Is WHMCS the right solution?

[jem32]

I am wondering if WhmCS is the best solution to do the following, and if not, what supporting software would you recommend? I'm a web developer and I have a dedicated server for all my clients. But I want to upgrade my services to offer automatic hosting and billing. I also want to provide a website builder solution (this I am coding myself). I am NOT a server admin though. I only know the basics in WHM to set up my client hosting accounts and such. So I need a little advice in chosing the right solution.

 

So basically I need something lie this...

 

Customer orders domain registration, hosting, and/or a subscrition to our website builder. (Either one, two or all three)

 

Here are some of the specifics...

 

I know WHMCS can do automatic domain registration, but which reseller integrates the best? I'll need automatic nameserver assignment as well.

 

Hosting account set up with a single click.

 

Website builder deployment: We will need our entire CMS (database, files, directory structure) created/uploaded automatically if the website builder is ordered. We are only in the early planning stages of our CMS so if we need to code it in a certain way to facilitate, we can do that.

 

The ability to store web development “plugins” in one location and allow customers to have them uploaded/installed with a single click. For instance, they will have a web site with a contact form, but we will charge extra if they want to order the "newsletter plugin". And we're also concerned about the easiest way to facilitate updates to those plugins.

 

All of this will need to communicate with some kind of ecommerce system as well, so whatever programs I buy need to be fairly open in this regard. I'd actually prefer one like Quantum Gateway where customers credit cards never actually go through my server so I don't have to deal with PCI compliance. I will need it to create an invoice every time someone orders a plugin and have that fee added to the monthly recurring invoice for that client.

 

So basically, I want the customer to be able to order a domain, hosting and our web site builder in just a few minutes and be up and running and able to start building his site. Is this all possible with WHMCS or will I need a combination of different programs to achieve this?

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

Jenni

[sentq]

if you planning to sell hosting and domains and need for everything to work automatically i think WHMCS is enough

when you need to sell products like your 'website builder' it works too, you can make customization also to fit your need.

[WHMCS John]

Hi,

WHMCS can certainly handle the provisioning of hosting accounts,, domains and processing payments.

 

It can't be used to automatically install your software upon a hosting account though, for that you'd need something more like http://www.softaculous.com/

[jem32]

Thanks so much for your responses. I've talked to my partner and I think he'll just code something custom for us as we won't be doing a bunch of other people's CMS software.

 

So I'm going to go for it and use WHMCS. I'm sure I'll be back sooner rather than later with my first "ARRRGGG! What am I doing wrong?"

 

Jenni

[Alex - Arvixe]

Website builder deployment: We will need our entire CMS (database, files, directory structure) created/uploaded automatically if the website builder is ordered. We are only in the early planning stages of our CMS so if we need to code it in a certain way to facilitate, we can do that.

 

I am building a software myself (not anything like the project you seem to be working on), there is really 2 approaches to this:

 

1. Use Softaculous along side WHMCS (Though I don't know how flexible that will be, it wouldn't work for us anyway, see why below).

 

2. Have your CMS built like a multi-script and then create an API for it, after the API is built you can create a WHMCS module to create your accounts. We found this to work better for us as we needed to make use of the configurable options feature in WHMCS, with our custom module and API this was not a problem.

 

This is also better for us as in the future it will make it a lot easier for us should we want to implement a reseller based package as all the ground work is done (API, secret keys etc...), all that is left is the modules for 3rd party billing software (With WHMCS being done as we're using it ourselves).

 

Good luck with your project.

[ebmocwen]

I used my own self-developed billing and provisioning system for years, as the business grew the maintenance increased as I needed to add more and more features to keep up with the competition. It wasn't long before I was more developer than business manager. After 8 years I considered a pre-packaged system, I found WHMCS. 18 months later, I took the plunge - and have not regretted it at all.

 

Anything WHMCS does not do you can code yourself and integrate using the built in action hooks. WHMCS does everything you need to start up and it also does a whole load of things you do not realise you need. Why re-invent the wheel? If I was starting from scratch I would not hesitate to start with WHMCS. Good luck!

[Alex - Arvixe]

I used my own self-developed billing and provisioning system for years, as the business grew the maintenance increased as I needed to add more and more features to keep up with the competition. It wasn't long before I was more developer than business manager. After 8 years I considered a pre-packaged system, I found WHMCS. 18 months later, I took the plunge - and have not regretted it at all.

 

Anything WHMCS does not do you can code yourself and integrate using the built in action hooks. WHMCS does everything you need to start up and it also does a whole load of things you do not realise you need. Why re-invent the wheel? If I was starting from scratch I would not hesitate to start with WHMCS. Good luck!

 

I'd love to see your self-built system, do you have a copy hosted anywhere I can see?

 

Good luck with WHMCS , welcome on board.