For this article, we searched out the best WordPress classified themes available for 2020. We found them. If you’re planning on building a fully-featured classified ads website, and you want to use the WordPress platform to do it, this is a good place to start.
There’s no shortage of generic business themes out there, but once you’re in the market for a highly specialized theme – one that will, preferably, do it all – your options begin to shrink. In our quest to find the best classifieds ads themes for WordPress, we turned up only seven that we felt hit the mark across the board. We came across an eighth and included it with reservations, as you’ll see below.
Beyond a pretty face, the must have features for a classifieds theme are roughly what you’d expect. You need to be able to create classified listings via a front-end dashboard or form, and you need to be able to search them in a meaningful way. Every theme on this list satisfies those two requirements.
Depending on how much of a ruthless capitalist you are, you may also want to monetize your site. If that’s the case, you’ll need some way to charge fees for listings. Every theme on this list satisfies that requirement, too, though some do it better than others. Isn’t that always the case?
The order here is intentional. We selected these themes by hand, based on the quality of design and functionality. If you don’t agree with our selections, feel free to angrily express that disagreement in the comments below.
Drum roll…
ClassifiedEngine
This time around, our top spot goes to ClassifiedEngine by EngineThemes. This is a popular WordPress classifieds theme that you’ll very often find at the top of best-of lists, and for good reason.
It’s a total solution for building a robust classified ads website on the WordPress platform. It offers a clean, modern and tasteful design, and a comprehensive set of features. A frontend dashboard for submitting, editing and managing advertisements is built-in, and a great deal of attention was paid to UX (user experience), which can sometimes be lacking on otherwise well designed themes.
ClassifiedEngine has the distinction of being the most feature rich theme, while still being incredibly easy to use. Site admins can charge fees for listings, and ClassifiedEngine excels on this end too.
Plenty of easy to read documentation is provided by the developer, and the EngineThemes support team offers fast, concise assistance through either their help desk or forum. Highly recommended.
More Info/DownloadClassiAds
Next we have ClassiAds theme, released in mid-September. The design is just about as good as it gets, with fantastic typography and the careful use of white space. It’s flat, modern, and fully responsive. Every pixel is exactly where it should be. But that wouldn’t mean as much without the right features, and fortunately ClassiAds is a complete solution for building a classifieds ads website. The theme includes a frontend panel, so that site users can submit, edit, and managing their listings with ease. Ad views are counted, and site admins can specify expiry dates.
In the backend, you can also assign unlimited custom fields to your listings according to category. Google maps is integrated, so users can easily identify the location of an advertised product or service.
The theme allows for free or paid ads, and site owners can monetize the site with the help of built-in PayPal support. The theme is also Adsense ready, providing additional income opportunities.
ClassiAds is easy to customize, and the color of every element can be changed on either the frontend or backend. The forum plugin bbPress is supported, and the theme is bundled with the impressive and popular LayerSlider plugin. A great value, and highly recommended.
More Info/DownloadClassifieds Ads
Alright, listen: I wish there was another way to describe themes like Classifieds Ads (great name, guys) without resorting to cliches, but clean is just the best way to describe it–this is a well-executed, contemporary design. Extraneous design elements and overly obnoxious animations are stripped away, leaving no visual distractions (that often exist only to sell themes to inexperienced webmasters) and resulting in a smooth UX comparable to ClassifiedEngine. This theme is a pleasure to navigate and use. It’s speedy, responsive, and the UX is very well thought-out.
The developers describe Classified Ads as “the most complete” WordPress theme for classified ads, and we think that might be true: the depth of functionality here is truly impressive, and there’s far too much included to cover here. If you’ve got a few minutes, click through to check out the lengthy features list. Though it’s relatively new, there’s no doubt this will end up becoming one of the best-selling themes of its kind.
More Info/DownloadClassify
Classify is another expertly designed classifieds theme, and it has a lot in common with our number one selection, ClassiAds. It makes great use of white space, and places strong focus on typography. The overall effect is a very professional, contemporary aesthetic.
Built on Bootstrap 3, this responsive, sleek looking theme packs in everything you’ll need for building your classifieds site. The must-have features are all there, including a front-end dashboard for ad submission and management, Google maps integration (with geolocation), and a useful, intuitive search function.
PayPal is integrated, and the theme lends itself well to a fee based business model.
Classify provides plenty of room for customization too, with unlimited colors to work with and a useful options panel.
This is a particularly good choice for WordPress beginners. Free installation is offered, and there’s free support 24/7.
More Info/DownloadClassiera
Another lovely entry with a strong feature set, Classiera will nab a fewer users who prefer a product with versatility. The theme comes with five distinct homepage designs, and can be further tweaked and customized thanks to its integration with the popular Redux options framework.
You’re likely to find all of the functionality you require from a WordPress classifieds theme in Classiera, with excellent usability features like front-end ad submission, advanced searching, and PayPal support for monetization.
The theme is retina-ready, for crisp display on all those expensive, high-resolution gizmos, and built on the Foundation 5 framework.
More Info/Download
FlatAds
FlatAds is the best-selling WordPress classifieds theme on ThemeForest, with nearly 800 buyers. Another Bootstrap based theme, it’s responsive and retina-ready. So its vibrant, clean design is going to look great on whatever you choose to view it on.
With FlatAds, your users can search through posted listings thanks to the multi-option search feature, and narrow down their searches by category and location. Custom fields can be assigned by category and subcategory. Your listings can be as detailed and category specific as you want them to be.
FlatAds also includes lots of potential for customization, giving you 650+ Google fonts at your fingertips, 369 vector icons to work with, and an unlimited number of color schemes to choose from.
More Info/DownloadDolce Classifieds Theme
We hadn’t heard of the developer DolcePixel prior to doing our research for this article, but we liked the understated, clean and simple design of their Dolce Classifieds themes enough to give it a spot on our list.
While it’s not as feature rich as the top themes on our list, it still has a lot to offer, including PayPal integration for monetizing the site via listing fees, and the advanced sorting and searching of classified ads.
Often on our lists we highlight a selection that we feel is well matched for beginners, and users who can’t be bothered with dozens of extras they’ll never need. The simplicity of Dolce Classifieds, and its plugin-less design, makes this theme a perfect match for such users. It’s fast and ready to go out-of-the-box. A solid choice.
More Info/DownloadClassified Theme
Finally, we have “WordPress Classifieds Ads Theme” by SiteMile. This responsive theme is loaded with classified-y features, and the developer opted to go with a clean, classic look. The prominent, simple search box above the fold and the photo categories add to the usability of this one.
Built on top of SiteMile’s own proprietary framework, this theme puts strong focus on monetization, supporting a wide variety of payment gateways. The theme is SEO optimized and well integrated with Facebook and Twitter.
More Info/DownloadA dubious, questionable mention:
ClassiPress
That brings us to ClassiPress by AppThemes. I’m not going to mince words here: this theme is ugly. It’s dated, and it’s bland. The gradients are poorly implemented, the typography is lackluster, and the use of space is just lousy. And that’s extremely disappointing, because it comes with features that easily rival (and in some cases, surpass) several other themes on this list.
We’re frankly a bit baffled as to why the developer hasn’t made some effort to freshen up this theme, considering the fierceness of the competition. We think they’d sell a lot more of them if the quality of the design matched the quality of the features and functionality. In fact, we’d urge our readers to take a look at the detail page for this one, just to see the potential that’s being marred by a substandard appearance.
It’s worth noting that AppThemes also sells child themes for ClassiPress, many greatly surpassing the design of their parent. So if you like the feature set and everything else ClassiPress has to offer, you might want to consider spending a little extra for the (necessary) makeover.
Anyway, that’s all we have to say about that.
More Info/Download
Want something more custom? Get your theme installed and customized for $50
If you like any of the themes above, but you want it to be changed to suit your needs, there’s a great solution for you. You can get your theme customized to fit your needs for as little as $50 from a top seller on Fiverr.
Or if you want to go a different route, you can get a completely custom WordPress theme programmed and installed for $100. This can be a great alternative to buying and setting up a theme, if you want to save time or aren’t experienced with WordPress.
More Info
That concludes our round-up of the best WordPress classifieds themes. Feel free to share your thoughts, or make suggestions in the comments below.
This is missing the best one yet with all bells and whistles and definitely different features than others https://themeforest.net/item/adifier-classified-ads-wordpress-theme/21633950
You should definitely look on osclass, great themes and plugins there.
Osclass Plugins
If you had to pick one theme to make a niche real estate and a niche auto site.. Which one would you pick? Looking for clean design, easy to use, strong monetization. Please let me know. Thanks.
I would get for Starter theme https://osclasspoint.com/osclass-themes/general/starter-osclass-theme_i86