I am actually saving money being a $500 customer at iThemes.

I belong to quite a few major theme 'clubs' and membership programs and when I want a modification made, I can do it myself 99.5% of the time with the wealth of information given to me at the support forum at iThemes. I've only *once* broke down and paid a programmer for a theme mod at iThemes (and it was well worth it).

On the other forums, they will only answer your questions to a point and then many times I am dropped with no more response and I end up putting out $50 - $100 a pop for custom programming (and you know what? No matter whose theme it is, I have a favorite programmer at iThemes that I contact first).

At the end of the year, I add up the membership and then the extra programming $$$ and it works out just fine (yes, I should just get myself some programming knowlege).