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WHMCS increasing prices again, alternatives? - Page 4
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WHMCS increasing prices again, alternatives?

124

Comments

  • jackbjackb Member, Host Rep
    edited April 2021

    @HostStage said:

    @default said:
    Maybe it's a conspiracy, and big companies want to control the market.

    It is the same company that does such increase for cPanel / Plesk and WHMCS.
    A venture capitalist group found out about the odd market which is the web hosting industry.
    It took 3 financially very reasonable acquisitions to control such a share of a market. You'll find this opportunity no where else.

    It is clear a violation of AntiTrust laws that should be punishable at least in EU but we are to scattered to make this happen. It may worth to initiate such attempt. Maybe we could join up and create a crowd funded lawyer investigation on this matter to see whether there is a case.
    We are the many, it may work.

    Unfortunately antitrust comes into play for two categories:
    1. Monopolies using their market share to force competitors out
    2. Misuse of public/EU funds

    They won't touch this. There's no monopoly (though certainly the biggest part of the market share in the industry is now owned by that fund), no forcing competitors out, and no public funds are involved.

    If anything, competition is being encouraged by this move.

  • LeeLee Veteran

    @HostStage said: It may worth to initiate such attempt. Maybe we could join up and create a crowd funded lawyer investigation on this matter to see whether there is a case.

    lol, on you go then.

  • MarcoooMarcooo Member, Host Rep
    edited April 2021

    You have a monthly subscription so sadly they have the right to change the price when they want.

  • edited April 2021

    WHMCS is a product best suited for small operations. If you have 10,000+ customers you should be using your own custom solution imo. I wouldn't consider WHMCS for a more enterprisey type business. If they are going after that all I can say is best of luck.

    Btw, I wouldn't consider a custom solution R&D. It's just writing code. You can start with something like Laravel + Laravel Cashier, which has a massive base of coders familiar with it. You can have one person or persons doing the back end in Laravel, you can have another person or persons doing the front end in Vue. Vue.js is big in China so you can have very inexpensive Chinese coders working on that. Separation of concerns is also more secure. Front-end developers would never need full access to the back end and visa versa.

    It doesn't even need to be a totally from-scratch solution. There are already some generic prebuilt solutions ready to go. Such as Laravel Spark. You just need to add in the hooks to the control panel and then the GUI design however you want it. You can also get pre-built themes ready to go.

  • @LosPollosHermanos said: Chinese coders .. visa versa

    Freudian slip?

    Thanked by 1raindog308
  • @Lee said: @lonea said: Small potatoes companies bring the loudest noise but the least income.

    true! agreed!

    Thanked by 1Lee
  • @JasonM said:

    @Lee said: @lonea said: Small potatoes companies bring the loudest noise but the least income.

    true! agreed!

    But they're sweet.

    Thanked by 1Lee
  • if someone would like to sell his owned whmcs license, contact us :)

  • @Internoc24 said:
    if someone would like to sell his owned whmcs license, contact us :)

    People will sell them on eBay and such websites. No need to ask on LET.

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    Why is greed bad anyway?

    Everyone here is here for greed.

  • Internoc24Internoc24 Member
    edited April 2021

    WHMCS has thousands of customers; Maybe it's time we all together AND coordinated to share our opinion on the price increase and the other bad news via ticket. When tens of thousands of tickets flood the system, this should not go unheard!

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited April 2021

    Day 1 was anger. Day 2 more interesting. Anyone else happy for the alternative solutions gaining a significant revenue increase? There’s no way DA didn’t after cPanel started this. Even if it’s split between 2 or 3, it could be enough to launch an alternative into a more senior market position. What cPanel and parent company would toss out today, could be more meaningful gain to someone a fraction of their size.

  • LeeLee Veteran

    @jar said: it could be enough to launch an alternative into a more senior market position.

    Indeed, but let's be honest, doing that just creates the same position over again. When the alternative gets into a strong enough position, they too have the confidence to start reviewing pricing on the basis of 'who else are you going to use now?'

    I know right, DA says they are not going to hike pricing. Once they are in a strong position, with a better-equipped panel and more customers.. We will see.

    Thanked by 1jar
  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    Words are easy to facilitate.

    Actions, not so much.

  • TejyTejy Member

    @Lee said:

    @jar said: it could be enough to launch an alternative into a more senior market position.

    Indeed, but let's be honest, doing that just creates the same position over again. When the alternative gets into a strong enough position, they too have the confidence to start reviewing pricing on the basis of 'who else are you going to use now?'

    I know right, DA says they are not going to hike pricing. Once they are in a strong position, with a better-equipped panel and more customers.. We will see.

    That's exactly what Plesk done with SolusVM, until Webpros bought Plesk and sister companies (including SolusVM).
    I'm pretty confident about Direct Admin, let's see how it will be in few months/years.
    Don't forget that new actors like KeyHelp are going to release their own brand new and innovative panel (in paid version), like KeyHelp Pro.

    Thanked by 1jar
  • JamesFJamesF Member, Host Rep

    I can't decide between clientexec or Blesta

    CE seems to have a working Gocardless plugin to purchase...

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    @Lee said:

    @jar said: it could be enough to launch an alternative into a more senior market position.

    Indeed, but let's be honest, doing that just creates the same position over again. When the alternative gets into a strong enough position, they too have the confidence to start reviewing pricing on the basis of 'who else are you going to use now?'

    I know right, DA says they are not going to hike pricing. Once they are in a strong position, with a better-equipped panel and more customers.. We will see.

    I will not post a philosophical post today. I will not post a philosophical post today. I will not post a philosophical post today.

    This phenomenon repeats itself in nearly every market just with different labels for the players and pieces, there surely must be a word or phrase to describe it besides “stop hiring business focused people and giving them full authority over product focused people.”

    Thanked by 2Tejy Lee
  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    @Internoc24 said: if someone would like to sell his owned whmcs license, contact us

    Not allowed. You can sell the entire account but that may get the account locked down.

    Francisco

  • TejyTejy Member

    @jar said:

    @Lee said:

    @jar said: it could be enough to launch an alternative into a more senior market position.

    Indeed, but let's be honest, doing that just creates the same position over again. When the alternative gets into a strong enough position, they too have the confidence to start reviewing pricing on the basis of 'who else are you going to use now?'

    I know right, DA says they are not going to hike pricing. Once they are in a strong position, with a better-equipped panel and more customers.. We will see.

    I will not post a philosophical post today. I will not post a philosophical post today. I will not post a philosophical post today.

    This phenomenon repeats itself in nearly every market just with different labels for the players and pieces, there surely must be a word or phrase to describe it besides “stop hiring business focused people and giving them full authority over product focused people.”

    Fully agree, that's a life cycle, specially on IT, and software businesses... (:

    @JamesF said:
    I can't decide between clientexec or Blesta

    CE seems to have a working Gocardless plugin to purchase...

    Here is my POV:
    -Today: choose Blesta
    -Once ClientExec 7 will be released: choose ClientExec

    I've used Blesta, and that's a pretty good software, with a robust dev team, but UI/UX isn't optimal.

    I don't know if I'm the only one, but I really don't understand that someone doesn't create a simple and beautiful panel, including billing, support and product management (with complete actions), like @CConner had planned with GameDash.
    Today, for most customers, it makes nonsense to get 2/3 panels, for product management (eg. cPanel), and another one for billing (WHMCS).

    Today, companies like AWS, Oracle, GCP, Digital Ocean, Linode, and even Hetzner, are working on making their customer experience simple and better than ever.
    I'm not asking about each low-end-hosting company to get an unique and amazing panel, but WHMCS seems to be too complex for most of the customers and companies needs. We can see this new pricing model, as a chance for each LowEnd Hosting customer! :)

    Thanked by 1jar
  • LeeLee Veteran

    @jar said: This phenomenon repeats itself in nearly every market just with different labels for the players and pieces

    Indeed, the problem though is the hosting market is running dry of viable options.

    Where do you go after WHMCS? Blesta probably. Where next?
    cPanel > DA > ??

    You know what I mean by viable options, not the 1/2 man team. That is fine for a web hosting company, not for the panel you rely on to provide the service or manage your client's personal data.

    Thanked by 1jar
  • TejyTejy Member
    edited April 2021

    @Lee said:

    @jar said: This phenomenon repeats itself in nearly every market just with different labels for the players and pieces

    Indeed, the problem though is the hosting market is running dry of viable options.

    Where do you go after WHMCS? Blesta probably. Where next?
    cPanel > DA > ??

    You know what I mean by viable options, not the 1/2 man team. That is fine for a web hosting company, not for the panel you rely on to provide the service or manage your client's personal data.

    As a reminder, few years ago, Hostbill was offering a real amazing solution, for the same price as WHMCS (avg 15$). They've also changed their pricing policy.
    Let's launch bets for billing/cust panel:
    Hostbill -> WHMCS -> Blesta -> WiseCP

    For web hosting panel, that's really a complicated market, as 2 main panels are owned by the same parent company. But Plesk haven't changed their pricing model until now...
    And the market seems to be larger than billing/cust panels.
    Let's launch bets for web hosting panels:
    cPanel -> Direct Admin -> ApisCP -> KeyHelp

    KeyHelp and WiseCP are both products that looks incredible, and they have so much potential, but lacks of current features, can be like a hindrance.

  • TGTTGT Member

    I wonder if @hostbillapp @HostBill will start allowing license transfers so folks no longer using their hostbill license can sell them. Now that a lot of smaller host will be looking for other software outside of @WHMCS

  • LeeLee Veteran

    To be honest I see the market evolving further away from the reliance on panels for the majority of potential customers. Years away still but in 5-10 years I don't see your average website owner needing something like cPanel or DirectAdmin.

    Providers like DigitalOcean or that type of cloud provider will provide a simple wizard to create, set up and manage a website, it won't cost any more than your average hosting plan today. It will provide as many options as panels today.

    Consumers want it easier than it is today and it will happen, just not through cPanel/DA.

    Thanked by 1AlwaysSkint
  • TejyTejy Member

    @Lee said:
    To be honest I see the market evolving further away from the reliance on panels for the majority of potential customers. Years away still but in 5-10 years I don't see your average website owner needing something like cPanel or DirectAdmin.

    Providers like DigitalOcean or that type of cloud provider will provide a simple wizard to create, set up and manage a website, it won't cost any more than your average hosting plan today. It will provide as many options as panels today.

    Consumers want it easier than it is today and it will happen, just not through cPanel/DA.

    Yes. I fully agree with you, that's why I think that cPanel will be still "very popular" during 3/5 years maximum.
    With a simple S3 buckets, and 2 clicks in a simple webui, your static website is deployed all over the world, and fault tolerant. Just that is amazing, and such promising.

    Thanked by 1Lee
  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    @LosPollosHermanos said: You just need to add in the hooks to the control panel and then the GUI design however you want it.

    I think you're seriously underestimating the work involved to recreate WHMCS. Even if you throw out the integrations you don't need, it's still a ton of code. And since you're handling people's money, you need to make sure everything works perfectly lest you cause billing agony for users/subscribers.

    @Lee said: Providers like DigitalOcean or that type of cloud provider will provide a simple wizard to create, set up and manage a website, it won't cost any more than your average hosting plan today. It will provide as many options as panels today.

    Isn't this what Wix and its clones do?

  • LeeLee Veteran

    @raindog308 said: Isn't this what Wix and its clones do?

    No.

  • @JamesF said:
    I can't decide between clientexec or Blesta

    CE seems to have a working Gocardless plugin to purchase...

    CE has a much more modern interface and just works. I preferred CE over WHMCS back when I had a use case anyways. Blesta's UI is a nightmare.

  • We use Rootpanel

  • JordJord Moderator, Host Rep

    And since you're handling people's money, you need to make sure everything works perfectly lest you cause billing agony for users/subscribers.

    Yeah that part is no fun, it takes a lot of code to just get everything together, all kinds of different taxes, different payment gateways and the customer side of things too. The checkout process itself is another nightmare as you've got to bring it all together.

    But the fun bit from there is PCI, if you are rolling your own and don't use Stripe or something that does the PCI for you, you've got to do that yourself, answer the 400+ questions every year and do the scans.

  • contact hostbill they are only whmcs alternative.
    they are providing refugees offer to contact them directly.

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