WHMCS to double their price of owned licenses.

[MannDude]

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.

Support & Updates is an optional service which grants you access to the latest software updates for WHMCS and the ability to contact our technical support team whenever you need them.

Next month, WHMCS will introduce its first price increase in over 8 years for the renewal cost of Support & Updates. The price for a 1 Year renewal will increase from $44.95 to $99.95. At the same time, we will also be introducing the ability to renew for 6 Months at a cost of $59.95.

Between now and 22nd June 2015, you can extend your current support and updates agreement for an additional 12 months and take advantage of today's pricing of $44.95. Click here to renew now »

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.

We appreciate your business and look forward to successfully assisting you with automating your operations and providing you with features that help drive your business, and provide you with expert technical support in times of need.

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. 

 

[Licensecart]

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.

 

[drmike]

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?

 

[KuJoe]

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.

 

[raindog308]

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

 

[Licensecart]

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

 

[mitgib]

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

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.

 

[Licensecart]

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

 

[Servers4You]

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.

 

[Licensecart]

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.

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."

 

[PureVoltage]

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.

 

[drmike]

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.

 

[PureVoltage]

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.

 

[WSWD]

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.

 

[Francisco]

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

 

[fixidixi]

@Francisco: +1 for PonyPay! opcorn:

 

[Licensecart]

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

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.

 

[Cloudrck]

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.

 

[Licensecart]

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.

 

[Enterprisevpssolutions]

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.