WHMCS Price Increase - Good News for Blesta

[austenite]

Hopefully this will kickstart businesses looking for cheaper and/or better solutions, this was originally posted at http://blog.whmcs.com/?t=119034

TLDR; If you manage under 250 active clients in your WHMCS installation, nothing is changing.

To our valued customers,

At WHMCS, we are dedicated to providing our customers with the best web hosting automation platform on the market.

We don't take any change to our pricing model lightly, and we don't take our customers for granted. But we do want to continue improving WHMCS, investing in the product to make it more powerful and deliver a better experience to you.

As a result, we are introducing a tiered pricing structure that more accurately reflects the value users get from the product. The tiered pricing is modest and designed to reflect the business value of our product relative to your success. When you grow, WHMCS grows with you.

Here's how the WHMCS pricing model will look going forward:

• Up to 250 Clients $15.95/mo (Branded)
• Up to 250 Clients $18.95/mo (No Branding)
• Up to 1000 Clients $24.95/mo (No Branding)
• Over 1000 Clients $39.95/mo (No Branding)

In summary, if you manage under 250 active customers, your price is not changing. If you manage between 251 and 1000 active customers, your price will increase to $24.95/mo. And if you manage 1001 or more active customers, your price will increase to $39.95/mo.

The new pricing will take effect for new subscriptions from today, but for existing subscriptions, nothing is changing today - we are giving existing customers a 6 month grace period for their existing subscriptions: new pricing will not take effect before April 2017. As a current WHMCS customer, we wanted to keep you informed about the change.

We sincerely appreciate your business and look forward to continuing to deliver the most flexible and feature full solution for your business.

For more information about these changes, see our FAQ

An email is being sent to all users directly affected by this change.

 

Posted by Matt on Monday, October 3rd, 2016

[Michael]

Loving it, it has really made my year so much better lol. What will they update next? owned license prices?

[Daniel B]

3 hours ago, Licensecart said:

Loving it, it has really made my year so much better lol. What will they update next? owned license prices?

From what I can see and what I've read, it looks like they completely removed the option for owned licenses.  There is also a new"WHMCS Hosted Coming Soon" on their pricing page.

[Michael]

15 minutes ago, Daniel B said:

From what I can see and what I've read, it looks like they completely removed the option for owned licenses.  There is also a new"WHMCS Hosted Coming Soon" on their pricing page.

yeah with no quota's so it could be less for the higher price or worse and lol with their history would be a big risk for anyone.

[Rocketz]

I swear, history keeps repeating itself. This is the same thing Modernbill tried to pull years ago, and 2 years later they lost their entire market share. Well this, and just other bad development decisions. 

funny, because it's that act that created room for WHMCS. 

[Rocketz]

In other words to Paul and company : DON'T MISS THIS BOAT. this is a gift to you guys, take advantage of it

 

[Abdy]

This is a great opportunity for Blesta to kill WHMCS with Blesta 4.0.

[Joseph H]

History has a way of repeating it's self.... 

[Paul]

I expected this, but I didn't think they would move toward a per-client pricing model and drop owned licenses. People really don't like that pricing model.. but the worst part of it is this: If you use WHMCS, they know how many customers you have. They know what modules you're using. They are collecting that data. How will they use it? Maybe cPanel will market to hosting providers using WHMCS that don't yet use cPanel. If the information gets out, how will someone else use it? Something to think about.

[Rocketz]

Right, it's a good time to really market the privacy aspect of Blesta. But we go back to what you guys need to do to grow into the hosting industry, feature-wise. Maybe re-prioritize some stuff? Up to you, but there's a lot you guys can do to take advantage of this. 

If my competitor did this for me, I'd be dancing all night, and then work on removing them from the picture  

Maybe a good time to talk to 3rd party developers, pay to integrate their modules directly into Blesta, making migrations from WHMCS a lot easier, a less costly and complicated process. At least to grow it quickly while you have all eyes on you

[Michael]

PMSL a competitor who tried to compete has gone open source: https://whsuite.com/ so it's coming up roses now.

[ExpertIntegrations]

15 hours ago, Paul said:

I expected this, but I didn't think they would move toward a per-client pricing model and drop owned licenses. People really don't like that pricing model.. but the worst part of it is this: If you use WHMCS, they know how many customers you have. They know what modules you're using. They are collecting that data. How will they use it? Maybe cPanel will market to hosting providers using WHMCS that don't yet use cPanel. If the information gets out, how will someone else use it? Something to think about.

 

This is a great point that you pointed out paul,  & honestly I had no idea this much data was being collected & stored. & I am sure there is others out there that didn't know this as well.  It sure does give me something to think about, that's for sure.

[ariq01]

@Licensecart how about update this news on whmcs.rip too ?

[Michael]

4 minutes ago, ariq01 said:

@Licensecart how about update this news on whmcs.rip too ?

haha I need too got a lot of pictures too of them deleting comments.

[Abdy]

[CyberHour]

6 hours ago, Licensecart said:

PMSL a competitor who tried to compete has gone open source: https://whsuite.com/ so it's coming up roses now.

As an Open source fan I can just welcome their decision. We have test WHsuite and would be greate alternative of any free billing platforms.

 

[Blesta Addons]

4 hours ago, CyberHour said:

As an Open source fan I can just welcome their decision. We have test WHsuite and would be greate alternative of any free billing platforms.

 

i love the Routing system they have , they use Aura . why not blesta use it ?

 

[Paul]

11 minutes ago, naja7host said:

i love the Routing system they have , they use Aura . why not blesta use it ?

 

Looks like it's fairly new, and has a PHP 5.5+ requirement. Looks good though

[Altegras]

On 03.10.2016 at 8:57 PM, AnthonyL said:

I swear, history keeps repeating itself. This is the same thing Modernbill tried to pull years ago, and 2 years later they lost their entire market share. Well this, and just other bad development decisions. 

funny, because it's that act that created room for WHMCS. 

Well, I saw this coming from a year ago ... expected it a little bit different tho. If they would price increase just for version 7 of the product, it would have seemed fairer but anyway. Blesta and other billing systems will get their cut of this whmcs bad practice, that's for sure ... but how do we know that Blesta won't do the same in the future ? We won't! Can we put our trust in the product ? That's some questions that needs to be answered by clients. 

We got 6 whmcs installations which we're willing to move, I've read most of the documentation and the project seems to be developer oriented (which is awesome for me) and I hope they'll keep it that way! Making a product "newbie" friendly with a ton of features (which on daily basis you only use a fraction) implies (possible) security risks which we're not willing to take (this happend to whmcs) - let's hope we won't see a rush for updates & features from blesta. We need a stable piece of software that works ... 

 

 

On 03.10.2016 at 9:05 PM, AnthonyL said:

In other words to Paul and company : DON'T MISS THIS BOAT. this is a gift to you guys, take advantage of it

 

Yes but not by discounts, a hoster doesn't need discounts for migration to blesta ... it needs support and trust in the product & management, switching billing systems is NOT like a walk in the park, it's hard labor which implies a ton of documentation, support, todo's and resources. 

[Michael]

31 minutes ago, Altegras said:

Well, I saw this coming from a year ago ... expected it a little bit different tho. If they would price increase just for version 7 of the product, it would have seemed fairer but anyway. Blesta and other billing systems will get their cut of this whmcs bad practice, that's for sure ... but how do we know that Blesta won't do the same in the future ? We won't! Can we put our trust in the product ? That's some questions that needs to be answered by clients. 

We got 6 whmcs installations which we're willing to move, I've read most of the documentation and the project seems to be developer oriented (which is awesome for me) and I hope they'll keep it that way! Making a product "newbie" friendly with a ton of features (which on daily basis you only use a fraction) implies (possible) security risks which we're not willing to take (this happend to whmcs) - let's hope we won't see a rush for updates & features from blesta. We need a stable piece of software that works ... 

 

 

Yes but not by discounts, a hoster doesn't need discounts for migration to blesta ... it needs support and trust in the product & management, switching billing systems is NOT like a walk in the park, it's hard labor which implies a ton of documentation, support, todo's and resources. 

Blesta puts their customers and security first, the only thing I can see changing if that was to happen would be the lifetime license which is too cheap to be fair unlimited updates for life for $500. But other than that I dowt they would change the other prices, I would eat my boxers and socks if that ever happens, which it won't but I'm that confident in Blesta.

[Paul]

7 hours ago, Altegras said:

Well, I saw this coming from a year ago ... expected it a little bit different tho. If they would price increase just for version 7 of the product, it would have seemed fairer but anyway. Blesta and other billing systems will get their cut of this whmcs bad practice, that's for sure ... but how do we know that Blesta won't do the same in the future ? We won't! Can we put our trust in the product ? That's some questions that needs to be answered by clients. 

We have no plans whatsoever to go to a per-client billing model. I just don't see that ever happening, I'm not a fan of the model. In theory it sounds great and fair, but in reality it only works for SaaS.

6 hours ago, Licensecart said:

Blesta puts their customers and security first, the only thing I can see changing if that was to happen would be the lifetime license which is too cheap to be fair unlimited updates for life for $500. But other than that I dowt they would change the other prices, I would eat my boxers and socks if that ever happens, which it won't but I'm that confident in Blesta.

The Lifetime license is certainly the most likely to get a price hike. Because it comes with updates forever, we have to be careful about how many we sell. That said, no company will ever say they will never raise prices. Inflation alone makes that impossible to promise. But, if you look at our record you'll see that we have never raised prices, and if we did, we certainly wouldn't raise them by 200% overnight.

[mrrsm]

36 minutes ago, Paul said:

The Lifetime license is certainly the most likely to get a price hike. Because it comes with updates forever, we have to be careful about how many we sell.

I agree, $500 is crazy cheap for a lifetime license.  $700-$800 is where I would expect it to be price wise.  Anyone who is doing serious business will most likely keep their billing system around for way more than 5 years which would be the current break even between an owned unbranded and an owned lifetime.  In my opinion a 10-12 year break even point makes more sense to me but I would need to feel very strongly that the company will continue on for that long and has a good history behind them.  I believe Blesta is getting to that point where they have a solid history, albeit a bit slow at times, of new versions/features/and bugfixes and a strong roadmap which makes me think they will do well in the market and be around for many more years.

 

50 minutes ago, Paul said:

We have no plans whatsoever to go to a per-client billing model. I just don't see that ever happening, I'm not a fan of the model. In theory it sounds great and fair, but in reality it only works for SaaS.

I agree 100%, if I am hosting the software nothing in the software changes regardless of the amount of users I have.  Only the server requirements change.  If they are hosting it for me I would be ok with them charging me per user.  However I am not even sure how safe I would feel letting another entity control my billing platform as that is the lifeline for me to bring in income. 

[Rocketz]

I really think Blesta should raise the prices a little bit. Keep the same model, but for 4.0, do some math and see what 1 extra dollar per month would mean for you guys, or $10 more per year of updates. If it means being able to expand the team, or purchase others' work, it could be worth it. I'm not big on actuarial math, but i don't think any current customers would leave over a modest price increase if you showed them what that price increase will offer in return. 

A billing system should not be priced like a commodity. 

Full disclosure : this is coming from someone who's likely upgrading to lifetime license so it won't really affect me. I noticed it for the first time when it was discussed in this thread  

[timnboys]

4 hours ago, AnthonyL said:

I really think Blesta should raise the prices a little bit. Keep the same model, but for 4.0, do some math and see what 1 extra dollar per month would mean for you guys, or $10 more per year of updates. If it means being able to expand the team, or purchase others' work, it could be worth it. I'm not big on actuarial math, but i don't think any current customers would leave over a modest price increase if you showed them what that price increase will offer in return. 

A billing system should not be priced like a commodity. 

Full disclosure : this is coming from someone who's likely upgrading to lifetime license so it won't really affect me. I noticed it for the first time when it was discussed in this thread  

This is also coming from a guy that asks developers for code audits each time lol 

[mrrsm]

6 minutes ago, timnboys said:

This is also coming from a guy that asks developers for code audits each time lol 

Blesta being mostly viewable source means one can audit it and see the design practices they used and feel good about what I am using.  Personally, when I am putting someone else's code into something (a plugin or module) I believe is safe (Blesta) I prefer to have the knowledge that it is secure as well.  Asking for a code audit on encoded software isn't that unreasonable of a request, especially if you are buying from a non-seasoned company/developer who doesn't have a large reputation and long history.

As a developer you can easily say no to his audit request and lose out on him/her as a customer.  There is nothing wrong with going down that route but until you have a solid reputation it can be helpful to have someone vouch for you, in this case via a code audit.