Looking for the best theme to upgrade your Shopify store with and feeling overwhelmed with the many choices out there?
Look no more! In this Flex Vs. Turbo theme comparison, I will show you the differences between the two best Out of the Sandbox themes, and which one to choose based on your store, niche, skills & budget.
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Update: There’s currently a 10% discount using the code JUDEH10 at the checkout page when you go through this link to purchase the Turbo Theme, or through this link to purchase the Flex Theme.
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I will be comparing both themes based on TEN different points that are related to flexibility, features, prices, support, testimonials and more.
So, without further ado, let’s start:
Shopify Flex Vs. Turbo Theme Comparison: 10 Points To Decide Which Is Better
1 – Changing Layout
Both Flex & Turbo by Out of the Sandbox are great themes, and each one of them comes with different ready-to-use templates that fit certain niches or industries and each one comes with a specific store front or layout that you can customize by changing some elements like the colours, fonts, images, …etc.
However, Flex theme beats the Turbo theme by the fact that the same theme comes with three different layouts that you can easily switch between them.
This means that you can decide the location of the menu whether you want it to appear in the left sidebar or in the top menu, and you can also change the location of the logo or the store’s name whether to be in the top left corner or in the middle of the upper menu.
While with Turbo, each template comes with a certain layout that you can change parts of it such as the colours, fonts, styles, but not the whole layout.
2 – Customization
As I mentioned earlier, both allow for further customization on the general look of all pages on the store such as: front page, category/collection page, product page, blog, ….etc. by changing colors, font style and size, main elements on the home page, …etc.
And these changes can be easily done through the front end editor without any coding skills, and therefore, can be easily changed again.
But these changes come within certain limits that were set by the developers.
Or you can change the main specs or functions outside what the front editor allows you to do, then you can do that through changing the theme code, but you need technical knowledge in coding.
However, once again, Flex gives you more convenience by allowing you to easily do custom CSS edits through the front end editor interface, which still needs some coding knowledge and experience, but at the same time, it will save you lots of time by being able to do these changes through the front-end editor without having to log into the theme code.
As you can see in this screenshot:
3 – Available Templates
Both Shopify themes, Turbo and Flex, offer you a set of pre-designed templates that are designed for stores in certain industries, and you can choose any of these when you first buy the theme.
Turbo theme offers six different layouts to choose from and these are:
- Portland – Fitness, yoga, health & wellness related niches.
- Florence – Jewels, luxury watches & accessories related niches.
- Dubai – Luxury items such as bangle bracelets, handbags, …etc.
- Seoul – Suitable Shopify stores designed for selling electronic products and accessories.
- Chicago – Good for stores that sell print on demand products, music, tech gear, …etc.
- Tennessee – Suitable for online stores selling glassware, kitchen apparatus, cutlery, …etc.
However, Flex theme comes with more options, and specifically, thirteen different templates, each for Shopify stores in certain niches or markets as follows:
- Swagger for selling sustainable and green products.
- Studio for selling art works.
- Nourish for snacks.
- Flora for plants.
- Fresh for natural products.
- Wink for glasses & eyewear.
- Moda for fashion items.
- Trending for clothes.
- Techno for technology, electronics and for one product based stores.
- Glow for cosmetics and Beauty products.
- Emporium for Home Decor & Lifestyle.
- Luxe for Jewelry.
- Bloom for selling CBD oils and relevant products.
Which one between Turbo and Flex theme templates to choose depends on the niche you are in and on the products you want to sell.
4 – Features/Addon’s
Both Shopify themes, Flex and Turbo, offer you lots of functionalities and features without the need to add external 3rd-party apps that would slow down your store.
Some of these features are intended for improving the user experience, increasing the average order value, increase conversion rate, build your email list, …etc.
Some of the main features include, but are not limited to:
- Announcement bar
- Currency converter
- Dropdown menu
- Top bar/top menu
- Mega menu
- Interactive mini cart
- Cart icon options
- Customer login
- Customer testimonials
- Phone number
- Social icons
- Sticky header
And many other features.
Some of these features exist in both themes, and some exist in one of the two.
You can check my detailed Turbo theme review and Flex theme review in order to find a full list of the features and decide which one is better for you.
Overall, Flex theme seems to offer more functionalities and more design and layout flexibility.
5 – Support & Updates
Out of the Sandbox Shopify themes are the best Shopify themes out there when it comes to their quality, ease of use, customizability, flexibility and support.
And the reason for this is the fact that their developer, Out of the Sandbox, is a company that is own by Shopify itself.
This means that every theme they create, will always be the most compatible with Shopify’s requirements, and will be the one that gets the most regular updates.
Both come with free updates.
Both themes, Turbo and Flex theme, come with free updates.
And for the first year, you get free support, and you can use the updater app for free for easy auto updates.
After that, you still get free updates, but you need to apply them manually, or you pay for the updater app if you want auto updates through one of the paid plans that cost $9/month or $79/year and $14/month or $129/year.
The main negative takeaway about the support of Out of the Sandbox themes is that they don’t offer live chat, but you can request support through a ticket submission system where they will answer you with 1-2 days.
6 – Speed & Mobile Optimization
Both Turbo and Flex theme are optimized for speed and of good experience on the mobile phones as many of the sales that happen today happen on the phone screen and you need a responsive and fast loading theme for your Shopify store.
And this, in general, could increase the conversion rate on your store and could help with SEO as Google likes fast loading websites.
7 – Testimonials & User Reviews
Turbo is one of the first Shopify themes to be developed by Out of the Sandbox, and it has the most reviews on their theme store (+175 reviews) with the average rating of 5 stars.
And it is by far the most reputable and trusted theme for Shopify even when compared to 3rd-party themes, while Flex is still relatively new and have fewer reviews on the theme store (17 reviews) with 5 star rating that praise the flexibility, speed and support.
However, because they were developed by the same Shopify owned company, and both are the most expensive Out of the Sandbox themes, then both themes are trustworthy and it is expected that the developer will keep the theme users happy no matter what in order to sell the themes to more people in the future.
8 – Turbo Vs. Flex Theme Pricing
The main downfall of both themes is that there prices are relatively high compared to other Shopify themes.
The cost of one-store license of Turbo theme is $350, and for the Flex theme is $450.
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Update: There’s currently a 10% discount using the code JUDEH10 at the checkout page when you go through this link to purchase the Turbo Theme, or through this link to purchase the Flex Theme.
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However, both themes, Turbo & Flex, come with a free year of the theme updater app, which allows you to update the theme without the need to re-install it.
And, the good thing is that both themes come with a 14-day money back guarantee, which is something that many other themes, especially the ones from independent developers, don’t offer as they are considered digital products.
If you think that the pricing of the two themes is still high, but you still need a theme with good set of features, low price, free updates and 14-day money back guarantee, then you can check out Franklin’s eCom Turbo theme.
9 – Discount
Sometimes, Out of The Sandbox might offer a temporary discount on Flex and Turbo themes that ranges between 10%-20%.
In order to check if there’s a current discount, you can check out the method I explained in my Flex theme review and Turbo theme review.
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Update: There’s currently a 10% discount using the code JUDEH10 at the checkout page when you go through this link to purchase the Turbo Theme, or through this link to purchase the Flex Theme.
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10 – Money Back Guarantee
As I explained earlier, both themes come with a 14-day money back guarantee where you can contact Out of the Sandbox team and they will refund you after making sure that you uninstalled the theme from your store.
So, these were the main ten points that differentiate the Shopify Flex theme from the Shopify Turbo theme.
Conclusion – Which Shopify Theme To Choose, Turbo Or Flex Theme By Out Of The Sandbox?
Both are among the highest converting Shopify themes, and they are almost equal in many points such as the support, updates, speed and user experience, money back guarantee, available templates, …etc.
But Flex theme beats Turbo in the fact that it offers more flexibility in terms of design and layout, while Turbo is less expensive and has more reviews since it was created before Flex.
In my opinion, if you have the budget, then you better go with Flex theme as it offers more flexibility in design and more functionalities.
Click here to read my full Flex theme review and learn how to get the discount.
And if you want to save some bucks, then Turbo is still the most reviewed theme and it also offers lots of features and flexibility.
Click here to read my full Turbo theme review and learn how to get the discount.
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Update: There’s currently a 10% discount using the code JUDEH10 at the checkout page when you go through this link to purchase the Turbo Theme, or through this link to purchase the Flex Theme.
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I hope you enjoyed my comparison of the Shopify Flex Vs. Turbo Themes by Out of the Sandbox.
If you still have questions, or if you have tried any of these themes and you want to share your experience with us, please, write to use in the comments’s section below and I will be coming back to you asap 🙂
Thank you for the above. Do you know whether Flex and Turbo has a feature to add a discount / voucher box on the payment page within the chart?
I have seen they have promotional banners but I couldn’t find whether the voucher / pro box can be added which takes automatically the discount of the final price?
Thx
Hello Oliver,
By default, and regardless of the theme, the discount box will appear on the checkout page where people enter their contact information.
If it doesn’t appear on your store’s checkout page, then probably it’s because you don’t have any discount code created yet. Try to create one, and then go through the process of adding product to cart, and then heading to the check out page, and the box should be there.
I hope that helps!
Amjad
Thanks for the useful comparison. What about speed performance between two themes. Turbo appears to be significantly faster than flex in mobile according to https://themestested.com/shopify/speed/mobile.
Thank you Uddd for your important question!
I have also tested many of Shopify stores powered by both, Flex & Turbo themes using the Google Pagespeed Insights tool (https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/), and I found that there are good results for both themes, and there are not-so-good results for both themes as well .
In general, both Flex & Turbo are great when it comes to mobile and speed, however, the results might change from one store to another and from one page to another on the same store for the following main reasons:
A – If you are comparing between a home page, category page, product page, cart page and checkout page on the same store, then the results might vary because of the number and size of images on each page.
B – And when comparing the home pages on different stores that are using even the same theme, you might find different results because of the size of the images.
One image might have a bigger size (in KB-MB), especially if the store owner is just importing the images from somewhere else (AliExpress for example) without compressing and optimizing them).
And if you test the demo stores that are available from Out of the Sandbox for both themes, Turbo and Flex, you will find the the results might be better for both themes compared to testing stores that are build by independent store owners, although they are all hosted on Shopify’s servers.
In order to see it by yourself:
1 – Open the Google Pagespeed Insights tool
2 – Go to the Turbo Theme Store by clicking here and choose one or more of the six theme templates, and then click on the button “Demo” in order to open the demo store that uses that theme, take different pages (home page, category page, different product pages, checkout page) and test each one of them separately and see the results.
3 – Go to the Flex Theme page by clicking here and scroll down to the list of twelve templates and open click on one or more in order to open the demo stores using these templates, and repeat the test for different various pages like explained earlier for Turbo, and see the results.
You will notice that the results are different depending on the number and size of images, whether you are testing a home page, category page, product page, checkout page that has an image or checkout page that doesn’t have an image and so on.
I believe that both are well optimized for mobile and speed, but Flex might be slightly better because it was created later than Turbo, and it offers more flexibility with design and customization.
But in general, you need to take the part of optimizing images before uploading them and minimize the number of Shopify apps you are using.
I hope this answers your question, please, let me know if you need more help!
Amjad
P.s. I realized when I visited the sales pages of both themes that there’s a top-bar that offers %20 discount because of Valentine’s day, make sure to take the deal if you decided on purchasing one of the themes.