# Billing and ticket panel options? WHMCS, HostBill, Blesta and ClientExec... what else?



## hxQ&S8ZaVn9e (Mar 11, 2015)

These look like the most commonly used options, but are there any others? WHMCS seems to be the most popular because I see almost everyone uses it but after looking at the Hostbill site I remember seeing a host use it also... just cant remember who. I haven't seen Blesta or ClientExec be used though. Are there any other options to look at?


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## RockTBN (Mar 11, 2015)

You can take a look at BoxBilling too. We are using WHMCS and happy with it. For Hostbill @dacentec is using it now.


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## haloelite3 (Mar 11, 2015)

I agree WHMCS is the main option but maybe this shows you a trend? WHMCS is overall a very strong product and therefore gets the job completed correctly without fault most of time. Some people do have some issues with it may I add but for what it costs it is worth it.

Hope this helps


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## MartinD (Mar 11, 2015)

haloelite3 said:


> I agree WHMCS is the main option but maybe this shows you a trend? WHMCS is overall a very strong product and therefore *gets the job completed correctly without fault most of time*. Some people do have some issues with it may I add but for what it costs it is worth it.
> 
> Hope this helps


wat.

It falls short on many points and it has become progressively worse since cPanel became involved.


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## Licensecart (Mar 11, 2015)

haloelite3 said:


> I agree WHMCS is the main option but maybe this shows you a trend? WHMCS is overall a very strong product and therefore gets the job completed correctly without fault most of time. Some people do have some issues with it may I add but for what it costs it is worth it.
> 
> Hope this helps


WHMCS hide from everything:

Want to change a client's currency you have to make a new account... so much for "multi-currency", they haven't answered by question or others: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1058377

They limit owned licenses re-issues, when asked they go quiet: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1449365

They claim they are having a internal re-write of their code to a new framework but say that all their modules / etc will work as they are, a lot of people including myself think that's a load of bullsh*t because how can they work on a new framework as they are.

They f*cked LicensePal around when they closed their distributor program so licensepal's customers had to suffer and pay whmcs the full price.


They claim they are securer but they have paid out 50 bug reports: https://bugcrowd.com/whmcs/


I could go on and on... just see billingbrawl.com


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## MannDude (Mar 11, 2015)

Avoid BoxBilling at all costs. I used it for a spell as all I wanted to do was generate invoices and keep track of accounts for a non-hosting related matter and I wanted to walk blindfolded into uncomming traffic. Okay, that may be an exaggeration... but only a slight one.

HostBill I actually quite like. I think the user interface is quite snazzy which is important, but the admin interface was a bit of a mess in my opinion. It had some real great intergrated features and a better ticketing system than WHMCS, but the developers are or were bi-polar when it came to pricing. When I used it I was renting a license for like... $8/mo or something. They have changed the pricing so many times and it's skyrocketed so much. I don't think an expensive helpdesk is an issue, and in fact, I think the cost of entry to the market _should be_ higher in some regards (assuming the tradeoff for higher priced products is better products) but it just wasn't quite all there yet.

WHMCS is still the go-to standard. It works. I hate the ticketing system though and the inability to do multi-tasking functions like you can in Kayako. (EX: Respond to ticket, unflag it, move to new department all in one action and page load). If WHMCS had a better ticketing system I think it'd be pretty decent. For basic invoicing and customer management, it's alright.

Blesta: Never used it. It looks alright. I don't think I've ever even seen it in the wild. Any one using it? I'd like to go through the ordering process on your site and see how it is for the end-user.

ClientExec: Been too many years. I honestly don't recall much detail about using it.

I'm not really sure of any contenders. Every few months someone comes along and says they're working on the next best thing in web-hosting billing, client management, accounting and ticketing and then not much comes after that.


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## MannDude (Mar 11, 2015)

Licensecart said:


> They f*cked LicensePal around when they closed their distributor program so licensepal's customers had to suffer and pay whmcs the full price.


I had forgotten about that. Years ago I ran a small company and was surprised to find all my WHMCS licenses from resellers suspended as I had purchased them from licensepal. WHMCS said we had to go direct with them, and of course, at a higher cost. That was before the cPanel takeover though.


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## bigcat (Mar 11, 2015)

I've tried HostBill, WHMCS, ClientExec & Blesta but not with SolusVM though, only cPanel integration. All work as advertised.

Also, I came across WHSuite somewhere and the beta look decent. Worth a bookmark I think.


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## Licensecart (Mar 11, 2015)

MannDude said:


> I had forgotten about that. Years ago I ran a small company and was surprised to find all my WHMCS licenses from resellers suspended as I had purchased them from licensepal. WHMCS said we had to go direct with them, and of course, at a higher cost. That was before the cPanel takeover though.


Yeah I think the whole of WHT was surprised when that happened. Not sure what Matt was thinking about when he came to that conclusion. I bet Licensecube (They didn't pay their bills for 2 months) was behind that idea though but one bad cookie shouldn't effect everyone else.


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## zomgmike (Mar 11, 2015)

Ubersmith is an expensive but all-around decent product.  Here's how I'd rate it:

As datacenter management software - 9/10.

As billing software - 7/10

As ticket/CRM software - 3/10 (at best...probably deserves more like a 2)

So their priorties may not be aligned with yours if you're looking for ticket/billing software.  That said, if you compliment it with something like Kayako you can really cover all your bases very nicely.


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## MartinD (Mar 11, 2015)

Ubersmith pricing is crazy silly though.


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## KwiceroLTD (Mar 11, 2015)

Well, WHMCS, Hostbill, etc. are widely used and common, however if you're looking to be more original/unique you could try a lesser-used panel, or roll out your own panel.

*self advertisment:*

I developed my own panel which I'm selling.


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## mitgib (Mar 11, 2015)

MartinD said:


> Ubersmith pricing is crazy silly though.


I haven't looked lately, how crazy?  As crazy as http://talligent.com/ and their $2.50 per instance per month billing?


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## notFound (Mar 11, 2015)

mitgib said:


> I haven't looked lately, how crazy?  As crazy as http://talligent.com/ and their $2.50 per instance per month billing?


Last I checked, the base license was about $500/month with additional charges for just about everything (deviecs, custeomers, users). Probably gone up since.


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## foreign (Mar 11, 2015)

We are currently happy with WHMCS.

Developing in-house billing platform for your own brand would probably cost a lot, but it would payoff in long run.


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## MannDude (Mar 11, 2015)

foreign said:


> We are currently happy with WHMCS.
> 
> Developing in-house billing platform for your own brand would probably cost a lot, but it would payoff in long run.


Assuming it could be done so properly and securely. While WHMCS isn't perfect it's still pretty decent, all things considered. The only companies I've seen roll their own billing panels do not generally release them to the public and it's for their private use only. It takes a lot of money and/or time to do something like that, which is something that is out of reach for most of the industry. The companies I've seen with their own solutions are pretty large and their billing panels range from pretty good to bug ridden nightmares. I won't name names. 

Still though, I'd love to see more custom solutions in the mix. As someone with services from many companies it's a bit boring to see everyone always use WHMCS. It has _some _benefits in that it allows me to know how to work my way around their billing panels since it's the same as every other one... but it also forces me to take extra precautions such as paying for a PO Box in town that I use for all service registrations, an email that is for services only, and a Google Voice number, etc so that if another vulnerability is released for WHMCS I minimize my risk of experiencing a headache if even half the providers I use get hit with it.


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## cspacews (Mar 11, 2015)

foreign said:


> We are currently happy with WHMCS.
> 
> Developing in-house billing platform for your own brand would probably cost a lot, but it would payoff in long run.


Sticking to WHMCS and maybe developing its Add-on's as per requirement if not available in Store would be payoff as well?

WHMCS is pretty fast with Updates most of time my observation

What of Bugs/Issues in later stages if you go for your own platform?


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## GS-Dylan (Mar 11, 2015)

I've always used whmcs and liked it, the ticketing system lacks a bit but nothing you can't fix with getting a kayak lice se. Recently however I've been toying with the idea of blesta for the reason that you can run multiple front ends with one admin backend. You do have to buy multiple liceMaes but the fact of one backend would make things very easy when having more than one brand.


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## softsyshosting (Mar 12, 2015)

WHMCS for billing / provisioning & Kayako for ticket support / live chat / onsite works great for us!


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## foreign (Mar 12, 2015)

MannDude said:


> The only companies I've seen roll their own billing panels do not generally release them to the public and it's for their private use only.


Keeping it private from public is what makes company a lot more beautiful and unique when compared to other companies. Doesn't it? Obviously, if someone is providing crap service, then no in-house software will help them. When I just got in the hosting business as game server provider, guess who was ruling market I was on? Company with own billing portal and game server control panel. They simplified and customized everything for their target audience. While, WHMCS and other brands have to satisfy millions(?) of different users.


@cspacews


Definitely, anything that makes you stand out of crowd can, and should payoff. I don't have neither enough knowledge nor money to develop in-house billing portal for my company, that is why I have to be happy with WHMCS.


Bugs/Issues on in-house software? License money now goes to your developer's pocket.


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## LeaseVPS (Oct 25, 2015)

notFound said:


> mitgib said:
> 
> 
> > I haven't looked lately, how crazy?  As crazy as http://talligent.com/ and their $2.50 per instance per month billing?
> ...


Yeah we looked at them for their white label openstack stuff, way to costly for an opensource cloud in my mind, I couldn't understand why one would go openstack just to get billed 325USD per compute CPU socket for billing.

Maybe they foresee in the next few years that openstack billing will also be opensource so grab their money and run etc...



Quote said:


> Talligent OpenBook is licensed based on the number of CPU sockets for the compute nodes for the Openstack cloud.  You can use OpenBook to bill for bandwidth, storage, SDN, etc.  Pricing starts at $325 per CPU socket for a 12 month subscription, with a 10 socket minimum orde


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## flopv (Nov 2, 2015)

Honestly, i don't like WHMCS very much. However, it is most used billing panel.


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