# WHMCS to double their price of owned licenses.



## MannDude (May 22, 2015)

> As a customer of WHMCS, we want to sincerely thank you for choosing our software to run your business. If you're like us, you know great billing software that automates your operations is one of the critical success factors of any business.
> 
> We are writing to you today to announce a price increase for the Support & Updates service associated with your Owned License.
> 
> ...



A big increase in price but still almost costs nothing for what the software does for you. Cheaper than doing those tasks yourself or hiring a team to do them for you.

I wonder if this will cause anyone noteworthy to make a switch. Probably not, but I see people complaining on LET already.


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## Licensecart (May 22, 2015)

Personally when a client / mate told me about the email I thought it was a scam. I never thought WHMCS would do a Hostbill. But if you buy their monthly you are paying $191.40 for a year, then you have the first year of WHMCS for $249.95 then $99.95 for the next years.


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## drmike (May 22, 2015)

I don't use WHMCS - that is not currently.

Napkin math from Licencart's numbers:

$191.40 a year  (monthly rental) = $15.95 / month

$249.95 a year (ownership annual) =   $20.82 / month

$99.95 (ownership annual future years) = $8.32 / month

All said, monthly rental has to be most popular.   This $15.95 is far above what lowenders pay/find...  

Discounts happen be they on volume or other partner discounting.

Still for the most part well under $20 a month.  With inflation over the last 8 years, it's no wonder why overdue on price increase. It's still very cheap considering the cornerstone such software has in most companies in these parts.  You pay quite a bit more for business-based upon software in other industries PER MONTH.

Folks that struggle to pay, pirate licenses, pull a nulled license, etc.  I just ask, how cheap are you?   

Ideally WHMCS goes cracking down on pirated copies.

PS: Do we have an official website / blog / related channel post verifying this from WHMCS team?


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## KuJoe (May 22, 2015)

I don't mind the increase at all. We were paying monthly until we realized we paid them $574.20 and decided to save some money by ordering an owned license last year. As everybody else has said, $99.95 is nothing compared to if you paid monthly for a year so double the price for updates and support is still cheaper than their normal price and you could always stop getting updates and support and it won't cost you a dime.

Anybody who complains about this increase is a fool who should not have any say in running a business and their clients will suffer from their inability to do basic math and measure value vs. cost.


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## raindog308 (May 22, 2015)

That wipes out the profit margins for most hosts who advertise on LET  :lol:


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## Licensecart (May 23, 2015)

drmike said:


> PS: Do we have an official website / blog / related channel post verifying this from WHMCS team?


Only this from a ticket: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1483429&p=9452256#post9452256


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## mitgib (May 24, 2015)

drmike said:


> I don't use WHMCS - that is not currently.
> 
> Napkin math from Licencart's numbers:
> 
> ...


How do you figure $20.82/mo on an owned license?  If you only survive a year, it works out like that, but anyone purchasing an owned license will survive longer I should hope.

I know I had this discussion with @KuJoe once, when he asked why I still use a leased license after so many years, and from a cash flow perspective alone, it took 7 years to reap any gain from an owned license, now that time just became much greater.

And after getting 7 years of overpayments credited back at WHMCS on my reseller licenses, I'm staying put for many more years to come.


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## Licensecart (May 24, 2015)

mitgib said:


> How do you figure $20.82/mo on an owned license?  If you only survive a year, it works out like that, but anyone purchasing an owned license will survive longer I should hope.
> 
> I know I had this discussion with @KuJoe once, when he asked why I still use a leased license after so many years, and from a cash flow perspective alone, it took 7 years to reap any gain from an owned license, now that time just became much greater.
> 
> And after getting 7 years of overpayments credited back at WHMCS on my reseller licenses, I'm staying put for many more years to come.


He's talking about the first license you pay for (You get a year of updates included) and it's $249.95 

So $249.95 / 12 = $20.82916666666667 Now round that up $20.83


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## Servers4You (May 24, 2015)

WHMCS said:


> We are making a significant investment in both staff and behind the scenes technologies as we look to enhance the capability and automation WHMCS provides, and significantly accelerate the speed with which we're able to deliver changes. We look forward to demonstrating the benefits of these changes over the coming weeks and months.


I really hope this is correct, hopefully this will mean that a lot of good features are coming our way considering I have an owned licence (I have just renewed my Support & Updates).
I've seen a lot of complaining on WHT regarding this, many saying they are becoming like HostBill (and I do like HostBill and their features, however couldn't afford HostBill).

The change is real and is being implemented, I've contacted the support team and they have confirmed it, I will wait and see if the price increase is a good thing or a bad thing based on what happens with WHMCS.


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## Licensecart (May 25, 2015)

Servers4You said:


> I really hope this is correct, hopefully this will mean that a lot of good features are coming our way considering I have an owned licence (I have just renewed my Support & Updates).
> 
> 
> I've seen a lot of complaining on WHT regarding this, many saying they are becoming like HostBill (and I do like HostBill and their features, however couldn't afford HostBill).
> ...


Personally, I don't believe them and if this was what they said it is, then they should have done that ages ago when the security crap was there so they could get a real audit. 


Defo real as it's on their order page stating "* Owned Licenses include 1 Year Support & Updates access with the initial purchase. After the first year, support & updates access can be optionally renewed to maintain access at a cost of $99.95 per year."


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## PureVoltage (May 26, 2015)

We will see if they do any great new features etc. It only sucks for some of those who have multiple whmcs accounts however that said it is still a really low cost for how much work it saves everyone.


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## drmike (May 26, 2015)

PureVoltage said:


> We will see if they do any great new features etc. It only sucks for some of those who have multiple whmcs accounts however that said it is still a really low cost for how much work it saves everyone.


Oh those guys running 10 front brands are going to whine about that extra money out the window   Brand consolidation time.


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## PureVoltage (May 26, 2015)

drmike said:


> Oh those guys running 10 front brands are going to whine about that extra money out the window   Brand consolidation time.


I thought about doing this in the past mostly it was just to cut time for support etc pain having to be logged into 5 different whmcs accounts.

Tried blesta just didn't work for us needs a lot more work before it would have been more useful.


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## WSWD (May 26, 2015)

If you can't afford the additional $50/year, you shouldn't be running a business.  That said, I'm not a fan of the bait and switch.  I have had an owned license since 2010 (and a monthly license for many years before that).  I purchased an owned license under the assumption (perhaps even contractually) that the price would be $49.99/year for support and future updates.  Doubling that price just for the hell of it, does not really sit well with me.  What if they raise the price to $1000/year, or $1 million/year?  Not going to happen, but the point stands.  A purchase was made based on a set future price, and they change it.  Not cool...not cool at all.

Judging by the posts over on the cPanel forum, and the stupid people in general in the hosting business, I can only imagine what the helpdesk looks like over at WHMCS.  Poor guys must be pulling their hair out.  But I've only used it a small handful of times, for things that aren't working, etc., not stupid "How do you_______?" questions that I'm sure they get every day.  Now I get the privilege of paying double for a support system that I don't use.  Fantastic!  I would much rather see them go to a pay for support program, similar to what Incero uses for their priority tickets.  If it's their fault (i.e. hardware issue) you get refunded.  WHMCS could easily do the same with their support.  If it's due to a WHMCS bug or such, you get refunded.  Otherwise it's $5/ticket, $10/ticket, etc.  Not only would it cut down on the kiddies submitting stupid questions and expecting to get their hands held, but it would help fund their support dept.


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## Francisco (May 27, 2015)

My problem with this all is that it won't improve the product. When they got hacked they were doing $500,000/month in sales and their only overhead was their hostgator dedicated server and the cost of their developers.

They obviously never hired any security auditors and fuck, they don't even pay out their bounties like they're supposed to. Someone provided a remote-execution exploit and was promised $5000....$1000 later the dude was scammed.

Short of 6 being a rewrite I hope everyone is excited about paying excessive amounts of cash for being testbed pigs since if 5.5 taught us anything it's that they don't have a proper QA team.

At some point we'll write a billing engine for stallion, but with both buyshared & minerack also using WHMCS it becomes a real headache. I guess minerack we could easily integrate too.

Francisco


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## fixidixi (May 27, 2015)

@Francisco: +1 for PonyPay! opcorn:


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## Licensecart (May 27, 2015)

Francisco said:


> My problem with this all is that it won't improve the product. When they got hacked they were doing $500,000/month in sales and their only overhead was their hostgator dedicated server and the cost of their developers.
> 
> 
> They obviously never hired any security auditors and fuck, they don't even pay out their bounties like they're supposed to. Someone provided a remote-execution exploit and was promised $5000....$1000 later the dude was scammed.
> ...


100% agree with you mate minus the re-write, a re-write would have taken months if not years to get and they would break every module they have as-well as third party because of the way the secure code will work. Some brainwashed people on WHT think it is a re-write.... They also have found out ModulesGarden's addons have to be changed and updated to work on v6.


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## Cloudrck (May 27, 2015)

Licensecart said:


> I never thought WHMCS would do a Hostbill.


No Hostbill was/is a completely different monster. They changed prices/removed/free their software 5 or 6 times in a few months time.


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## Licensecart (May 28, 2015)

Cloudrck said:


> No Hostbill was/is a completely different monster. They changed prices/removed/free their software 5 or 6 times in a few months time.


Raise the prices without hardly any notice don't see any difference lol, as for 5 or 6 times we don't know what WHMCS has in plan, they raised the mobile apps prices last time from one-time to monthly.


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## Enterprisevpssolutions (May 28, 2015)

I welcome the increase as this will help with the cost of developers and new features that everyone is always asking for. You have to spend money to make money folks those that complain are just summer hosts and the price increase will just help cut down on those.


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## Francisco (May 28, 2015)

Enterprisevpssolutions said:


> I welcome the increase as this will help with the cost of developers and new features that everyone is always asking for. You have to spend money to make money folks those that complain are just summer hosts and the price increase will just help cut down on those.


Uh, if they can't add new features with the revenue they make now then they can't do it, period. Stallion is a bigger code base than WHMCS and it took us only 3 months to build it in our spare time. WHMCS has a full team of developers and they're still dragging ass on things.

Where's an official Stripe module? This should've been developed ages ago, instead people have to use a community made one or pay for one.

Francisco


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## Enterprisevpssolutions (May 29, 2015)

Francisco said:


> Uh, if they can't add new features with the revenue they make now then they can't do it, period. Stallion is a bigger code base than WHMCS and it took us only 3 months to build it in our spare time. WHMCS has a full team of developers and they're still dragging ass on things.
> 
> 
> Where's an official Stripe module? This should've been developed ages ago, instead people have to use a community made one or pay for one.
> ...


Yes this is also true but the higher ups want a raise so they need to hike up prices.


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## Licensecart (May 29, 2015)

Enterprisevpssolutions said:


> I welcome the increase as this will help with the cost of developers and new features that everyone is always asking for. You have to spend money to make money folks those that complain are just summer hosts and the price increase will just help cut down on those.


Do you really think they will do that? lol I think I would have a higher chance at being a millionaire than that happening. If that really was the case why didn't they do this a year ago? Maybe two years ago?


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## KuJoe (May 29, 2015)

Honestly I can't think of any more features I need from WHMCS. Anything I want I can add myself and since I started using it about 8 years ago I've never run into a single bug that caused any disruption to my clients (and before you mention the wave of exploits, there were easy workarounds available and none of our clients or us were inconvenienced by them so my statement holds true). I guess I'm one of the few people that tests new releases before pushing them to production. 

Do you know how much they charged for a leased license for version 3.1 back in 2007? It was $13.95 (I still have the invoices). Fast forward today (8 years later, version 5.3.13) and the price has increased by $2/month. So they want to increase their prices for support and updates, I say good for them because it's well worth it compared to the other billing panels that lack the features and stability.

Comparing WHMCS to HostBill? Not even in the realm of reality, how many extreme price changes have they seen in their short life without having nearly the same functionality as WHMCS.

Comparing WHMCS to Blesta? What about the 150% price increase when they released their last major update. Last time I used them they still lacked the basic accounting/reporting/auditing features that WHMCS has. We tried switching to Blesta a few times, but it was impossible for us to do so without hiring an accountant to handle our finances with a different system. Plan on keeping track of any type of metrics? With Blesta that needs to be handled by hand also. I really like the look of it and it has a lot of potential, it just can't compare to WHMCS right now in terms of managing a company in such a volatile market where you need to constantly review performance metrics and accounting details almost daily.

Is WHMCS the best software ever? No, not at all (I wrote a suitable replacement for it in just a few days). Is WHMCS the best option for our business? Yes, nothing else can come close except maybe Ubersmith but if we had that kind of money this discussion wouldn't matter anymore.

I just can't understand why people are upset that a business is raising its prices a small amount in order to increase income, that's how business works and (as mentioned many times before) the new pricing IS NOT MANDATORY (unlike HostBill and Blesta's price increases which were required if you want to use their software). You can simply not pay for support or updates or switch to (the more expensive) lease license. You have options, it's just not the options you want to hear because it's different than a year ago.


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## Licensecart (May 29, 2015)

KuJoe said:


> What about the 150% price increase when they released their last major update.


Blesta offered a $99 price special promotion a lot of people grabbed (including me), you can also get Blesta at the old prices from distributors like LicensePal and BuycPanel so you can't compare Blesta to WHMCS for prices... WHMCS cut their own nose off with that.

Blesta's old site: https://web.archive.org/web/20120512171805/https://www.blesta.com/order/



KuJoe said:


> Last time I used them they still lacked the basic accounting/reporting/auditing features that WHMCS has.
> 
> We tried switching to Blesta a few times, but it was impossible for us to do so without hiring an accountant to handle our finances with a different system.


The last I knew Blesta and WHMCS are supposed to be "Billing" systems not Accounting or Auditing systems, that's where Xero and others come in, as for reporting you can do basic needed reports and in 3.5 make your own custom reports.

Billing systems are for Billing, accountant's and accounting systems are there for Accounting because that's what they are.



KuJoe said:


> Plan on keeping track of any type of metrics? With Blesta that needs to be handled by hand also.


Metrics for what? Currency converters? or finding out how much you've made? you can find most of that on the billing widget, and select the dropdown for the currencies. so USD, GBP, etc has their own section so nothing is mixed since you don't want them mixed for accounting anyway.



KuJoe said:


> I really like the look of it and it has a lot of potential, it just can't compare to WHMCS right now in terms of managing a company in such a volatile market where you need to constantly review performance metrics and accounting details almost daily.


Your comparing a Billing system to a system which went out of hand to support everything like Wordpress, and look at both of them, Wordpress is full of exploits and needing patching daily, the only difference between them is Wordpress is open-source and you can fix everything yourself if you know how.


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## KuJoe (May 29, 2015)

Licensecart said:


> Blesta offered a $99 price special promotion a lot of people grabbed (including me), you can also get Blesta at the old prices from distributors like LicensePal and BuycPanel so you can't compare Blesta to WHMCS for prices... WHMCS cut their own nose off with that.
> 
> 
> Blesta's old site: https://web.archive.org/web/20120512171805/https://www.blesta.com/order/


If you run a promotion for more than 2 years, it's your regular price and not a promotional price.



Licensecart said:


> The last I knew Blesta and WHMCS are supposed to be "Billing" systems not Accounting or Auditing systems, that's where Xero and others come in, as for reporting you can do basic needed reports and in 3.5 make your own custom reports.
> 
> 
> Billing systems are for Billing, accountant's and accounting systems are there for Accounting because that's what they are.
> ...


You're right Blesta is a billing system whereas WHMCS is not. There in lies the main difference between the two. Thanks for pointing that out, I completely forgot that WHMCS isn't marketed as just a billing system which makes comparing the two pointless because they are designed to accomplish different tasks.

Now to get back on topic about WHMCS since apples to oranges comparisons are never fun.


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## Licensecart (May 30, 2015)

KuJoe said:


> If you run a promotion for more than 2 years, it's your regular price and not a promotional price.


Not sure how you get that, you can hold a promotion as long as you want to, in our local supermarket they sell extra strong mints, 3 for a £1, they hold that for months and months they do take it off for a bit but then put it back on, is that not a promotional offer?



KuJoe said:


> You're right Blesta is a billing system whereas WHMCS is not. There in lies the main difference between the two. Thanks for pointing that out, I completely forgot that WHMCS isn't marketed as just a billing system which makes comparing the two pointless because they are designed to accomplish different tasks.
> 
> Now to get back on topic about WHMCS since apples to oranges comparisons are never fun.


It sort of gives it off in the name Web Hosting Complete Solution. But with Blesta it's 99.3% open so you can do what you like, I've got clients who use it for selling office space, I sell licenses, others use it for hosting.


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## WSWD (May 30, 2015)

KuJoe said:


> I just can't understand why people are upset that a business is raising its prices a small amount in order to increase income, that's how business works...



Business also works within the law.  I bought a product that clearly stated future updates and support would be $49.99/year, or $45, or whatever the hell it is.  You can't just go and change that all willy-nilly.  After all, it's a contract...it really is.  By all means, charge new purchasers $99/year.  I have no problem with that at all.  But when you advertise something as $49/year, you have to honor that.  That's what a contract is.

Here's the latest:



> * Owned Licenses include 1 Year Support & Updates access with the initial purchase. After the first year, support & updates access can be optionally renewed to maintain access at a cost of *$99.95 per year*.


That's a contract!  There's a clear meeting of the minds, as to what is given and at what price.  You get the following:

a)  An owned license

b)  1 year Support and Updates access (included in the cost)

c)  Support and Updates access renewed at $99.95 per year.

I wish I could find it in one of my law books, but there was actually a class action lawsuit in which people purchased mugs or cups or what have you from a convenience store, under the advertisement that future refills with that purchased cup would be $0.59.  They raised it to $0.79 or $0.99 or whatever, and were sued and lost.  Of course it's just the lawyers who actually made any real money, but they were required to honor the past pricing in perpetuity.  There was a clear meeting of the minds, and a contract was formed...based simply on an advertisement.

I'm not nearly as pissed off because I've had my license since 2010, so it scales quite nicely in relation to cost per month, but what about the people who spent $250 on an owned license say last year, or even this year?  It's way more cost effective in terms of risk/investment to simply pay for a monthly license.  Even if you drag an owned license out 5 years, it's costing damn near $13/mo. (8.25 + 4.16) for the equivalent features of a monthly license.  You can buy a monthly license from any reseller cheaper than that, without the investment, without the risk that you will go out of business or want to switch billing platforms, that WHMCS will go out of business, raise prices further, etc.

The owned license folks are getting the short end of the stick on this one, plain and simple.


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## PureVoltage (May 30, 2015)

The short end of the stick is what got me with one we just bought a few months ago so that's about the only part that is upsetting.

However the amount we have saved on multiple others we've had for years makes it not so bad.

We tried blesta but like others said lacking features was the main reason why we never used it and we bought the lifetime license with multiple sub ones for it hoping to make a switch. Possibly in the fuiture it will work out better.


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## KuJoe (May 30, 2015)

@WSWD I haven't reviewed their TOS yet but I'm certain that the contractual terms renew each time you renew your support/updates. The support/updates are optional and as such there is no real contract in place since the buyer can opt out at any time. Like a hosting account, a provider can change the pricing at any time but a client's price won't change until renewal.


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## WSWD (May 30, 2015)

It actually isn't quite like a hosting account.  It's WAY different when you are buying a physical product (software), because you are making that purchase based upon the price of future updates, that are offered collectively with the software package.  It's not an "optional" package at all...they are very closely tied together.  Else, why would somebody purchase a copy instead of having a monthly lease?  If you had no intention of purchasing the "optional" package, it makes no sense to pay $250 instead of $155.  Even at 2 years, you're at $350 vs. $310.  Makes no sense at all.  So it's very much a combined package, and when you make a sale based upon that combined package and then change the price, that's really bad juju. 

Let's say I own and sell a really specialized software...we'll call it Bryanpress.     It can only run on my servers and be hosted on my network.  So I sell this Bryanpress software for $200 with a free year of hosting, and note that hosting for following years can be purchased at $100.  I get all sorts of users, and they're bogging down my support channels, so I raise the price.  I say, "No...$100 is not enough.  Subsequent years will now be $1000." 

I don't know that it would fly, legally.  People purchased my software with the written impression that the yearly costs thereafter would be fixed at $100.  If I change that, it's absolutely a violation of the contract.  It really is. 

[EDIT]  I don't know that every judge would see that way, as it is somewhat cloudy, but I would certainly fight it as a contract issue.


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## KuJoe (May 30, 2015)

@WSWD Their Terms of Service basically say to refer to the EULA for everything and the EULA states that you agree to the pricing on their website unless you have a separate agreement in place. Their legal team definitely should have done a better job here but technically it's possible to contact WHMCS for a different "Pricing and Term Agreement", but I doubt they have any reason to comply since there's already an agreement in place and it would probably require a large amount of volume to make it worth it for them.

My advice is just renew your support and updates for 2 years and enjoy the savings for another two years. Blesta might advance a great deal in 2 years or another replacement will pop-up (like when vBulletin did something like this and the developers left to form XenForo).


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## WSWD (May 31, 2015)

@KuJoe   I still don't know that I agree with that 100%.  Their EULA is all good and well, but what's actually in their advertisements says otherwise, or could at least lead a potential consumer to believe otherwise.  Certainly a stretch of an example, but It's almost like advertising a car, showing a picture, but then in the contract saying that it only comes with 3 tires, or no engine.  The ad would certainly lead a consumer to believe that they're purchasing an entire car. 

Would the WHMCS front page be enough to override the EULA in court?  I don't know. 

I'm still convinced it could be construed as a bait and switch.  Let's say they raise their price to $1 million a year tomorrow.  Somebody who bought an owned license today (under the impression that the upgrades and support are $99/year) is clearly not going to renew a 2nd year.  Had they not been misled, they likely never would have purchased the product to begin with, or at the very least, purchased a monthly license instead.  That would save them ~$100 that first year.  Based on what I would consider to be false pretenses, they made an extra $100 out of him, that they otherwise probably wouldn't have made. 

Had @PureVoltage not been misled, he might not have purchased another owned license.  Now he's out $250, and basically a 4-ish year investment to break even on his purchase...assuming the prices don't go up more in those 4 years.

It just doesn't sit well with me.  Like I said...it's not a big deal.  It's a nice dinner for 1 without a bottle of wine.   But just because everyone here can afford it or should be able to afford it doesn't make it right.  I still say it's damn near illegal, if not completely.


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## KuJoe (May 31, 2015)

@WSWD We'll agree to disagree then. When we purchased our owned license from them last year I didn't expect the price to remain the same forever so I guess for every person who expected a guaranteed price, there's a person like me who expected it to change eventually. Now had they sent me a new invoice before my next renewal date saying I needed to pay more for the remainder of my year, I would be pissed.


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## Servers4You (May 31, 2015)

There are two default contracts you sign to when ordering an owned licence, one being the software itself and one being the "Support & Updates" addon.
 
Your "Support & Updates" contract ends at the end of your billing period (One year after your initial purchase an so on), that contract terminates unless you renew with the new contract terms.
 
It is optional to renew the second contact, the only difference is the price to renew your contract for Support & Updates. I really don't see why it's such a big deal?
 
The End User License Agreement cannot be used to disagree with the increase in price as the EULA is for the software contract ONLY and not the "Support & Updates".


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## Licensecart (Jun 2, 2015)

And boom another update  haha and they blocked us on twitter so we must be digging their grave.


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## MichaelFindlay (Jun 4, 2015)

This is the first time I have heard of this but I am using leased licenses as it is the most convenient way for me to pay. However I would not object as long as more features come in to the control panel itself, there are a number of features that would be greatly appreiated.

Developers are not cheap and I think what those people complaining need to realise is that if they went out and asked a coder to provide them with a control panel to meet their needs it would cost a lot more then that of a owned license.


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## Licensecart (Jun 5, 2015)

MichaelFindlay said:


> This is the first time I have heard of this but I am using leased licenses as it is the most convenient way for me to pay. However I would not object as long as more features come in to the control panel itself, there are a number of features that would be greatly appreiated.
> 
> Developers are not cheap and I think what those people complaining need to realise is that if they went out and asked a coder to provide them with a control panel to meet their needs it would cost a lot more then that of a owned license.


Well WHMCS should have thought about that years ago they have been around since 2005.


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## coreyman (Jun 5, 2015)

I'm not happy about this. We are forced to pay for their 'support and updates' even if we don't use them because there are 100,000 security vulnerabilities that are constantly being patched and you don't get security updates for free.


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## HBAndrei (Jun 6, 2015)

coreyman said:


> I'm not happy about this. We are forced to pay for their 'support and updates' even if we don't use them because there are 100,000 security vulnerabilities that are constantly being patched and you don't get security updates for free.


I believe you can still get the small version and security patches (ie: 5.3.13 --> 5.3.14) even without having the support & updates active.

But yeah, I also disagree with this price increase and can't find any grounds to justify it out of the blue like that.

It's gotten to the point where owning a license isn't much different than leasing one... I mean you're making an investment that has the ROI in 22 months to save up $7 bucks per month afterwards...


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## Licensecart (Jun 7, 2015)

HBAndrei said:


> I believe you can still get the small version and security patches (ie: 5.3.13 --> 5.3.14) even without having the support & updates active.
> 
> But yeah, I also disagree with this price increase and can't find any grounds to justify it out of the blue like that.
> 
> It's gotten to the point where owning a license isn't much different than leasing one... I mean you're making an investment that has the ROI in 22 months to save up $7 bucks per month afterwards...


I've heard stuff on other sites that WHMCS muck up patching and when the product versions goes end of life... you are then screwed (again). $7 two cups of coffee saving a month


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## HBAndrei (Jun 7, 2015)

Licensecart said:


> $7 two cups of coffee saving a month


Exactly!

What's the point of owning a license anymore? besides the fact that you "own" it, but not quite cause it'd be useless without updates.


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## coreyman (Jun 8, 2015)

HBAndrei said:


> I believe you can still get the small version and security patches (ie: 5.3.13 --> 5.3.14) even without having the support & updates active.
> 
> But yeah, I also disagree with this price increase and can't find any grounds to justify it out of the blue like that.
> 
> It's gotten to the point where owning a license isn't much different than leasing one... I mean you're making an investment that has the ROI in 22 months to save up $7 bucks per month afterwards...


Last time my security and support updates lapsed I wasn't able to access any downloads.


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## GIANT_CRAB (Jun 9, 2015)

Decided to spend lots of time to make a video dedicated to this thread. Hope you guys enjoy it.










Spoiler



Pronunciation wasn't that great, please give me some feedback


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## coreyman (Jun 9, 2015)

GIANT_CRAB said:


> Decided to spend lots of time to make a video dedicated to this thread. Hope you guys enjoy it.


Nice video it's just a little hard to understand you sometimes but I got the point.


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## Licensecart (Jun 18, 2015)

coreyman said:


> Nice video it's just a little hard to understand you sometimes but I got the point.


It's like waiting for Christmas, how long does it take for people to patch a version lol http://docs.whmcs.com/Changelog:WHMCS_V5.3#Security still hidden... I want to laugh at how insecure they was to make a high priority security patch, which takes more than 2 weeks to tell us.


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## Dillybob (Jun 20, 2015)

GIANT_CRAB said:


> Decided to spend lots of time to make a video dedicated to this thread. Hope you guys enjoy it.


Nice video! 

I agree with the security vulnerabilities point you made.

Edit: LMAO at the hostbill SSL PART OMG LOL


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## Licensecart (Jun 23, 2015)

Then again I could be waiting 20 years for them to show them us, not sure how any one can really trust them:


Version 5.3.6
Release Type: SECURITY RELEASE
Release Date: 25th March 2014
Security
Case #3982 - Details to be released at a later date 
Case #4057 - Details to be released at a later date 
Case #4161 - Details to be released at a later date 
Case #4172 - Details to be released at a later date 
Case #4175 - Details to be released at a later date 
Case #4180 - Details to be released at a later date 
Case #4186 - Details to be released at a later date 
Case #4187 - Details to be released at a later date 
Case #4194 - Details to be released at a later date 
Case #4202 - Details to be released at a later date 
Case #4256 - Details to be released at a later date 
Case #4311 - Details to be released at a later date

http://docs.whmcs.com/Changelog:WHMCS_V5.3#Security_3

So when's the later date? 2017? 2020?


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## HBAndrei (Jun 24, 2015)

Licensecart said:


> So when's the later date? 2017? 2020?


I'd say don't hold your breath.

For some reason I tend to think there could still be lots of WHMCS clients running outdated versions, which would be a valid reason not to make that info public... I'm not sure if their licensing system also sends back the WHMCS version the client is running, but if it does they would clearly have an idea on the percentage of users running outdated versions.


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## Gang Starr (Jun 24, 2015)

Why is this in VPSB "Announcements & Contests" forum and not in "Industry News"? Makes no sense. Someone move it to the right forum?


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## Licensecart (Jun 24, 2015)

HBAndrei said:


> I'd say don't hold your breath.
> 
> 
> For some reason I tend to think there could still be lots of WHMCS clients running outdated versions, which would be a valid reason not to make that info public... I'm not sure if their licensing system also sends back the WHMCS version the client is running, but if it does they would clearly have an idea on the percentage of users running outdated versions.


The one I linked to was patched in 2014... it's now mid 2015, if they are outdated and have owned they probably won't update at $100 a year lol.

Even ClientExec tells their customers what was fixed: https://forum.clientexec.com/index.php?threads/security-alerts.3029/


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## kunnu (Jun 30, 2015)

WHMCS is weird and their every policy(including pricing) is dynamic.

In March I was open a ticket with WHMCS for developer license and they told me "congratulations, you are elegible for dev license"

After 2 or 3 month they suspend my developer license so I ask them why you suspend my license and they reply me "You are not elegible for developer license"

opcorn:


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## Serveo (Jul 2, 2015)

We currently are investigating to more to Blesta as soon as there is a working Onapp solution. Why?

1) Life time license, when I bought WHMCS back in the days it came with a lifetime license deal. What? Yes, just fixed price which included UPDATES. But what the heck, I'll pay for updates.

2) Moving from fixed to monthly billing. Last years they move a lot of services to a monthly recurring fee. e.g. iWHCS / aWHMCS. Both where fixed priced applications before. Yet after upgrading to still a shitty as hell app they are now monthly billing it.

3) Partnering to generate extra license income on 3rd party apps. This is what happened with us regarding the LiveHelp "add-on". We ran an owned license for many years which we bought directly at Stardevelop for ~$250 I believe. As the partner / integration / add-on was announce we could without any problem use the integrated solution. Update after update. Yet suddenly with the modules update, somewhere in 5.3.x I believe it was, WHMCS locked out all indirect sold livehelp licenses (read non WHMCS add-ons). After 5 support tickets with WHMCS and Stardevelop I decided to just purchase the bloody add-on as my time is worth more and we where talking about what, ~$60?

4) Add-ons. A lot of features are not even included by WHMCS itself. Most of them are 3rd party and which each update randomly things break. I even see people saying above that WHMCS is so feature rich? Really? The features are indeed included but all are so minimal! Wow, they got an affiliate module, well guys have you seen how basic it is or what about the promotion module? When we work with multiple staff departments we can't even have different auto responder templates for each department. Really? Oh, I almost forgot about the invoice numbering, and lets just forget about the "carts"... One day I was checking their uservoice requests and was shocked how slow things are moving.

5) BUGS. Well I can understand bugs and cope with it. But if we are opening tickets for over a year about one and the same problems my patience ends. Since a year we see problems like:

- Skipping a periods

- Period changes

- Discount changes

- Discount not been applied

In other words we lose money. After 5 support tickets WHMCS finally wants to investigate our setup and confirms it is bug #CORE-7379. NO ETA will be given for a solution. Like wow, these are CORE tasks of the system. We use WHMCS to take care of our administration instead we are auditing our administration each week and lose customers by incorrect invoicing...

6) Security. Widely named problem, hey who cares about the random guys trying to do the WHT 0 day exploits? :/

Just my 50 cents on experience with WHMCS.


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## iFi Host (Jul 3, 2015)

I Think this price increasing decision is made for New WHMCS 6.0 with new features and big changes.

but the price is not reflect for us. we are still provide whmcs for free with our services. =)


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## Licensecart (Jul 3, 2015)

iFi Host said:


> I Think this price increasing decision is made for New WHMCS 6.0 with new features and big changes.
> 
> but the price is not reflect for us. we are still provide whmcs for free with our services. =)


I dowt it, if anything a mate of mine was right and it's to pay for all the bug reports on bug crowd, they need money to pay them. the only big change so far is their UI and cPanel improvement (which I think is stupid) but hey.


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## iFi Host (Jul 3, 2015)

Licensecart said:


> I dowt it, if anything a mate of mine was right and it's to pay for all the bug reports on bug crowd, they need money to pay them. the only big change so far is their UI and cPanel improvement (which I think is stupid) but hey.


Hey. I Said They are not changed our reseller price.


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## Licensecart (Jul 3, 2015)

iFi Host said:


> Hey. I Said They are not changed our reseller price.


Where? You said this first:



> I Think this price increasing decision is made for New WHMCS 6.0 with new features and big changes.


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## mitgib (Jul 4, 2015)

Licensecart said:


> I dowt it, if anything a mate of mine was right and it's to pay for all the bug reports on bug crowd, they need money to pay them. the only big change so far is their UI and cPanel improvement (which I think is stupid) but hey.


WHMCS is 50% owned by cPanel, so hardly stupid


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## HBAndrei (Jul 4, 2015)

mitgib said:


> WHMCS is 50% owned by cPanel, so hardly stupid


I kinda wish 100% of it would be owned by cPanel, at least those folks know what they're doing and how to handle stuff.


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## Licensecart (Jul 4, 2015)

mitgib said:


> WHMCS is 50% owned by cPanel, so hardly stupid


by stupid I mean their shortcuts and confusing people with domains, etc.


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## OnSebastian (Jul 20, 2015)

The main reason for me to not switch to Blesta is the missing German language support.

I'm not having any problem with the english language personally, and most of our customers are international customers who speak english but in germany we need to provide our website and control panel also in german.

If Blesta would have german language support (client area only is sufficient) I would probably already have switched from WHMCS to Blesta.

I also know about the Blesta translation project but I do not want to put any ressource into that currently. (Also WHMCS is not offering german language by default but there is a german board that offers a WHMCS translation).


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## Licensecart (Jul 20, 2015)

OnSebastian said:


> The main reason for me to not switch to Blesta is the missing German language support.
> 
> I'm not having any problem with the english language personally, and most of our customers are international customers who speak english but in germany we need to provide our website and control panel also in german.
> 
> ...


Ah there's only 32% completed, not sure if that's the client area stuff or a mixture. I don't know many German customers or mates to help complete it for you.


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## Bruce (Jul 20, 2015)

google translate isn't perfect, might be better than nothing though


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## Licensecart (Jul 21, 2015)

Bruce said:


> google translate isn't perfect, might be better than nothing though


Yeah the guys at blesta are going to add that soon so we can see the Google version and the English and then you enter the text so some people can just copy the Google one and then update stuff as more customers come around. Currently under EXT-1


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## HBAndrei (Jul 21, 2015)

Since we're on WHMCS pricing, I just remembered, why for the love of God do they charge a monthly fee for the two factor auth provided for FREE by google?...

It's not so much about the money (2 bucks/month, I spend 4 times that each day on smokes alone) but it's about the principle of it... why charge for something you get for free and something that only makes your platform more secure overall?


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## AMDbuilder (Jul 21, 2015)

You could always use the ServerPing module for $15 (https://www.serverping.net/clients/cart.php?gid=3).  I suspect the main reason - it's built in so one less thing to update/maintain.


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## Licensecart (Jul 22, 2015)

HBAndrei said:


> Since we're on WHMCS pricing, I just remembered, why for the love of God do they charge a monthly fee for the two factor auth provided for FREE by google?...
> 
> 
> It's not so much about the money (2 bucks/month, I spend 4 times that each day on smokes alone) but it's about the principle of it... why charge for something you get for free and something that only makes your platform more secure overall?


Yeah a lot of people including me was pissed but I paid it until I left and I remember they had a $1.25 invoice still on my account when I left lol since I had a bit of account credit. It was supposed to be free:







But hey they only care about money, and their customers will pay them for blood.

http://forum.whmcs.com/showthread.php?69947-2-Factor-Authentication-with-Google-Authenticator-missing&p=302691#post302691

Chris:



> WHMCS' software is extremely inexpensive for the functionality it provides. With TOTP included, it ultimately comes out to .56 CENTS a day (branded monthly version) to effectively be the only piece of software a Web Hosting Provider needs other than a server control panel to run their business.
> 
> 
> I personally wouldn't call that bleeding.


I listed that on my http://whmcs.rip site.


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## HBAndrei (Jul 22, 2015)

Licensecart said:


>


He obviously meant 'completely free' for them to use and implement, not for their end users


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## Licensecart (Jul 22, 2015)

HBAndrei said:


> He obviously meant 'completely free' for them to use and implement, not for their end users


Probably lol we all thought it was free for everyone since as you said it's google's code, but this is whmcs 

The full thread is here mate if you have a forum account there: http://forum.whmcs.com/showthread.php?48074-DuoSecurity-coming-to-WHMCS-soon!/page2&p=226272#post226272


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## ChrisM (Jul 22, 2015)

HBAndrei said:


> Since we're on WHMCS pricing, I just remembered, why for the love of God do they charge a monthly fee for the two factor auth provided for FREE by google?...


Because people want it.. and if they want to use it they will pay for it.


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## HBAndrei (Jul 22, 2015)

Chris Miller said:


> Because people want it.. and if they want to use it they will pay for it.


People are already paying for the WHMCS product as a whole... and two factor auth should have been included in the product by default once they coded the addon... what you're saying makes sense only if they're money hungry and don't care too much about client satisfaction... "oh, look at this thing that's implemented on most platforms for free because it adds an extra layer of security for the users, should I just add it to my platform as well? or should I call it an addon and charge money for it?"


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