February 22, 2023
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Want to sell on Shopify but don't want to pay for a theme? While there aren't many free templates, there are some really great ones that you can use to get up and running. Here are our top 5 free Shopify themes.
Shopify's Theme Store has a wide range of themes available to install on your store. They come in a range of varying styles and are never more expensive than $180. Even for that low cost you can get a solid design foundation for your site. Switching themes is instant – your website can go live with a totally new design straight after you install it.
As previously outlined in our article on the top 5 premium themes for Shopify, the difference between premium and free Shopify themes is that the free ones tend to have fewer options for customisation. If you see a free theme in this list that you fall in love with and can't see why you'd need to change it, this won't be a problem. However, bear in mind that often this is not the case and you will want to make some alterations to stand out from everyone else using the same theme. If you are looking to customise themes, it may be worth having a Shopify Expert do it for you.
If you're on a budget though, here are 5 of the best free themes available on Shopify.
Great for simple sites with only a few products, Solo is a theme created and supported by Shopify themselves. For a free theme, it's very well designed. It's clean, it's minimalistic and, most importantly, it's contemporary.
The theme includes a rearrangeable homepage, the function of showcasing a single product in the centre of your homepage, and a responsive design, which is now more important than ever.
If you're looking for something minimal and fresh but don't want to spend any money on a theme, Solo could be a great option for you.
If you have a larger inventory and are wondering if Shopify can handle it, Supply proves it can. It is designed for businesses with medium to large inventories, presenting all your items in a clean and easily-accessible way.
Realising that people using this theme are likely to have a lot of products on their site, Shopify implemented a filtering sidebar, sorting function and two collection view modes to help customers easily find what they're looking for.
Supply also has a seamless integration with the Product Reviews app on the Shopify App Store, which appears in our list of top 50 Shopify apps, allowing you to receive reviews on your products and build a community of dedicated customers.
Penwarden Music make use of the Supply theme.
The Minimal theme for Shopify, in addition to being mobile friendly, offers a range of customisation features so you can alter and customise your store design to your unique requirements. Easily make changes to everything from colour, typography, social media integration, and layout in the settings.
It follows the ever-growing lean towards minimalistic design, giving your products the limelight. The theme is also responsive, meaning that it is designed to look beautiful regardless of what platform you are viewing it on – desktop, laptop, tablet or phone.
For a free theme, Minimal could give your website a brilliant aesthetic and can be moulded into something that represents your brand professionally.
Earthwise Beauty is using the Minimal theme.
Another theme officially created and supported by Shopify, is Simple and it is – you guessed it – a minimal theme.
It's responsive, working as well on mobile devices as it does on large monitors, features sleek animations, easy to customise settings, and the option to include sub-categories if your products have tags.
Having the white background puts a lot of focus on your product range – this extreme case of minimalism makes for a much cleaner shopping experience for your customers and let's your products shine.
By far the boldest theme on this list, Lookbook is a little like Marmite. If you're looking for something impactful, you'll fall in love with it. If you're not, well, you won't.
Always using full-screen imagery, this responsive theme is guaranteed to make your product photography stand out. If the products you're selling are unique or eye-catching, this is a great way of presenting them.
The theme offers support for customer accounts, drop-down menus and has a very original cart that slides out. Do bear in mind though that this theme is best-suited to shops with high-resolution photography; you don't want to be drawing attention to pixelated images!
The theme also provides its users with access to handpicked fonts from Google Web Fonts, and comes with a built-in customer contact form and integrated social sharing buttons, making it easy for your customers to reach out.
Lee Daly Designs uses the Lookbook theme.
If you're not looking to spend any money on your Shopify theme then hopefully you've found one in this list that you think would work well in your store. Remember that if it's not exactly what you're after then the themes can be customised, either with easy-to-use settings or with more complex coding.
You may also be interested in our post: 13 examples of minimal e-commerce web design to inspire you.
