:
How do you handle theme issues when providers don’t respond?
What rights do paying customers have if theme creators ghost (no pun intended) us?
Does Ghost have policies to vet theme creators and ensure they meet basic standards?
Are there any consequences for theme creators who ignore their paying customers?
I know I’m not alone here—other forum members have mentioned similar issues with unresponsive theme providers. I get that some creators treat this as a side hustle, but it’s neither professional nor courteous to leave paying customers hanging without even a reply.
Personally, I’d love for Ghost to release a personal/portfolio blog theme that’s reliable and supported. Any insights or experiences you can share would be super helpful.
Sounds like you are used to huge corporate entitiies, most the companies you listed arent 100s or 1000s of employees with dedicated email support employees so many may take less or more time but aim for 48 hours. As to contact forms thats the most common even on 99% of websites I visit Ghost or not, its not “broken” because you dont get what you want from it.
Also its a holiday weekend in the US so they may be totally out of office, with people being worldwide you may not know when their holidays are either. I know the world has tried to fashion itself in 15 second increments but some patience may go a long way.
As to theme support @brightthemes has pages of support docs for every theme and has been nothing but responsive to my emails and questions. I dont expect any of them to waste time in social media.
I’m surprised being mentioned in this context. If you’ve reached out through the support form and haven’t received a reply, I’d love to look into it. Feel free to DM me here as well. I’m happy to help however I can.
Basically all the things you bring up are a huge part of the reasons I left Wordpress in favour of Ghost in the first place. I never purchased a theme and seriously doubt I ever will because experiences like the above. But I do see @brightthemes reached out here in the thread and that gives a bit of hope.
Sorry to hear about your experience. It’s unfortunate to see Aspire Themes here. If you use my themes, please contact me (ahmad@aspirethemes.com) and I’m happy to help. I also sent you a DM.
I’ve removed your list of providers. It’s unclear from your post which ones were unresponsive, which ones had bugs that were not fixed, and which ones you don’t like because they don’t have a socials presence or because they don’t list an office address. That makes this post a lot less useful for someone trying to decide which theme provider they might want to use.
It’s OK to make a post that names a specific provider and the problems being had specifically with that provider (or with one of their themes), as long as it is factual, professional, and provides some benefit of the doubt. Overly vague posts and personal attacks will be deleted.
p.s. I’m confused why you bought multiple packages and themes from multiple providers. And I’m extra confused why you bought first and asked your questions about customization second.
Some theme sellers say right on their sites that they don’t sell customization services. (Reporting problems setting the theme up makes a lot of sense – I hope you checked the provided theme documentation first!)
I hope OP is able to find peace and support for this matter. Seems like many have reached out to come up with a resolution, and I understand that OP is upset based on the lengthy post. This is obviously an issue that manifested to this level over time…
I would really like if OP would follow up to this post, especially since again, it is very lengthy, and I would like to know if the community support yielded results that they were seeking.