Anything not answered here, email [email protected]and I will add it.
Yes. One payment covers unlimited personal and client projects. Build a site for a client, charge them for it, keep using the theme on the next one. The only thing you cannot do is resell or redistribute the theme itself.
To use the paid Astro themes, yes, a little. You need to be comfortable running a build and editing JSON and HTML. They are made for developers and freelancers. The free Lite versions are plain HTML and CSS with no build step, so a confident beginner can edit one by opening index.html and changing the words.
All the content sits in JSON files rather than being buried in markup. Point a free git based CMS at that folder, Decap or Pages CMS, and the client gets a browser interface for their own hours, prices and photos. Each theme's README has the steps.
The free Lite is the home page of the theme as a single HTML file: same design, no build step, one colour pack. The paid theme is the full multi page site with the JSON data layer, all four colour packs and a switcher, and the working parts for that trade, such as the class timetable, the tap to book price list or the RSVP.
No, and you should not ship them. Demo photography is Unsplash and Pexels placeholder imagery, credited in an image credits file in every theme, there so the demo looks like a real business. Replace it with the client's own photography before the site goes live.
Yes, updates to a theme you have bought are included, with no renewal. Buying The Local Pack includes future updates to all twelve themes in it.
The twelve local business themes, for £99. Bought one at a time they come to £255. The two wedding themes are not in it and are sold separately, because a private one off wedding site is a different job from a shopfront that has to bring in custom week after week.
Astro 7 and vanilla CSS. One stylesheet, no Tailwind, no React, no build time dependencies beyond Astro itself. They compile to plain static files you can host free on Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare or GitHub Pages.
Yes, that is a deliberate design constraint. Every section is built to look finished with the amount a real small business actually has: one testimonial, four photographs, three rooms, six products. Nothing here needs mega corporation content volume to stop looking broken.
Twelve of the fourteen ship with four curated colour packs and a one click switcher that remembers the visitor's choice. CRU and Forever are the two oldest and ship in their single designed palette. Either way the colours are CSS custom properties, so changing the tokens in one place restyles the whole site.
Yes. Every paid theme has a free Lite version with its own live demo and its own public GitHub repository. It is the same design and the same code, so you can see exactly what you are getting.
Mike Smith, a freelance designer and developer in London, ten years in, design and build with one set of hands. The themes come out of that client work rather than from a theme factory.