Essence
Essence is a Shopify theme by Alloy Themes ($280). Tested on 2026-09-12 with Google Lighthouse via PageSpeed Insights on its own demo store, it scores 82 for mobile speed and 99 for desktop speed, 80/80 for SEO and 86/87 for accessibility (mobile/desktop, 0–100). Those are medians across its 3 tested presets; mobile speed across every tested page ranges from 70 to 92. On its marketplace it is rated 5.0 out of 5 from 8 reviews.
Scores
| Mobile | Desktop | |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | 82 | 99 |
| SEO | 80 | 80 |
| Accessibility | 86 | 87 |
| Best practices | 96 | 92 |
Median of 3 presets · measured 18 times since 2026-09-11 · Lighthouse via PageSpeed Insights · 0–100, 90+ is good.
Why not 100 — Essence home page
Mobile
Speed 84 · 16 points to gain
- −12.3 Largest Contentful Paint medium effort
- −3.5 First Contentful Paint medium effort
- 450 ms Reduce unused JavaScript high effort
- 300 ms Reduce unused CSS high effort
SEO 69 · 31 points to gain
- −7.7 Document does not have a meta description low effort
- −7.7 Links do not have descriptive text low effort
- −7.7 Links are not crawlable medium effort
- −7.7 Image elements do not have `[alt]` attributes low effort
Accessibility 82 · 18 points to gain
- −4.8 Image elements do not have `[alt]` attributes low effort
- −4.8 Form elements do not have associated labels medium effort
- −4.8 `[user-scalable="no"]` is used in the `<meta name="viewport">` element or the `[maximum-scale]` attribute is less than 5. low effort
- −3.3 Background and foreground colors do not have a sufficient contrast ratio. medium effort
Best practices 96 · 4 points to gain
- −3.8 Browser errors were logged to the console medium effort
Desktop
Speed 99 · 1 points to gain
- −0.5 Largest Contentful Paint medium effort
SEO 69 · 31 points to gain
- −7.7 Document does not have a meta description low effort
- −7.7 Links do not have descriptive text low effort
- −7.7 Links are not crawlable medium effort
- −7.7 Image elements do not have `[alt]` attributes low effort
Accessibility 82 · 18 points to gain
- −4.8 Image elements do not have `[alt]` attributes low effort
- −4.8 Form elements do not have associated labels medium effort
- −4.8 `[user-scalable="no"]` is used in the `<meta name="viewport">` element or the `[maximum-scale]` attribute is less than 5. low effort
- −3.3 Background and foreground colors do not have a sufficient contrast ratio. medium effort
Best practices 92 · 8 points to gain
- −3.8 Serves images with low resolution low effort
- −3.8 Browser errors were logged to the console medium effort
Presets and pages
| Preset / page | Speed | SEO | A11y | Speed | SEO | A11y | Tested |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| mobile | desktop | ||||||
| Brio demo ↗ | 87 | 85 | 86 | 93 | 85 | 89 | 2026-09-12 |
| category ↗ | 85 | 77 | 83 | 86 | 77 | 87 | 2026-09-12 |
| home ↗ | 86 | 92 | 87 | 93 | 92 | 92 | 2026-09-12 |
| product ↗ | 89 | 85 | 87 | 100 | 85 | 87 | 2026-09-12 |
| Cadence demo ↗ | 80 | 80 | 86 | 99 | 80 | 87 | 2026-09-12 |
| category ↗ | 92 | 77 | 83 | 99 | 77 | 87 | 2026-09-12 |
| home ↗ | 77 | 77 | 87 | 99 | 77 | 87 | 2026-09-12 |
| product ↗ | 70 | 85 | 87 | 100 | 85 | 87 | 2026-09-12 |
| Essence default demo ↗ | 82 | 77 | 84 | 99 | 77 | 85 | 2026-09-11 |
| category ↗ | 74 | 77 | 83 | 99 | 77 | 87 | 2026-09-12 |
| home ↗ | 84 | 69 | 82 | 99 | 69 | 82 | 2026-09-11 |
| product ↗ | 88 | 85 | 87 | 100 | 85 | 87 | 2026-09-12 |
Show this score on your site
A live badge: it always shows Essence's current score and links back here. Paste this where the theme is sold or documented.
<a href="https://themestested.com/theme/shopify/essence"><img src="https://themestested.com/badge/shopify/essence.svg" alt="Essence speed score on Themestested" height="20"></a>
Add ?device=d for the desktop score, or ?metric=seo / ?metric=a11y for SEO or accessibility.