WordPress is an excellent platform to build your online magazine site on top of. There are hundreds of high-quality magazine themes out there that come with all the features you might need to design and launch a successful online magazine.
Here, we’ve rounded up 12 of the best magazine themes for WordPress websites that can help you create an engaging online magazine for your niche. All of the themes you’ll find in this list are responsive out of the box, customizable, and come with easy-to-use navigation menus and organized layouts.
If you don’t already have a WordPress website, be sure to check out our guide on how to create one and find a suitable hosting provider for it.
#1: Wonderwall
Wonderwall is a flexible WordPress theme loaded with features that make it perfect for a magazine website. It ships with 9 different pre-made homepage layouts and a built-in newsletter subscription widget.
And if you want to monetize your online magazine, Wonderwall comes with built-in banner ad locations that allow you to insert ad banners (or add the code) directly from the WordPress Customizer.
Wonderwall does a great job of displaying categories, social sharing buttons, and recent posts in a way that encourages user engagement. Its neat and clean design leverages whitespace to give your site a professional look and feel.
Key Features:
- Comes with 9 different homepages layouts.
- Built-in newsletter subscription form.
- Social share buttons with follower counts.
Price: $59
#2: Upright
FancyThemes’ Upright is a responsive magazine theme that features a grid-like layout with a focus on bold imagery. If you’re thinking of creating an image-intensive online magazine then it’s definitely worth considering.
Upright is easy to customize directly from the WordPress Customizer. You can play around with its built-in typography options and experiment with different color palettes for menus, your main content, background, and sidebars. The theme also comes with a featured post carousel and sliders that are designed to draw in the reader’s attention.
One of reasons Upright makes for an excellent magazine theme is that its navigation elements are incredibly intuitive.
Key Features:
- Easy to customize.
- Neat and clean layout; great for magazines sites.
- Intuitive navigation elements.
Price: Free
#3: Voice
Voice is a clean magazine theme that focuses on delivering an immersive reading experience by leveraging vibrant colors and creative layouts. Out of the box, the theme comes with its own built-in Theme Options Panel from where you can customize your website’s design.
The theme ships with multiple header layouts with options for adding banner ads, over 150 post listing combinations, post listing modules, built-in post filtering functionality, unlimited sidebars, and much more.
In addition to all of this, Voice offers support for the WP Review plugin which lets your readers rate your posts and the Entry Views plugin to display total view counts.
Key Features:
- Fully responsive design.
- Smart post listings modules to display grouped posts.
- Four different pagination options.
Price: $69
#4: Flex Mag
Flex Mag is a powerful, flexible magazine theme that packs a wide-range of features and customization options. For starters, you can pick from nine different featured posts layouts for displaying featured content and category pages and eight different article layouts.
If you’re not a skilled web designer then you might want to start off with a pre-made design that you can customize. Flex Mag takes this a step further by giving you four pre-set skins – Sports, Entertainment, Tech, and Fashion – to choose from.
In addition to this, the theme is compatible with WooCommerce and bbPress and integrates with YouTube, Vimeo, and SoundCloud seamlessly.
Key Features:
- Tons of customization options.
- Built-in, responsive ad area.
- Auto load posts functionality.
Price: $59
#5: Paperback
Paperback is a functional magazine theme that comes with multiple homepage templates, content discovery features, and Typekit typography to help you deliver an immersive reading experience to your magazine’s viewership.
The homepage features a featured post header that you can customize the way you’d like to bring your best content to the forefront. Paperback can be customized directly from the WordPress Customizer which also gives you the option to modify image opacity and height.
The theme also offers support for the Shortcodes Ultimate plugin that gives you access to over 50 different shortcodes for the purpose of creating engaging elements and adding them to your posts and pages.
Key Features:
- Looks great on devices with different screen sizes.
- Offers support for infinite scroll.
- Comes with a featured posts carousel on the homepage.
Price: $49
#6: MagPlus
MagPlus is one of the most popular magazine themes in the WordPress space. And though it packs a ton of premium features and customization options, the theme itself is actually pretty lightweight.
The theme comes with over 40 different professionally crafted templates and over 270 different layout variations. The templates (called demos) are divided into three different categories – blog, magazine, and news.
As far as performance optimization goes, MagPlus packs a custom super-fast cache system that’ll keep your magazine site loading at blazing fast speeds.
Key Features:
- Lets you combine elements from different demos to create a unique design.
- Tons of different header layouts to choose from.
- Over 25 different article layouts.
Price: $59
#7: Bimber
Bimber is one of the more unique entries in this list. The theme is designed specifically for viral magazine websites and it comes with all the features you could possibly need to make that happen. Bimber packs social sharing buttons, different post listings (popular, hot, trending), and multiple ad locations.
What’s more is that the Bimber theme functions like a membership site where your site’s viewership can create accounts, vote on posts using its built-in point system, and gain user ranks based on their point balance. Talk about an engaging reading experience!
Key Features:
- Comes with a built-in polling system and point system.
- Photomix feature lets you create viral images without leaving your website.
- Media Ace lets you manage your media files better.
Price: $59
#8: CheerUp
The CheerUp magazine theme comes with eight unique designs right out of the box with options to create over 300 different layout variations. So, whether you want to go with a modern-looking online magazine or a more classic one, it’s entirely possible with the CheerUp theme.
The theme comes with the Visual Composer drag and drop page builder which you can use to create unique layouts and add visually engaging elements. In addition to this, you also get access to a number of different header styles each with intuitive navigation elements.
Key Features:
- Easy to customize and comes with pre-designed templates.
- Many different slider, post, and footer styles to choose from.
- Comes with Google Fonts and TypeKit fonts integration.
Price: $54
#9: Magazine
Themify’s Magazine paired with the Themify Builder makes for a powerful combination to build just about any kind of online magazine. It’s fully customizable and you can even build complex layouts similar to those you see on sites like The Guardian and BBC.
The Magazine theme is optimized for mobile devices with its responsive, retina-ready design and mobile slide menu. Anyone visiting your site from a mobile device or tablet will be able to navigate through the magazine easily.
Key Features:
- 42 different layout configurations.
- Mobile-first design.
- Ad-optimized areas support standard banner ads, text links, Google AdSense, and ad code.
Price: $49
#10: Stoked
Stoked by MeridianThemes is a responsive theme that comes with four homepage designs so you can try out different layouts to see which one looks best. You also get a customizable, built-in email subscription form and social share buttons.
One of the most important elements that go into designing functional online magazines is its navigation. Stoked features two menus – a mobile-optimized side panel menu and a footer menu – both designed with the purpose of delivering good user experience.
Key Features:
- Two different menu locations.
- Mobile-optimized design.
- 10 different widget locations for displaying additional information.
Price: $59
#11: Dahlia
Dahlia is a chic online magazine theme that looks great on all devices. It ships with five different pre-built homepage designs and a newsletter subscription form.
The theme also features AJAX-based load more posts functionality which allows readers to view more posts without having to reload the page. In addition to this, the theme’s customization options are built directly into the WordPress Customizer so you’re able to make necessary modifications and preview the results in real-time.
Key Features:
- Five different homepage layouts to choose from.
- Lets you build custom layouts using content sections and modules.
- AJAX-based load more posts functionality.
Price: $59
#12: Florentine
Florentine is an online magazine theme that focuses on showcasing your recipes and food-related articles. It comes with a built-in custom post type that automatically formats your recipes to make them look visually appealing on the front-end. All you have to do is enter the ingredients and instructions and you’re done!
The theme also comes with CookMode which launches a distraction-free reader to deliver an immersive reading experience to your viewership. In addition to this, the theme packs social sharing buttons and a newsletter module.
Key Features:
- Custom post types for displaying recipes.
- Distraction-free reader.
- Comes with the Meridian Styler plugin for easy customizations.
Price: $59
Conclusion
All of the themes in our roundup come with unique features that make them excellent candidates for online magazine websites. We hope that you’re able to find a theme you like and can begin creating your own online magazine.
Have you tried out any of the magazine themes on our list? We’d love to hear about your experience so let us know by commenting below!
