Why I Dropped GeneratePress Premium and Switched to Blocksy

byTheAmazingMG

1.5K followers

1 week ago

I Cut a Yearly Cost Without Losing a Single Feature

I cancelled my GeneratePress Premium subscription today. It wasn’t a quick or random choice. I’ve used GeneratePress for two years, and I still think it’s a rock-solid theme. The Premium add-on gave me extra layout tools, hooks, and a few design perks that made site building easy. It ran fast. It stayed stable. It did its job very well.

But I kept coming back to one question: why am I paying for features I can now get for free?

At Wealthy Affiliate, every new site starts with GeneratePress out of the box. Many members stick with it. Some jump into the Premium version like I did because it feels like the "natural" next step. That’s precisely what I did a long time ago. I didn’t think twice about the $59 a year. It felt fair for what the theme offered at the time.

Then Kyle brought up Blocksy. He said it might be a good alternative for building new sites, so I took a look. I figured it would be another “free theme” that locks valuable everything behind a paywall.

I was wrong.

Blocksy’s free version has the features that pushed me to buy GeneratePress Premium. Header builder. Footer builder. Custom sidebars. Conditional elements. Smooth controls for spacing, layout, and typography. Pre-built templates that don’t look like they were made in 2015. And it all works right out of the gate with no upgrade needed.

GeneratePress Premium still has value. I won’t say it doesn’t. But when the free version of another theme gives me the same flexibility I was paying an annual fee for, the math changes. I don’t want to spend money out of habit. I want to spend it where it moves my business forward.

Fifty-nine dollars a year isn’t a huge cost, but it’s still money. It’s a domain name. It’s a month of premium AI credits. It’s part of a tool upgrade. It’s an extra plugin. It’s all the little things that stack up when you run an online business.

And if I can free up even small amounts of cash without losing anything in my workflow, I’ll do it.

Blocksy also fits the way I build now. It has clearer controls, faster editing, and a layout system that feels more flexible. I can create pages the way I think, not the way the theme expects me to think. It stays fast, which is a big deal for me. I test it. I push it. It keeps up even on mobile.

That matters when you’re building sites that need to rank, load quickly, and stay clean.

So yeah, I cancelled the renewal. Not out of frustration. Not because GeneratePress failed me. It didn’t. I just don’t need to pay for something that doesn’t give me anything extra anymore. My money can go somewhere that actually grows my business.

Everyone should make their own call. Themes are personal. Workflows differ. But if you’re thinking about building a new site or trimming your costs, at least try Blocksy. It surprised me. It might do the same for you.

If you want help testing it or setting it up on your WA site, ask. I’ve already gone down the path and can save you a few steps. Let me know.

How to ask for a Staging Site. <=== Do this before you move over, just in case! (Highly Recommended!!!)