It makes sense, but clean WordPress themes are always popular. They give you ultra readability, plenty of negative space to fill, and the ability to showcase only what’s necessary about understanding your site. Because of this, there are plenty of themes on hand to choose from.
However, don’t make the mistake of thinking that clean themes lack functionality. Sure, some will give you only the essentials to work with, but others will pack in features to help you retain those new users your site will bring in.
For this post, we’ll look at some of the best clean WordPress themes that have a minimalist touch.
1. Astra
If you read the WPKube blog, you know we love Astra. It can turn its hand to many different types of sites and styles. However, it’s also one of the best clean WordPress themes too.
We don’t have to talk much about Astra, as we cover all of the details in our full review. In short, there are over 150 starter sites that takes seconds to install. Clean and minimalist design is a feature in many of these.
To customize your site further, you can use one of four options: the Block Editor, Elementor, Brizy, and Beaver Builder. However, you also get plenty of choice within the WordPress Customizer too. It’s a degree of flexibility that makes Astra one of the best themes all-around.
While there’s a free version of Astra (that we also love!), the premium version is cost-effective and offers value for money. Pricing starts from $59 per year, although higher plans give you a greater number of features and functionality.
2. Divi
No theme roundup can be without Divi. It’s the ultimate multipurpose theme for many users over a number of years. However, thanks to its flexibility, Divi is a stellar clean WordPress theme too.
While you have lots of scope to create almost any site you can think of with Divi, it can do clean and minimal designs too. This is down to its array of starter templates and the Divi Builder. This page builder is one of the most mature and feature-rich on the market, which means you will have no problem creating a layout with the right dimensions and specifications for your minimalist site.
We run the rule over both Divi (in our full review) and Elegant Themes’ other products elsewhere on the blog. As such, give those a read if Divi seems like a good fit for you.
As for cost, Divi is $89 per year and includes all of the other Elegant Themes offerings. There’s also a lifetime license for $249.
3. The Essence
If you want your site to put your blog posts front and center, while you also display your gorgeous images, The Essence could be the perfect theme for you. It combines flexibility with almost a ready-to-go design.
The theme is best for magazines, lifestyle blogs, and personal blogs. The default color scheme and presentation is ‘feminine’ – there are lots of pastel colors and serif fonts here. This is no bad thing of course, although you can change this up using the default WordPress Customizer’s array of options.
The Essence offers a familiar layout with fantastic readability and excellent use of imagery throughout. It’s available for $59 per year from the MerdianThemes website.
4. The Traveler
The second of our MeridianThemes products is the The Traveler. It’s a similar proposition to The Essence, but serves a different niche with the same high-quality you’d expect.
This time, the theme targets photo blogging – specifically travel blogs. The home page uses a grid layout to showcase the featured images of your posts, which works well as travel will always see your show off your visuals. The design of the pages is ‘comfy’, as The Traveler uses familiar font choices and a muted color scheme to help your writing and pictures break through.
While it’s best for travel blogs, The Traveler could also work as a typical blogging theme. It’s $49 per year from MeridianThemes, although you could get access to all themes for $89 per year.
5. Breakthrough Pro
StudioPress have a long-term lock on stylish, functional, and flexible themes. Breakthrough Pro lets you marry the developer’s core ideals with clean design.
Although StudioPress themes didn’t support the Block Editor in the past, they now offer full compatibility. As such, you can use two familiar customization tools (including the WordPress Customizer). However, you may not need to make many customizations given how great Breakthrough Pro looks by default.
Typography is gorgeous and the header for the homepage is unique (using an off-centre button design). The default color choices are fitting for its target user too, with lots of understated reds and purples suitable for marketing branding.
If you already subscribe to Genesis Pro, this theme (and all of the StudioPress offerings) are free. If not, the price is $360 per year.
6. Noah
It’s not only your text that benefits from clean design. Images need this treatment too in order to stand out. Noah is a top-notch PixelGrade solution that’s one of the best clean WordPress themes we can find for photography.
The default homepage shows hardly any text, which is arguably the way it should be with photography. However, you can customize this to suit your needs. This means, if you need to add text sections, change the orientation of images, or add in transitional elements, you have plenty of scope to do so. AS Noah uses the WordPress Customizer to make changes, you can hit the ground running with your site’s design.
Noah costs $225 per year. However, a lifetime license costs $245, which is a much more valuable deal for a fantastic clean WordPress theme.
7. Kadence
On paper, Kadence treads a similar path to Astra. It features on our list of best free WordPress themes, and we also have a full review on the blog. However, when it comes to design, it’s more like Genesis or GeneratePress (more of which later).
Almost every starter template from Kadence is clean. We could see almost all of them in use on real-world sites, which is testament to the quality of design. Speaking of which, sites are a breeze to customize. You can use your favorite page builder to adjust the layout, the WordPress Customizer to make further changes, and utilize the drag-and-drop header builder to make sure every inch of your site looks perfect.
The premium version of Kadence is $59 for the first year, and $79 per year after that. As with other themes, a higher tier will net you a greater number of goodies in the box.
8. Jason
This is our second PixelGrade theme on this list, and for good reason! While Noah focuses on images, Jason is for you if you need your text to be crisp and clean.
Jason is more for long-form writing, blogging, and editorial sites. This means the typography is super-readable, with a good use of negative space to reduce clutter. However, you can also use images to add vibrancy to your posts and pages without diluting the minimalist style.
The theme’s customization editor is flexible, and gives you almost all of the options you need, as well as what you’d get with the native WordPress Block Editor. Jason even includes a custom logo creator, which will help you settle on an important part of your branding.
Jason costs $75 per year, although a lifetime license is $115 – a snip in comparison to what you get in return.
9. Read WP
If you want to go to extremes when it comes to clean, readable content, Read WP will be high on your shortlist. This theme won’t be for everyone, but it excels as one of the better clean WordPress themes on the market.
Under normal circumstances, a theme wouldn’t be on this list if it had nothing to note on paper. However, in the case of Read WP, this is ideal. You have hardly any customization options – there are three blog layouts, some footer widget locations, and almost nothing else. This is because the focus is on ultimate readability, which Read WP delivers in spades.
You can set your typography thanks to a full suite of Google Fonts, and work with the settings in the WordPress Customizer to tweak things to perfection.
Read WP costs $49, and comes with six months of support from the developer.
10. Monochrome Pro
We’re back with StudioPress, and Monochrome Pro is a strong, clean, minimalist WordPress theme that will suit a variety of applications – although it’s arguably best for businesses and agencies.
You get much the same quality with Monochrome Pro as you do almost every StudioPress theme. Your design will use the Block Editor and the Customizer to get to your desired look, although the default layout is near perfect for many applications.
Blog pages look great too, so we could even see this theme used as an option for blogging. It may not look it, but Monochrome Pro is flexible while still looking fantastic.
Much like Breakthrough Pro, Monochrome Pro is free if you have a Genesis Pro subscription for $360 per year.
11. Soledad
If you blog, want a clean theme, and also would like some help creating your content, Soledad could be the option for you. It comes with a wealth of goodies, and some helpful functionality to help your blogging.
First off, you have a reported “6,000 plus” demo layouts to choose from. Of course, this includes plenty of clean and minimal designs. You can use the WordPress Customizer to tweak the settings, and layouts look familiar and easy to navigate. If you’re an Elementor user, Soledad offers full integration with the page builder.
We also like the added extras. For starters, you have a smart content creator that works using Artificial Intelligence (AI). There are also extra plugins for live blogging options, a text-to-speech plugin, and much more. We like how Soledad can adapt to your needs, which means this theme is a chameleon among its peers!
Soledad costs $59 per year, with six months support from the developer.
12. GeneratePress
Our last theme in this list is by no means least. We mentioned GeneratePress earlier on, and to reiterate, it’s a flexible, gorgeous, and stylish clean WordPress theme.
GeneratePress is another theme we don’t need to talk about too much here. Our in-depth review does a fantastic job, so it’s essential reading. To sum up, the theme gives you a superb set of starter sites, and practically all could fit into the ‘clean’ category. GeneratePress suits using the Block Editor, although Elementor users can slot that plugin without a hitch.
We love how you don’t have to dig into the technical options if you don’t wish, although they are there if you want. Whether you can code or not, GeneratePress has the flexibility you need under your fingertips.
GeneratePress costs $59 per year, which is a steal given its quality. What’s more, a lifetime license is $249 – again, for a quality theme, it’s a snip.
In Summary
A surefire way to ensure your traffic reads your content is to give it maximum value. The best way to do this is to shine a light on it through minimalist design. This strips away all of the clutter to leave your content in the space. The best clean WordPress themes all help to achieve this, and more.
Some, such as Read WP take clean, minimalist lines to extremes. In contrast, multipurpose themes such as Divi and Astra can pack in as much as possible, yet still work if you want to scale down your site’s look. Finally, MeridianThemes’ offerings The Traveler and The Essence both let you showcase imagery as well as highly-readable text.
Which of these clean WordPress themes do you like the look of? Let us know in the comments section below!
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