Billing system discussion
- Thread starter jhadley
- Start date
Sonwebhost
New Member
Good price also it has to be updated online thanks
Shados
Professional Snake Miner
Do you? Frankly, it kind of seems that people unscrupulous and cheap enough will always be able to find an unencrypted/cracked/nulled version of any given software, or they simply won't use it. People who would pay for it will do so regardless of how easy it may be to rip off.
I don't really know what I think on this subject, or on the subject of pricing. Still weighing up ideas, but I feel I should do something to protect the software to at least discourage piracy and make it clear it's commercial software.
I'm approaching an expert about various protection options. I'm also considering something like RightSignature though I think that may be more offputting than normal avenues.
I don't see a problem with you encrypting and/or running licenses for those that pay monthly. Want it unencrypted and open? Pony up! "But what will keep monthly customers from just using the other version?" you ask? Nothing. The exact same thing preventing me from downloading nulled copies of everything else out there. Let honest people pay and don't worry with the rest - a pirate wasn't going to pay so you didn't lose a sale.
I'm friends with the founder of PancakeApp (I did some of the development work as well); if you wanted some insider tips from someone who had been there I could strange an introduction.
Finally, if I forget to PM you mind reminding me (I'm mobile now)? I think you'll be interested in something I'm working on that should hit testing in 6-8 weeks.
I'm friends with the founder of PancakeApp (I did some of the development work as well); if you wanted some insider tips from someone who had been there I could strange an introduction.
Finally, if I forget to PM you mind reminding me (I'm mobile now)? I think you'll be interested in something I'm working on that should hit testing in 6-8 weeks.
I would definitely be interested in asking your contact one main question - why they chose the pricing model they did. I've talked to some 'experts' (a multimillionaire investor + a top PHP developer and creator of a framework), who are recommending SaaS as a method of source and quality control, as well as to lower the barrier to entry. It's not what I had in mind originally but the advice coming from who it's coming from, I'm doing a bit of testing in that area as well.
Also, I didn't get your PM.
Shados
Professional Snake Miner
If you're doing that, maybe think about monthly fee for using your hosted service, and free or one-time fee for self-hosted variant?
EDIT: Also, keep in mind that going that route is a lot more work for you, and much of it on-going/constant, so it's not something I'd recommend unless you're really interested in continuing to work on this project for quite some time.
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Yeah, I do intend to continue work on Billr for the foreseeable future. Obviously there's a lot of work involved to manage the platform and add functionality to the software to allow for lots of separate instances, but I have a team now and I'll probably pay the hosting company to manage everything once it's live.
If I do go down the SaaS route, I think it will be the only route. Still working out what it would cost though as obviously I would want to keep it cheap for small businesses and charge heavy users more.
Also there's a lot of fun to be had optimising the hell out of Billr
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Some progress on the website:
http://www.billr.io/
And lots of progress on the app, but I'll keep that to myself
Let me know what y'all think.
http://www.billr.io/
And lots of progress on the app, but I'll keep that to myself
Let me know what y'all think.
There is no doubt in my mind that your code will be sold/given away elsewhere once you release it. There are people out there who will use a hacked Paypal account, get the code, and give it away online. My advice is focus on paid support verses a paid product.
Offer a demo/trial (14-30 days?)
One-time fee for the open source product and 1 year of support ($100-$200?)
Annual fee for updates/support ($50-$75?)
Build a forum for community support (free) and you'll be covered.
You can go the monthly route, but the people who aren't willing to pay the one-time fee will most likely be more geared towards the pirated versions so you'd be better off investing your time not having to deal with a license system or encoding for monthly clients. The time you would spend coding a licensing system can be better spent building the billing system (unless you were going to include the licensing system into Billr, in which case somebody will take the source code and hack it and make future use of the licensing system useless).
So again, focus on support. Maybe considering offer different support tiers if you have the staffing for it.
Offer a demo/trial (14-30 days?)
One-time fee for the open source product and 1 year of support ($100-$200?)
Annual fee for updates/support ($50-$75?)
Build a forum for community support (free) and you'll be covered.
You can go the monthly route, but the people who aren't willing to pay the one-time fee will most likely be more geared towards the pirated versions so you'd be better off investing your time not having to deal with a license system or encoding for monthly clients. The time you would spend coding a licensing system can be better spent building the billing system (unless you were going to include the licensing system into Billr, in which case somebody will take the source code and hack it and make future use of the licensing system useless).
So again, focus on support. Maybe considering offer different support tiers if you have the staffing for it.
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VPN.SH
Active Member
Like the site . Really looking forward to see what Billr will be able to do in this market, or where else it'll likely be used.
Not followed the project amazingly closely but I recall it was originally designed for freelancers. I'm assuming it's now moving towards a WHMCS/HostBill alternative?
. Really looking forward to see what Billr will be able to do in this market, or where else it'll likely be used.Not followed the project amazingly closely but I recall it was originally designed for freelancers. I'm assuming it's now moving towards a WHMCS/HostBill alternative?
@KuJoe I've nearly decided to offer this as a hosted app now to avoid those pitfalls, and because I think it will allow the product to be better.
@liamwithers I think now is the right time for new hosting system what with the issues WHMCS and HostBill have been facing, so I've added some hosting features. I don't know if it'll ever have the same number of modules as WHMCS or HostBill but I'm confident it will win in terms of security and UI.
@liamwithers I think now is the right time for new hosting system what with the issues WHMCS and HostBill have been facing, so I've added some hosting features. I don't know if it'll ever have the same number of modules as WHMCS or HostBill but I'm confident it will win in terms of security and UI.
A hosted app for billing/client manage will be a huge turn-off for a lot of companies. There are privacy, security, and regulatory concerns associated with it that some cannot overcome. I do feel it will open a new market and will probably benefit you in the long run, so I say stick with it but I won't be able to take advantage of it.
One suggestion is allow for clients to do their own backups and have an "exit strategy" in the event of a disaster or extended downtime. The majority of our clients who purchase DDOS protection do it for their billing/client management portals for a reason. I don't want to think what would happen if 10, 50, 100, or 1000 hosting companies were impacted from the same level of attacks we see against a single WHMCS install (I'm not saying you won't be able to handle 30Gbps attacks, I'm just saying it would be cheaper to avoid them).
One suggestion is allow for clients to do their own backups and have an "exit strategy" in the event of a disaster or extended downtime. The majority of our clients who purchase DDOS protection do it for their billing/client management portals for a reason. I don't want to think what would happen if 10, 50, 100, or 1000 hosting companies were impacted from the same level of attacks we see against a single WHMCS install (I'm not saying you won't be able to handle 30Gbps attacks, I'm just saying it would be cheaper to avoid them).
Obviously the server is going to be suitably locked down, but also CC data are stored off-server.
What would make you feel secure?
A hosted solution isn't going to work.
All it's going to take is you hosting a client that people want down and they'll start hitting the rest of your ip's until that client is offline. Are you going to pay out for 10 - 15Gbit/sec of peak burst flood protection? Probably not unless you're rolling in some serious change for it.
This isn't even going to cover the security issues users will have with their client data. You could sanitize everything till the cows come home but not too long ago PHP had an exploit that allowed a user to break out of all regexp, making that security null/void. Do you want that kind of responsibility on your hands? What are you going to do when someone discovers a 0 day in an application?
By going with a hosted solution you're making yourself a huge gold mine for fraudsters/hackers to target.
Talk with jarland about the horrors of using a hosted solution for his old VPS panel before he went to Solus.
Francisco
All it's going to take is you hosting a client that people want down and they'll start hitting the rest of your ip's until that client is offline. Are you going to pay out for 10 - 15Gbit/sec of peak burst flood protection? Probably not unless you're rolling in some serious change for it.
This isn't even going to cover the security issues users will have with their client data. You could sanitize everything till the cows come home but not too long ago PHP had an exploit that allowed a user to break out of all regexp, making that security null/void. Do you want that kind of responsibility on your hands? What are you going to do when someone discovers a 0 day in an application?
By going with a hosted solution you're making yourself a huge gold mine for fraudsters/hackers to target.
Talk with jarland about the horrors of using a hosted solution for his old VPS panel before he went to Solus.
Francisco