worthless after payment period ends

I’m a user, a customer, not part of the company. I simply have to reply to this.

WordPress is ever-changing. An old theme can hurt you in so many ways. A theme developer must keep up on the changes. What we want on a website evolves and a theme developer must keep up with that too. When I look for a theme, I look for one that I can pay for because if people don’t buy the theme, it dies. Who can afford to do so much update and development on a theme for free?! We have to support these people as they provide what we need for our website! (I say this whenever anyone seeks my advice on WordPress, including when I teach it or am on a panel about websites.)

To be fair, it the theme doesn’t evolve then your site will be open to attacks on the web. So if you want to continue using it, you need to keep updating. Nothing can go forever without an update. Your computer software, your car, the clothing on your back, the size of your clothing…

Until July 7, another year is $49. After that, it returns to $59.
The lifetime is $84.95 — on sale right now. Something every user can benefit from.

Think about how many updates these folks to in a year. Look at what’s going on with attacks on websites and web servers! This is not a lot of money when you consider all that. I tried it for a year, then I jumped at the chance to buy the lifetime. I encourage everyone who uses it to do so.

Before you purchase the Pro theme you see a notice like this that tells you the facts clearly:

The Single website plan allows you to install and activate Customizr Pro on one site, and receive free updates and support for 12 months. The Lifetime plan is a one off payment allowing you to install Customizr Pro on an unlimited number of sites, and receive free updates and support for an unlimited period of time.

I can somewhat understand the frustration at not being able to effortlessly downgrade but I have to speak up when I hear an expectation that a theme should be free for life or that people who create computer software should work for free.

This is NOT a one-star theme!

Hi @samvado2017, I’m really sorry that you are experiencing those problems.
The pro theme still works even when your key has expired, there’s no downgrading or locking. But you need to understand that WordPress, the plugin ecosystem and the web technologies and devices are permanently evolving, and we must constently adapt the theme to their latest versions. That’s actually a major part of our job as theme developer, and that’s why we always recommend to keep the themes up to date, free or pro.
Anyway, I hope you are still satisfied with the free version of Customizr now !
Best regards

well, I have switched to another (free) theme for now. It seems this quickly becoming obsolete is in general the issue with wordpress sites. I have html sites operational since 2006 – unchanged. They still work, so no, it is not essentially necessary to keep paying for a site. The lure of easy design using wordpress is of course based on the many very well designed themes that cost a bunch when using them and I do understand that the maintaining does take time and should be paid for. I am in the process of considering returning to simple html which will be quite sufficient for the task at hand (a travel site with pictures and some YT links).
I leave the one-star as a warning for those who may otherwise fall into the same trap not considering the constant need for updates and payment.

@samvado2017 You are correct that plain HTML doesn’t require maintenance. Try that with WordPress and if you have shared hosting and any plugins, one day your host will shut you down, hopefully, before you destroy all the other sites on their server.

I won’t fight you on your 1 star but to clarify for everyone else, this gripe is with WordPress, not this theme.

As the fabulous Nicolas said, you can still use the free version.
If you want your static HTML site to be responsive, you’ll be paying someone somewhere for a theme or support.