WHMCS is not Free mod friendly?

[ChrisTERiS]

Hi,

 

I'm wondering if WHMCS really likes Free stuff in the community (and Marketplace). My experiance from last week let me a feeling that No, they don't really want them.

1. As the license is now per client I asked support if Clients with active products with zero price are count in the limit of "Active Clients". They replied, "Yes". So I had 2 options:
   


1. To Add my free mods as download only
   
2. To pay the fee even if I had no income from these clients.
   

 

[*]I asked if I can use a Developer's license to allow demostration of my mods. Registrations OFF. Just login with a predefinied client account. They said No. So I need to pay for another license.

[*]Today I post my first module and I really got an "Irish shower" when I seen that for Free modules I can't even ask people to register to be able to download. So, what they think? Who gives a Free (or even a Trial) version without getting user data?

 

My return to WHMCS after 8 years was not so good experiance. Still remember the old good days back to 2006 when Matt was the owner and staff at the same time. He was so helpful. Actually with a small fee he helped me to understand the structure of a WHMCS module and I was able to release 2 modules at 2007. Now what? Sure I don't expect Matt to come and help here. But is wise to remember who (I'm talking in plurar) helped him to reach this position in market. The old clients. And there is a saying (I think that is well know in business worldwide): "If you forget from where you started, you'll end again there".

 

With full respection

Chris

Edited May 14, 2017 by ChrisTERiS

[twhiting9275]

I asked if I can use a Developer's license to allow demostration of my mods. Registrations OFF. Just login with a predefinied client account. They said No. So I need to pay for another license.

This is correct, and it should be so. Your dev license is only for development of your module, that's it

[*]I seen that for Free modules I can't even ask people to register to be able to download.

pretty sure this isn't correct. All they say here is

 

For free listings, this should be a direct link to download your app.

That direct link doesn't mean you can't collect data, or force individuals to register, it just means that you need to give them a direct link to your download.

 

If it were not allowed to require registration information, trust me, plenty of products would not be allowed. That list , mind you , was just compiled of the 'top free modules'.

 

 

Unless, of course, WHMCS is just playing favorites again. That wouldn't really surprise me either.

 

 

Is WHMCS 'free mod' friendly? Yes, it is, of course. They don't charge you anything extra per mod. Yes, you have to pay to have a 'demo' site up, but that's the breaks.

Are their policies the best? No, of course not. However, when you're on top of the world, you can set the policies as ridiculous as you want them to be... Until, of course, you're overthrown by your competition.

[ChrisTERiS]

pretty sure this isn't correct. All they say here is

 

Don't swear for it. Sure my English level is not high but, I do believe that I can get at least the general meaning of what I'm reading.

 

What that "or requiring users to provide their details prior to download" means? Registration is not a "required details" procedure? Even login is not a "required details" procedure?

[twhiting9275]

Again, if that was true, then every single mod I linked to would be in violation of the marketplace terms and conditions

[yggdrasil]

I understand where you are going and lets first let something out of the way. The developer's licenses are free with an active license but like the name says, its only used for internal development. You can't and are not supposed to use that on a public site to public users. You cannot use a developer license to any public users at all. It's only for your own testing, coding, changes, upgrade tests, etc.

 

So yes, you need a production license for any Active users/customer/account registrations. (read active here).

 

 

I understand what you mean with free products count as active clients. Sadly, yes, with the new license model, this is true. Because even if the product is free, it's a product and customers with any product active are counted as active in their status.

 

 

If you don't want this, you can decide to provide a download or provision the service for your free product outside of WHMCS. That means, your users register with WHMCS, and you can surely create a template where they can only access it logged in or in any other way you like. But it would not be a product in WHMCS. This way, your customers will not be counted as active because they would have 0 products on WHMCS. I don't see a problem with this because WHMCS is actually a billing product, so for something free, you don't need billing either.

 

 

Now, if you plan only to have free users, then WHMCS may not be the best choice here. The idea of most companies offering something free is to upgrade them to something paid in the future, and even free users are usually counted as customers. Even if they don't pay anything, they usually require support and do cost your company money. Just like trials, they also cost something.

 

 

This is why the model is called fremium. You should not consider these free users, but paid users. Even if they didn't paid anything yet. Actually for free products and free services, if you want to do it properly these customers are bad customers, they count against profit.

 

 

The reason is that they still cost you energy and money. The minute they register they are using computing resources, and if they need support they consume your staff time. Based on that premise, yes, they would also waste a slot as an active customer in WHMCS which you need to account as loss if you are using WHMCS for free products.

 

 

Of course, you can still use WHMCS for free users, in particular, if you also have paid ones or plan to upgrade the free ones, but you have to count the license slot as lost profit for free users. While I don't like this kind of tax model license for software, you have to admit that unlimited users are not something outrageously regarding costs either.

 

 

So if you plan to have a lot of free users, just get an unlimited license.

 

 

Your paid users should balance out the free ones, and if you cannot afford $500 a year, then your business probably has bigger problems than the WHMCS license. Or if you really can't afford even that, then I would say that WHMCS is probably not the best option for free services because like I said before, it's to invoice products.

 

 

If your paid customers are not able to cover the free users license cost, then I would advise to look your business really as well because the 1000 users license is $25 a month, that means that even if you have 950 free users and only 50 paid users, that is 2 cents per user, and your 50 paid customers combined should at least be able to cover over the $19 or so a month that they cost you. (they cost you more once you add servers, bandwidth, support, etc.)

[ChrisTERiS]

Again, if that was true, then every single mod I linked to would be in violation of the marketplace terms and conditions

 

Sorry to say but, even by mistake, you're in violation of marketplace terms and conditions. The responce that I got in my support request says:

As part of our commitment to ensuring the Marketplace provides users with the best experience possible, we do ask that users are not required to provide their details prior to downloading free add-ons.

As per their suggestion "The recommended way of achieving this in any module is to allow the user to download it, and then ask them to provide their name and email as part of the activation or first run routine of your module.".

[ChrisTERiS]

Again, if that was true, then every single mod I linked to would be in violation of the marketplace terms and conditions

 

And here is the final kick. As I found the prior reply like letting a small open window, I wanted to be sure, asking them a Yes/No reply in the question if I'm breaking the terms asking people to register before download. And here is the reply:

Yes that would be breaking the terms. We do not want users to be required to register prior to downloading

 

So... no comments

[ChrisTERiS]

I understand where you are going and lets first let something out of the way. The developer's licenses are free with an active license but like the name says, its only used for internal development. You can't and are not supposed to use that on a public site to public users. You cannot use a developer license to any public users at all. It's only for your own testing, coding, changes, upgrade tests, etc.

The same name (Developer's license) is used from many other big scripts, like (but not limited) to IPB, xenForo, Woltlab, vBulletin etc, but the restriction is to now allow registrations. If you've registrations OFF, then everything is fine. Because they realize that except coding phase, developer needs Alpha and Beta testing which means other people to login and test. By setting any amount of demo accounts (but again not public registrations) you're ok.

 

If you don't want this, you can decide to provide a download or provision the service for your free product outside of WHMCS. That means, your users register with WHMCS, and you can surely create a template where they can only access it logged in or in any other way you like. But it would not be a product in WHMCS. This way, your customers will not be counted as active because they would have 0 products on WHMCS. I don't see a problem with this because WHMCS is actually a billing product, so for something free, you don't need billing either.

There is no need for so complicated solutions. I can use WHMCS without breaking any license. I'll add the files in download area allowing register clients to download them (without to buy them). So, I'm ok with this restriction.

 

 

Your paid users should balance out the free ones, and if you cannot afford $500 a year, then your business probably has bigger problems than the WHMCS license. Or if you really can't afford even that, then I would say that WHMCS is probably not the best option for free services because like I said before, it's to invoice products.

Is not about money. Is about "Marketing tricks" that I don't like. If you pay attention to my "Member since" info, you'll see that I'm not new here. Have been since 2006 with WHMCS, since 2007 (when I relised my first module) in Forums. The glory days when Matt was coder and owner (and a bit later came a Robert if I remember well as staff). And I never really used WHMCS for anything more than coding. Only 2-3 months around 2007. That's all the real use. Maybe is superior for hosting but can't say the same for any other niche.

 

Thank you for the time to write all that long post.

 

Chris

[brian!]

That direct link doesn't mean you can't collect data, or force individuals to register, it just means that you need to give them a direct link to your download.

If it were not allowed to require registration information, trust me, plenty of products would not be allowed. That list , mind you , was just compiled of the 'top free modules'.

Unless, of course, WHMCS is just playing favorites again. That wouldn't really surprise me either.

or not monitoring / policing their own site... that wouldn't surprise me.