Excellent
A confident, well-rounded pick.
At a glance
CheerUp is a well-maintained, design-forward WordPress theme that delivers genuine value for food, travel, lifestyle, and fashion bloggers who want a polished look without custom development. The combination of active updates, flexible layouts, and built-in WooCommerce support makes the $69 one-time price reasonable. Our editorial team recommends it most confidently to individual content creators and small editorial teams building content-first blogs or light magazine sites. Buyers who need a dedicated e-commerce experience or a fully FSE-native theme should evaluate alternatives first.
Best for

The review
4 min readWhat Is CheerUp and Who Is It For?
CheerUp is a premium WordPress theme developed by ThemeSphere, positioned squarely in the personal blog and online magazine space. Its design language leans toward the clean, minimal, and feminine end of the spectrum — making it a natural fit for food bloggers, travel writers, lifestyle content creators, and fashion enthusiasts who want their site to look deliberate and professional without hiring a custom developer.
The theme supports an unusually wide range of use cases for a single product: food and recipe blogs, travel journals, hotel and hospitality content, and general-purpose magazines all appear in its stated category list. That breadth is both a selling point and something buyers should evaluate carefully before purchasing — more on that below.
Standout Capabilities
Layout Flexibility
CheerUp's headline feature is its volume of layout combinations. Rather than locking you into one homepage template, the theme is built around a modular system that lets you mix and match pre-made design components. Fourteen starting demo designs cover the major content verticals — from a clean food blog to a more editorial magazine grid — and each can be further customized through the theme options panel. For bloggers who get bored of static designs or rebrand periodically, that kind of structural flexibility has genuine practical value.
Page Builder & Block Editor Compatibility
CheerUp officially supports both the WordPress Block Editor (Gutenberg) and WPBakery Page Builder, with the author noting dedicated Gutenberg styles. This dual compatibility is significant: it means buyers aren't locked into a legacy drag-and-drop workflow, and those building on newer WordPress installs (the theme is tested up to WordPress 7.0.x) can use native blocks with confidence. WPML compatibility also makes it viable for multilingual blogs, which is relevant for travel and international lifestyle content.
WooCommerce Integration
Built-in WooCommerce support — tested across versions 5.x through 7.x — means food bloggers can sell cookbooks or recipe cards, and fashion bloggers can add a shop without bolting on a separate storefront theme. The integration is noted as built-in rather than an afterthought, which generally means layout consistency between editorial and shop pages.
Retina-Ready Responsive Design
The theme is fully responsive and retina-ready, which in 2024 is table stakes rather than a differentiator — but it's worth confirming, particularly for food and travel blogs where high-resolution photography is central to the reader experience. CheerUp's minimal aesthetic is designed to let imagery breathe, which suits those content categories well.
Pricing and Value Assessment
At $69 one-time, CheerUp sits at the upper-middle tier for a niche blog theme. You're paying for ThemeSphere's accumulated update history — the theme has been maintained through years of WordPress releases and carries support into WordPress 7.0.x — plus the breadth of layout options and the bundled WPBakery license value. Compared to a page builder framework theme at a similar price, CheerUp offers a more opinionated, style-forward starting point, which saves time for buyers who already know their niche.
The one-time license model is buyer-friendly, though it's worth noting that extended or renewed support after the initial support period would require an additional purchase on Envato, as is standard for ThemeForest products.
Reading the Sales and Rating Data
Nearly 9,800 sales and a 4.79 out of 5 rating from 154 verified buyers is a meaningful signal. The rating count is moderate rather than massive — some blockbuster themes carry thousands of reviews — but the score's consistency suggests buyers who do purchase are largely satisfied. The most recent author update was August 2024, confirming active maintenance rather than an abandoned product. For a theme in the personal blog category, where buyers often aren't enterprise developers managing update pipelines, active author support carries real weight.
Who Should Look Elsewhere
CheerUp is not designed for complex editorial operations or news-style publications that need heavy custom post type management, advanced ad placement systems, or newsroom workflows. Buyers building a WooCommerce-first store — where the shop is the primary experience rather than a supplement to content — would be better served by a dedicated e-commerce theme. Similarly, developers building highly bespoke sites may find the theme's design opinions constraining once they push beyond the included layout combinations. If your primary need is a full-site editing (FSE) block theme built entirely on the native WordPress site editor, CheerUp's WPBakery dependency may feel like legacy overhead, even if Gutenberg support is present.
Finally, buyers who want a large, active community forum or video tutorial library should verify what ThemeSphere's support documentation covers before purchasing; the theme is noted as well-documented, but the depth of that documentation relative to competitors is worth checking during the trial period.
Our Editorial Assessment
CheerUp earns its place as one of the more reliable choices in the personal blog and lifestyle magazine segment. Its combination of aesthetic care, sustained updates, and genuine layout variety gives it staying power beyond a first-launch setup. The $69 price is reasonable for the feature set, and the buyer satisfaction data backs up ThemeSphere's execution. It is not the leanest or most cutting-edge option available, but for a content-first blogger who wants a theme that works and looks good doing it, CheerUp is a well-considered choice.
The trade-offs
What works, what to weigh
What works
- Nearly 9,800 sales and a 4.79/5 rating signal consistent buyer satisfaction and a mature, tested product.
- Active maintenance through WordPress 7.0.x confirms ThemeSphere keeps pace with core updates.
- Dual page builder support (Block Editor + WPBakery) gives buyers flexibility without forcing a workflow.
- Built-in WooCommerce compatibility (v5–7) lets bloggers add a shop without a separate theme.
- Broad layout variety — 14 demo designs and a modular system — suits bloggers who rebrand or refresh over time.
- WPML compatibility makes it a workable option for multilingual food, travel, or lifestyle blogs.
What to weigh
- Bundling WPBakery alongside Gutenberg adds legacy overhead for buyers who want a fully modern, FSE-based workflow.
- At $69, initial support is time-limited; renewing extended support on Envato costs extra, as with all ThemeForest products.
- The breadth of use cases means the theme lacks the laser focus of a purpose-built niche theme for, say, recipe blogs.
- Sales volume (~9,800) and review count (154) are solid but modest compared to top-tier multipurpose themes, so the community forum and third-party tutorial ecosystem is smaller.
Signal by signal
Editorial scorecard
Strongest: design
Watch: features
Scores are our editorial team’s assessment from marketplace data, feature scope and update history — independent of the affiliate relationship.
Questions, answered
Frequently asked
Is CheerUp compatible with the latest version of WordPress?
Yes. The marketplace metadata lists compatibility all the way up to WordPress 7.0.x, and the theme was last updated by ThemeSphere in August 2024, which signals active maintenance. It also supports the Block Editor (Gutenberg), so you can build pages without a third-party plugin if you prefer. Buyers on older installs back to WordPress 4.9.x are covered as well.
Do I need WPBakery Page Builder, or does CheerUp work without it?
CheerUp lists WPBakery Page Builder as a compatible plugin, but it also natively supports the WordPress Block Editor, so WPBakery is optional rather than required. If you already own a WPBakery license you can use it; if not, you can rely entirely on Gutenberg blocks. Keep in mind that WPBakery is a separate purchase and not bundled with the $69 theme license.
Can I add an online shop or sell products through CheerUp?
CheerUp includes built-in WooCommerce support and is tested with WooCommerce versions 5.x through 7.x. That makes it practical for bloggers who want to sell a small range of products — cookbooks, presets, or merchandise — alongside their content. However, our review notes that buyers whose primary goal is a full e-commerce storefront should weigh dedicated shop themes, as CheerUp is designed around content-first blogging.
How beginner-friendly is CheerUp for someone with little WordPress experience?
ThemeSphere marks CheerUp as "Well Documented," and the 14 pre-made demo designs give newcomers a concrete starting point rather than a blank canvas. The responsive layout and Block Editor support reduce the need for custom coding. That said, the author's description highlights over 1,000 layout combinations, so the options can feel overwhelming at first — new users should expect a learning curve when moving beyond the default demos.
Is the $69 price a one-time fee, or will I face recurring costs?
The $69 license is a one-time purchase on the marketplace, with no mandatory annual renewal fee to keep using the theme. However, marketplace standard terms typically tie ongoing updates and author support to an active support period; extended support beyond that window is an additional cost at renewal. The core theme files remain yours to use indefinitely even if you choose not to renew support.
How reliable is CheerUp based on its sales and review history?
With just under 10,000 sales and a 4.79-out-of-5 rating across 154 verified buyer reviews, CheerUp has a strong track record for a personal-blog theme. High ratings at that sales volume suggest consistent quality and responsive support rather than a spike from a small sample. An August 2024 update confirms the theme is not abandoned, though buyers should always check the changelog for how recently core compatibility issues have been addressed.
Our verdict
CheerUp is a well-maintained, design-forward WordPress theme that delivers genuine value for food, travel, lifestyle, and fashion bloggers who want a polished look without custom development. The combination of active updates, flexible layouts, and built-in WooCommerce support makes the $69 one-time price reasonable. Our editorial team recommends it most confidently to individual content creators and small editorial teams building content-first blogs or light magazine sites. Buyers who need a dedicated e-commerce experience or a fully FSE-native theme should evaluate alternatives first.
Topics & features
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About the author
ThemeSphere has been selling WordPress themes on Envato since August 2013, accumulating over 37,000 sales across a focused catalog. Their work centers on content-heavy sites — news portals, magazines, and food blogs — with SmartMag and CheerUp as their two flagship products. Our editorial team has reviewed both themes independently to help you decide whether this studio is the right fit for your project.
- Reviewed by us
- 2 themes
- Avg editorial score
- 8.6/10
- Marketplace sales
- 37K
- Selling since
- 2013
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