Put your hosting business on autopilot (freebie inside!)

[jhadley]

Running a web hosting company?
Tired of the same old billing software?
Want to stand out from the crowd?

This is your opportunity. Loading Deck offers a modern approach to web hosting billing. It's new, its very nice and it starts from just £0/month.

Key features:

• Full automation with cPanel and SolusVM: client scan control their services without leaving your billing portal
• Expand beyond hosting: Loading Deck also manages projects and physical stock, and it works great for ad hoc services
• It's looks freakin' sweet: honestly, you've never seen a billing system like this
• Growing fast? Loading Deck deals with large data sets easily using server-side sorting, paging and filtering
• Cloud-based: We've partnered with SoftLayer to offer Loading Deck in the cloud. It's up even if your website is down.
• It's cheap: Free in fact. Ready to start automating? Automation starts at just £7.50.
• We value your business: We're around by ticket, telephone, live chat and online forum to help you get acquainted with Loading Deck

Ready to start? Make us happy. Seriously, do it now.https://control.loadingdeck.com/sign-up

           

We've just launched a blog - subscribe now and you might win free, all-inclusive billing for a year!

 

[Nett]

Is it a SaaS software or a self-hosted software?

 

[trewq]

Do you have a custom API for provisioning?

 

[GelHost]

I saw this in WHT, care to explain how is this different from WHMCS?

 

[HalfEatenPie]

Is it a SaaS software or a self-hosted software?

It's a SaaS

 

[jhadley]

Is it a SaaS software or a self-hosted software?

Yes it's SaaS.

Do you have a custom API for provisioning?

As in one that lets you build your own modules? Not right now unfortunately.

I saw this in WHT, care to explain how is this different from WHMCS?

This is a beta and doesn't have as many modules, yet. However, we have more extensive cPanel/SolusVM integrations, built-in Stripe integration, a better aesthetic presence, built-in support for projects and inventory, use of the Doctrine ORM (uses PDO as opposed to WHMCS which I think still uses mysql_ queries), we don't use MD5 for passwords.

It's also SaaS and the price includes the hosting on a high-end dedicated server with a hardware firewall etc. We manage and support everything - there's even a telephone number.

At the moment we're rolling out updates every few days, not every few months. We're also a few weeks away from leaving beta, and this move away from beta will include a full external code audit, probably by Rack911.

Hope this helps!

 

[Nett]

@jhadley Is there any chance that you will distribute it as a self-hosted software (closed source is ok)?

 

[jhadley]

@jhadley Is there any chance that you will distribute it as a self-hosted software (closed source is ok)?

It's a possibility, however right now it is SaaS. I'm meeting investors over the coming few weeks and if they stipulate that they want it as a downloadable product then we'll probably work toward that.

I know it sounds a little strange as a hosting business to use a SaaS product, but I think that most software products are going this way because there are real advantages to both parties to using SaaS. Here are a few

• The hosting is of a higher quality that most small hosts can afford themselves
• The billing (and soon to be support) area is up even if your network is down
• We can roll out patches instantly if we need to (security etc.)
• It's much easier to manage for both parties - support costs are lower
• Licence costs are lower as it's all within 1 system
• It's easier to integrate with other SaaS products

I should note that our SaaS platform is built on a custom integration with CloudLinux, so each user has their own secure system user and resources etc as well

If we do go down the downloadable option route then one of our priorities will be to ensure that users can switch between the hosted and downloadable options easily.

 

[MartinD]

Biggest problem is hosting client data on a system you can't control. To me that's the issue that stops me having any interest. If it was released for self hosting then I would give it serious consideration.

 

[jhadley]

Biggest problem is hosting client data on a system you can't control. To me that's the issue that stops me having any interest. If it was released for self hosting then I would give it serious consideration.

Thanks, Martin. That's good to know and I'm talking to a lot of people who agree with you. Let me ask you a question though - by control do you necessarily mean host, or are there other levels of control that might ease adoption? (An API [our is mostly done], database downloads, etc.)

 

[MartinD]

Host. It's the only way I could guarantee enough control over safety, security etc.