Revolution Two Launches

Brian Gardner has recently announced the launch of Revolution Two, the much-anticipated follow-up to the highly acclaimed Revolution Theme. With the release of “Two” Brian and team have effectively revolutionized the premium theme business. While paying for support is not an unheard-of concept, such a business model for a WordPress theme has been brought to the mainstream by Revolution Two.

All of the themes on the new site will be made available under the open source/GPL license. However, we are going to offer a yearly and lifetime membership plan, that will include benefits to all themes. (meaning you won’t have to purchase a plan for each theme.)

Essentially, Revolution has moved from an outright-payment model to a subscription-model. The theme itself is open source, and anyone is free to download and use it at no cost. However, should one wish to get official support from the creators, one can pay for a subscription to enjoy several benefits:

• Unlimited support answered by our experts
• Learn customization techniques with our detailed theme tutorials
• Professional design services available by our list of recommended designers
• Discounted general consulting rates
• Increase your search rankings with a link from the Revolution site directory

With regard to Revolution Two’s business model, we’re actually considering applying this business model to one of the themes we manage, which is Cutline. We do get a handful of support inquiries, and while we’ve been able to help out we think we can better provide our time and effort if we were to get something in return. This makes for an innovative twist to theme licensing (and perhaps the use of WordPress itself, and its license thereof).

Will other premium theme designers follow suit?