Build the best classified ads website on the fly. A turn-key solution for the novice users and professionals as well. Create a classified website in less than 1 hour.
If you want to build a classified ads website the way Craigslist, Kijiji, Gumtree and OLX did — but on WordPress, without writing a single line of code — this is the theme for you. ClassifiedTheme is an all-in-one classifieds and directory platform: unlimited categories and custom fields, rich image galleries, location and radius search, private messaging, ratings, and full monetization with multiple payment gateways. Everything ships inside one theme, so there is no required companion plugin and nothing extra to buy to get a working marketplace online.
A feature set built for real classifieds sites — from a single-niche directory to a country-wide marketplace with thousands of daily ads.
Create category trees to any depth and add unlimited custom fields per category — selects, ranges, units, dates, prices and more. Fields automatically power the post form, the listing page and the search facets.
Filter by keyword, category, price, condition and every custom field, with results on a synced map. Location and radius search lets buyers find ads "near me" within any distance.
Drag-and-drop multi-image upload with reordering, a swipeable lightbox, responsive sizes and optional EXIF/GPS stripping. Add YouTube or Vimeo video ads too.
Buyers and sellers chat through a themed inbox with offers, read receipts and contact-info protection so personal details stay private and the platform stays moderatable.
Charge for featured ads, paid packages, bumps and membership subscriptions. Stripe and PayPal are built in, with a clean gateway layer for Paystack, Payfast, Mollie and more.
Five-star seller ratings, written reviews, verified badges, report flows and a moderation queue keep your marketplace trustworthy and spam-free.
Sellers manage ads, favorites, saved searches, messages and payments from a polished dashboard. Admins run the whole site — categories, fields, pricing and analytics — from themed screens.
A secure REST API exposes listings, categories, fields, search and messaging so you can power native iOS and Android apps from the same backend.
Fully translatable with RTL support, multi-currency display, schema.org structured data, clean URLs and an XML sitemap so your ads rank in Google.
Click through the core building blocks of your classified ads website.
Define exactly what each category needs. A car ad asks for make, model, year, mileage and fuel type; a property ad asks for bedrooms, bathrooms and square footage; a job ad asks for salary and contract type. Mark any field as filterable and it instantly becomes a search facet — no developer required. Conditional logic shows fields only when relevant (for example, mileage only appears when the condition is "used").
Custom Fields — included, no add-ons.
Upload and activate ClassifiedTheme on any WordPress site. Demo data and starter categories import in one click.
Build your category tree and add the custom fields each one needs — all from the admin, no code.
Choose free limits, package prices, featured fees and membership plans, then connect Stripe or PayPal.
Open registration, let members post ads, and watch revenue roll in from featured listings and memberships.
People search for the same thing under many names. Here’s how ClassifiedTheme covers every one of them.
You don’t need one. A classifieds plugin only adds listing functionality — you still have to find a theme that styles it, wire the two together, and hope updates on either side don’t break the site. ClassifiedTheme replaces the whole plugin-plus-theme stack: listings, custom fields, search, messaging, ratings and payments are native to the theme. One install, one update channel, one support team — and no plugin licence renewals.
A plain HTML classifieds template gives you the look of a marketplace with none of the machinery — no user accounts, no ad submission, no payments. ClassifiedTheme includes the polished, mobile-first template layer (homepage, listing grids, single-ad pages, dashboards) and the working application behind it. Import the demo and your “template” is a functioning site from day one.
Standalone PHP classified ads scripts and hosted classifieds CMS platforms either lock you into monthly fees or leave you maintaining an obscure codebase alone. Built on WordPress — the CMS behind over 40% of the web — ClassifiedTheme gives you modern classifieds software with a one-time licence, thousands of compatible plugins and hosts, and a platform any WordPress freelancer can work on. It’s the affordable route that doesn’t look or feel cheap.
If you like the point-and-click simplicity of a website builder but want to own your site and data, this is the middle path: install the theme, click through the setup, and build your classifieds website from the WordPress admin — categories, custom fields, pricing and pages — without touching code. Unlike a hosted builder, there’s no monthly fee and no platform that can shut your marketplace down.
A huge share of our customers use ClassifiedTheme as a Craigslist clone for WordPress: city- or region-based general classifieds with free posting, simple category browsing and optional paid upgrades — the exact model that made Craigslist a household name, but with a modern design, mobile apps via the REST API, and monetization Craigslist never offered. Follow our step-by-step guide to build a Craigslist-style website, or open the live demo to see the clone layout in action.
Get the complete classifieds platform for a one-time license — no monthly software fees, no required add-ons. Includes the full theme, documentation, updates and support.
Always buy from sitemile.com — "nulled" copies from GPL sites ship without updates or support and often contain malware.
One flexible theme powers dozens of business models. Here are just a few of the sites people build with it.
A cars-and-trucks portal with make/model/year filters and dealer storefronts.
Property rentals and sales with bedroom, price and map-radius search.
Post jobs and gigs with salary fields, applications and featured employer listings.
A Craigslist-style site for everything: electronics, furniture, free stuff and more.
Pets, services, events or any vertical with its own custom fields and pricing.
Paid business listings with storefronts, reviews and membership tiers.
New to running a classifieds business? We’ve written detailed, honest guides on every part of it: how to create a classified ads website step by step, how classifieds software and scripts compare, what to expect from free and open-source classifieds scripts, how to build a Craigslist-style site, and whether you can really make money with classified ads. The theme on this page is the platform those guides are built around — and if you ever need more than the theme offers, our team provides custom WordPress development too.
“I launched a regional car marketplace in a weekend. The custom fields and radius search are exactly what buyers expect.”
“The monetization options paid for themselves in the first month. Featured ads and memberships just work.”
“Best classified ads theme I have tried — no extra plugins, fast support, and the mobile API let us ship an app.”
ClassifiedTheme is purpose-built for exactly this. Unlike a general-purpose theme bolted onto a directory plugin, it ships with the complete classifieds stack — custom fields, categories, image galleries, radius search, messaging, ratings and multi-gateway payments — in a single package. That means fewer moving parts, faster pages and one place to get support.
With ClassifiedTheme, the theme alone is enough. A typical build stacks a classifieds plugin on top of a separate theme and then patches the seams between them; here the listing engine, custom fields, search, messaging and payments are all part of the theme itself. You get the same functionality people look for in a WordPress classified ads plugin — with fewer updates to juggle, better performance and a single support channel.
No. The theme is all-in-one, so a fully functional classifieds marketplace runs with no required companion plugin. Optional integrations such as WooCommerce or a page builder are supported but never mandatory, which keeps your site lean and easy to maintain.
Yes. From the admin you can build category trees to any depth and attach unlimited custom fields to each category — text, numbers with units, selects, ranges, dates, prices and more. Any field marked "filterable" automatically appears as a search facet, and conditional logic can show fields only when they are relevant.
Four steps: get WordPress hosting and a domain, install ClassifiedTheme and import the one-click demo data, set up your categories, custom fields and pricing from the admin, then connect Stripe or PayPal and go live. Most owners are online in under an hour. For the full walkthrough, see our free guide on creating a classified ads website in 45 minutes.
You can charge for featured ads, paid listing packages, bump-to-top upgrades and recurring membership subscriptions, and set free-posting limits or category-based pricing. Stripe and PayPal are built in, pricing is calculated securely on the server, and every transaction is logged with coupons, refunds and webhooks handled for you.
Absolutely. Buyers can search by address or postcode within a chosen radius, use one-click "near me" geolocation, and view results on an interactive map synced with the listing grid. They can also save searches and receive email alerts when new matching ads are posted.
Yes. It outputs schema.org structured data for listings, OpenGraph and Twitter cards for social sharing, clean human-readable URLs, category and location landing pages, and an XML sitemap — all the on-page signals search engines use to rank classified ads.
Yes. On-site messaging lets users chat and make offers without revealing phone numbers or emails, with optional contact-info scrubbing, rate limiting, blocking, reporting and admin moderation to keep your marketplace safe.
It includes a secure REST API exposing listings, categories, custom fields, search and messaging, so you can power native iOS and Android apps — or any third-party client — from the same WordPress backend.
Yes — it is one of the most popular uses. Set up city or region categories, allow free posting with optional paid upgrades, and you have a modern Craigslist-style classifieds site on WordPress, complete with mobile-friendly design, on-site messaging and monetization Craigslist itself never offered. We publish a step-by-step Craigslist clone guide on our blog.
Standalone classified ads scripts and hosted classifieds CMS platforms mean either recurring monthly fees or maintaining a niche codebase on your own. ClassifiedTheme runs on WordPress, so you get affordable, modern classifieds software for a one-time price, plus the entire WordPress ecosystem: any host, thousands of plugins, and millions of developers who can work on your site. Updates and support come directly from our team.
Every string is translatable and the design is fully RTL-safe for languages such as Arabic and Hebrew, with multi-currency display for international marketplaces.
There is no free or lite version — the full theme is a one-time purchase that includes updates and support. You can, however, explore every feature in the front-end live demo before buying. Avoid "free" or nulled downloads from GPL sites: they ship without updates or support and frequently contain malware that will get a marketplace blacklisted.
Just a WordPress hosting account running PHP 8.1 or newer. Install the theme, import the demo data, set up your categories and pricing, and you can have a polished classified ads website live in under an hour.
Many of our customers switched from other classified themes. ClassifiedTheme ships with more built-in functionality — payments, messaging, radius search, custom fields — without plugin dependencies, plus direct support from the development team behind it. Try the live demo and compare for yourself.
Join 60,000+ owners who chose the fastest way to launch a profitable classifieds marketplace on WordPress. Try the live demo, then get the theme and go live in an hour.
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