If you’ve ever tried picking a Shopify theme, you know the feeling. You look at one theme and think, ‘Wow, this is perfect.’ But then you click on another and it looks even better. Then you read reviews about speed, features, conversion rate optimization, and suddenly you’re 30 tabs deep, completely overwhelmed. That was me.

So I decided to stop guessing and actually break it down. Because when it comes to Shopify themes, you really only have five main options.

  1. Free theme – from the official Shopify Theme Store
  2. Paid theme – from the official Shopify Theme Store
  3. Paid third-party theme – from providers such as ThemeForest.net
  4. Page builder app—like PageFly or GemPages. (If you’re curious about how a page builder app works, check out my recent YouTube tutorial here.)
  5. Fully custom build

But that led me straight to the ultimate question:

If free themes exist, why would anyone choose to spend money on a Shopify theme?

Some say:

But are those claims actually true?

To find out, I put it to the test by comparing the most popular paid Shopify theme with the best free Shopify theme.

A quick search showed that the paid theme Impulse has the most reviews, which basically makes it one of the most popular options out there.

A list of paid Shopify themes sorted on number of reviews

As for the best free theme, I’ve researched that thoroughly and concluded that Horizon is the best option. Why is that? Read the lesson below too to ensure you fully understand Shopify’s free themes structure.