Call the U.N. - refugees are storming across the border from insane-ville

[tallship]

In case anyone hadn't already noticed, the price of an owned, unbranded hostbill yesterday was a whopping $699 and the annual support went up to $299/yr.

 

I just checked again and the owned, unbranded license is now $999.00 and the annual subscription for support is now $999/yr - that's more than the cost of two fresh owned, branded licenses.

 

If the arithmetic wasn't totally whacked out I just don't know what to say about the insanity of what's happening over there. First, a VMware 5 module that is broken was released a couple of weeks ago, then it suddenly became a paid module but no one on the forums has reported that it is working yet (I don't think anyone's buying into the craziness at this point - no pun intended).

 

This is no lie people - here's an actual screenshot of the insanity:

 

Here's the snippet:

/http://i.imagebanana.com/img/2v1hqxnz/hostbill_insanitysmall20130506.png

 

 

Here's the full screenshot:

/http://i.imagebanana.com/img/v2q1ypq5/HostBillOrderNowCompleteClientManage.png

 

 

 

Does anyone have any idea what is going on? I thought everyone stopped smoking crack back in the late eighties.

[WHMCS Chris]

Not entirely worried about what their doing over here.

[HardSoftCode]

Did Not like the HostBill it's look good from the outside but very ugly from the inside and there no future comparing to WHMCS

 

I tried many software in the past but none have suit my needs expat WHMCS

[TommyK]

To me, this is sad. Whmcs need the competition to evolve. Chris post is actually very telling.

[WHMCS Chris]

To me, this is sad. Whmcs need the competition to evolve. Chris post is actually very telling.

 

I don't mean that in terms of development, solely their pricing. If they want to increase, by all means. WHMCS is going to continue to improving in every aspect for the community and industry.

[bear]

Does anyone have any idea what is going on?

Not sure why anyone here would have any idea what's going on over there, but here's a guess (complete with assumptions):

For the longest time it felt as though they were changing prices drastically and suddenly in order to be talked about more. Any publicity is generally good and can be spun in your favor if done right, as they say.

 

When WHMCS was having issues with their new releases, some got nervous and started shopping alternatives (I admit I also looked around, just in case, since I'd been burned in the past by other products). That's pretty common when software has the appearance of faltering. One of the competing products in the same price range, HB, got attention. Shortly after, they raised their price, then started changing licensing also. No more trial, monthly and so on (felt like they were attempting to reduce support there). Several large and sudden increases later, people were possibly still buying, so they raised a non refundable support fee that also increased a few times (again, reducing support needs). When that still didn't have the desired effect they raised this latest increase ($1K/$1K), which was so onerous even the staunchest and most vocal supporters I'd seen have finally turned against them. This was also coupled with a move to Paypal only orders for the product (the site claims other payment methods, but I now see only that on the actual ordering page), which I'm sure at that price is off putting due to PP's tricky refund policies.

 

This feels to me like someone that saw their product start to grow in userbase and panicked at the thought of supporting a lot of users or hiring staff. A clearer case of foot shooting would be hard to find, in my opinion (why not just shut off ordering for a while instead?). Bad for competing products to keep up with new development, perhaps, but even if he now went back to reasonable pricing and changes, the damage may be irreparable.

 

A side note; before they shut down the bulk of their forum to non customers, there was a thread about pricing. Those that bought into it when it was a lot lower were clamoring for the owner to raise the price because it was so worth the cost and it would "keep the riff raff out". This is typical of those holding cheap legacy lifetime licenses.

Can't help but wonder what they're thinking now.