twhiting9275 Posted June 29, 2019 Share Posted June 29, 2019 5 hours ago, Remitur said: Welcome back in the 21st century hosting industry!!!! In what planet did you spend last 10 years? 🤣 Dedicated physical servers nowadays are used just as virtualization infrastructure. Our own hosting infrastructure is done by a dozen of physical servers (dual exa-core, 180 GB RAM, no local storage but four fibre-channel to a SAN); another third-party infrastructure we're using has physical nodes with 1 TB RAM each...) The typical VPS we realize for shared hosting has 24 GB of RAM, about 800 GB of storage, 12 vCPU. And about 400 users on each of these VPS. We had about 6 cubic meters of old servers, which have been substituted by the new infrastructure years ago. Since then, less issues, and better customer satisfaction. Competitors which remained on physical servers went to bankruptcy years ago. This is completely untrue. Again, if you're hosting this many accounts, you need them on a dedicated server, not a virtual one. Even with larger hardware (which is possible in today's world), hosting this many accounts on a VPS is just asking for problems in a big, big way. Just because you (and a few others) do it doesn't mean it's the 'standard'. It's not. Not by any means 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Remitur Posted June 29, 2019 Share Posted June 29, 2019 2 hours ago, twhiting9275 said: Even with larger hardware (which is possible in today's world), hosting this many accounts on a VPS is just asking for problems in a big, big way. Just because you (and a few others) do it doesn't mean it's the 'standard'. It's not. Not by any means What would these hypothetical and phantom "big problems" be? Let me explain a real problem in two ways: a hardware fault. Metal world: you're waked up in the middle of the night by an alarm. Check that the server is unresponsive. Call for guys in farm. They report "Sir, your server is dead" (Half an hour is passed). You set up the spare-mule, and cross-finger hoping no others will fault in the meanwhile because it's the only one. You look for last backup... *, the new one was not completed, the previous is 24 hours before... so tomorrow morning a lot of hungry customers who lost one full day of data. Launch restore... and wait 6 to 8 hours to complete. Globally, 8 to 12 hours of down for your customers... and this only because you have a spare server available. If not, the down will be of 2 to 3 days... Virtual world: you wake up regularly at 7:00, do your breakfast, take a look at your system report... one node fault during the night, all VPS were automatically moved on other nodes, global load on the system is still low so you are not required to start any spare node... just call for hardware support to fix the dead one. Me "and few others" means everyone I know in the hosting industry who gives shared hosting services. And anyone gives shared hosting services on AWS, or Google Cloud, or on any cloud/virtual system... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHMCS Support Manager WHMCS John Posted July 8, 2019 WHMCS Support Manager Share Posted July 8, 2019 Hi everyone, Our intention is always to provide the kind of billing and automation options required to make business operations easier for our users, and we know that cPanel is used extensively. I wanted to share some thoughts on how we can continue to meet those needs in light of this announcement. For those selling cPanel licenses alongside VPS and Dedicated products, we will be launching a cPanel licence automation module that will be able to automate the process of selling and billing for cPanel licenses. This will be based around the concept of configurable options being used to offer cPanel licenses, with the ability to automate the process of reconciling the license tier each month, and adjusting the billing price for end users accordingly. Development work is under-way and we expect to have a preview available later this month. If you’re a cPanel partner and would like more information about this, please contact us or speak with your cPanel account manager. In the case of reseller hosting products assigned to the cPanel module, one option that is already available is switching to an account limit based model where users upgrade to higher levels of reseller plan in order to provision additional accounts. In this way, the maximum number of accounts resellers can create is predictable, allowing for appropriate pricing to be set. The ability to impose account creation limits, and the automatic upgrade (and downgrade) of these is already possible with our product: Navigate to Setup > Products/Services > Products/Services > Edit > Module Settings tab Click Advanced Settings Enter the desired limit into the "Limit Reseller by Number" field Click Save Changes. This limit will be applied to newly provisioned accounts. For existing accounts on the server, the limit should be applied via WHM. Clients can then upgrade/downgrade between your reseller hosting products in the usual way to increase the user limit. For hosting companies offering cPanel web hosting, we intend to begin providing the ability to see the number of cPanel accounts on cPanel servers via the WHMCS server setup page alongside new server assignment options, allowing for more even distribution of accounts across your cPanel web servers. We are also considering providing the ability to track and bill for reseller accounts based on the number of accounts that are created by a reseller. In much the same way as disk space and bandwidth overage billing operates. This is something we are interested in hearing more about: Are you considering this kind of pricing model? Would this be a beneficial feature for you? How would you want to bill for it? Eg. Per account fee, Flat fee + per account fee etc. Any other considerations? This is not currently something we're working on, but could potentially be something which we consider for a new feature in the course of our regular development cycle. We're continuing to monitor reactions as they evolve. Feedback on how your billing and automation needs may change is valuable in helping guide future development. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarceloPe Posted July 8, 2019 Share Posted July 8, 2019 28 minutes ago, WHMCS John said: For hosting companies offering cPanel web hosting, we intend to begin providing the ability to see the number of cPanel accounts on cPanel servers via the WHMCS server setup page alongside new server assignment options, allowing for more even distribution of accounts across your cPanel web servers. Hello, thanks for the feedback. Here we purchase licenses at buycpanel. Whereas I cannot know how the price increase will affect their offers (nor even they know that yet!), a feature in WHMCS where you can set the max amount of panels a server may contain will come in handy. WHMCS is actually counting the number of customers (which is a good metric, and should not be removed!), but the limit from now on should be applied to panels rather than "accounts", cause a reseller may have 2-3-12-30-120 panels within, and the new price structure will require WHMCS to keep a reliable daily track of that figures to avoid license costs to go nuts. We currently sell already limited reseller plans, where they purchase a package of accounts that are limited using the current WHMCS+WHM options. Other providers may have choose to sell unlimited accounts to resellers and obviously will need alternate options. Otherwise, start limiting their resellers. Ability to bill resellers by amount of panels, will come in handy too. You never know when your business model should be rethought. So, both billing models will be indeed required by WHMCS based providers. The issue here is: When will WHMCS be able to release these nw features? Also, (and this is kind of a feature request) options to improve the calculations of per server costs, enabling us to add the cost of hardware in one line and the software license(s) in a second line, and then being able to generate a report with that data, would help companies to streamline and better understand the underlying operating costs of maintaining every server. Look forward to hear other voices, but yours is a very good approach to cope with the issue. Thanks in advance! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bear Posted July 8, 2019 Share Posted July 8, 2019 1 hour ago, WHMCS John said: We are also considering providing the ability to track and bill for reseller accounts based on the number of accounts that are created by a reseller. In much the same way as disk space and bandwidth overage billing operates. This is something we are interested in hearing more about: Are you considering this kind of pricing model? Not before being forced into it by this monumental and incredibly unwelcome change, no. While we do need the ability to track and review the number of accounts created, we are doing limited tiers now, to reduce surprises. Being able to see how many accounts a reseller has created in their account would help us track trends. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Remitur Posted July 8, 2019 Share Posted July 8, 2019 3 hours ago, WHMCS John said: Are you considering this kind of pricing model? Absolutely NO. I can bill real resources (space, bandwidth, CPU), or other limits to the service (i.e. the number of email accounts). There's no relation between the number of cPanel accounts and the "real" usage of the service: I can set-up a single account which use enough services to fill a whole high-end dedicated server, and I can set up also a single service which uses just a few spare resources and that is used by 100 different accounts... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mechanic Posted July 8, 2019 Share Posted July 8, 2019 3 3 hours ago, WHMCS John said: For those selling cPanel licenses alongside VPS and Dedicated products, we will be launching a cPanel licence automation module that will be able to automate the process of selling and billing for cPanel licenses. This will be based around the concept of configurable options being used to offer cPanel licenses, with the ability to automate the process of reconciling the license tier each month, and adjusting the billing price for end users accordingly. Development work is under-way and we expect to have a preview available later this month. Thank you for your development work. Apart from this please consider an option to keep track of the expenses/cost of the server. For example, now we can set a monthly cost in the server setup page which then used in the "Income by Server" Report page. What I am requesting will be similar to this but will have at least two fields and will save the cost for each month: 1. Fixed monthly cost / basic hardware cost 2. Variable monthly cost/software license cost. Both values will be stored in the database for each month to be used in the "Income by Server" Report page. Instead of adding these two fields in the server set up page, you can also add these fields in a completely new section of WHMCS. 1. The fixed monthly cost will be used to enter the basic hardware/fixed monthly cost for the server. In case the server was replaced by another (eg. due to a hardware upgrade), the cost might get changed, too. This is why storing the value for all months is necessary. 2. Variable monthly cost / software license cost is subject to change each month depending on the number of cPanel accounts /other software licenses on the server. It will also be stored into the database for all months to be used in calculations in the "Income by Server" Report page. Quote We are also considering providing the ability to track and bill for reseller accounts based on the number of accounts that are created by a reseller. In much the same way as disk space and bandwidth overage billing operates. This is something we are interested in hearing more about: Are you considering this kind of pricing model? Would this be a beneficial feature for you? Of course, tracking and billing reseller hosting accounts is needed as badly as tracking and billing servers/VPSes. You should give this the same priority as counting cPanel licenses on a server. There is a sheer number of providers that offer reseller hosting and all will be benefiting from this. Quote How would you want to bill for it? Eg. Per account fee, Flat fee + per account fee etc. A flat fee + per account fee should cover many grounds at once. Providers that offer fixed tiers of the number of cPanel accounts with their reseller hosting packages will be able to utilize it, as well as providers who offer a variable tier of cPanel accounts (eg. who offer additional cPanel accounts as a paid addon / config option) will be able to utilize the option. Quote Any other considerations? Please consider the options for the server cost features mentioned above. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cascompany Posted July 9, 2019 Share Posted July 9, 2019 cPanel move is terrible ... I hope they lose all clients to know how bad they did it. As for WHMCS, I really hope you have nothing to do with that Vulture Capital ... if you do, please re-purchase that part! And... since you already have a good amount of developers and you are a good brand in the hosting environment, please... make a Control Panel !! There are MILLIONS of clients looking to move out cPanel just because this move... the world is indignated because of this, 22 years of a great product, just ruined by a Vulture Capital in months. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gei Posted July 10, 2019 Author Share Posted July 10, 2019 On 7/8/2019 at 10:33 AM, WHMCS John said: Are you considering this kind of pricing model? Would this be a beneficial feature for you? We are considering it only because cPanel have forced us into it. The insane cPanel price increases have essentially destroyed reseller hosting as a concept. It would not be beneficial whatsoever - it will anger our customers and likely push them away, or on to other platforms. It is only beneficial because of the cPanel price gouging and the need to pass on these prices. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sol2010 Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 I think this is indeed a sad day for all SMEs and all of course not forgetting the innocent workers at cPanel, many of whom will surely be looking for new jobs soon as demand for the product will decrease. Price increases are always a bit of a struggle, especially when there is no truly noticeable additional value - but these cPanel increases are totally unjustifiable. It's hard to fully understand the logic behind the decision I think we will see many businesses and resellers moving away from cPanel, Plesk and WHMCs because of this move and the alternatives are certainly going to get a lot more traffic. Whether this increase has been driven by cPanel directors or Oakley Capital who own all of these businesses - it simply looks like a money grab and quite likely signifies the death knell for all of these businesses - whether that takes 6 months or 3 years. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bear Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 44 minutes ago, sol2010 said: Price increases are always a bit of a struggle, especially when there is no truly noticeable additional value - but these cPanel increases are totally unjustifiable. It's hard to fully understand the logic behind the decision Can't fully agree there, about "no truly noticeable additional value", if you take into account all the years the price has remained about the same. They simplified managing a server to the point where anyone would potentially be able to manage one, for the most part. A price increase was long overdue. The nature of this increase/change, and the excuse of "more powerful servers" and so on is the part I can't get behind. This needed to be more gradual, more incremental, and not account based, except maybe in larger blocks. I'd read somewhere they also increased the requirements to become a NOC partner, further reducing the small players options. Reminds me of Enom's changes. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick A Posted July 22, 2019 Share Posted July 22, 2019 On 7/8/2019 at 10:33 AM, WHMCS John said: How would you want to bill for it? Eg. Per account fee, Flat fee + per account fee etc. We would like this option. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jafar Muhammed Posted July 23, 2019 Share Posted July 23, 2019 I took an opinion poll from my customers, and they are interested in moving to DirectAdmin. I am planning to move them to a DirectAdmin box in late August. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gei Posted July 23, 2019 Author Share Posted July 23, 2019 Reseller hosting will no longer be feasible on cPanel - I think most resellers will want to be moved to DirectAdmin 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jafar Muhammed Posted July 23, 2019 Share Posted July 23, 2019 1 hour ago, gei said: I think most resellers will want to be moved to DirectAdmin True that. Especially those who offer unlimited accounts to the resellers. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
365Hosts Posted July 31, 2019 Share Posted July 31, 2019 On 28/06/2019 at 8:59 PM, MikeP said: In my own opinion, I feel people are blowing it way out of proportion. Only the hosts that are offering hosting for $1 will suffer, and so they should. All you need to do is add the $0.10/12 or $0.20 into the hosting package or absorb the pennies, surely you are profiting enough to lose a maximum of 20 cents per account. I completely agree that jumping from per server to per account pricing is absurd, the way they've done it is terrible i.e. overnight. Nonetheless, it's not a huge issue, if you like cPanel and respect them, deal with it, else find somewhere else to take your business. WHMCS will have to react to this change since they are apart of cPanel. However, WHMCS already counts the users on each server under the "Product/Services -> Servers" area. Not sure how that will work with external license providers, such as BuycPanel and others. Just my 2c 🧐 Come and work with us, 🙂 Love a positive outlook. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gei Posted August 1, 2019 Author Share Posted August 1, 2019 10 hours ago, 365Hosts said: Come and work with us, 🙂 Love a positive outlook. Jesus Christ. This is not a positive outlook, this is called being a sheep. If anything accepting something so unreasonable, instead of standing up against it, makes him a very poor candidate. Who is cPanel to dictate how much a web hosting provider should charge and who should "suffer"? If a client has a few static html pages and is paying his host $1/month for hosting, what is wrong with that? Why should cPanel be entitled to 20% of the revenue from this plan? Hopefully in another 1-2 years the market will shift away from cPanel entirely because of their greed, and we won't have to deal with this terrible pricing anymore, but in the meanwhile we don't need to bend over and accept it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeP Posted August 1, 2019 Share Posted August 1, 2019 3 hours ago, gei said: Jesus Christ. This is not a positive outlook, this is called being a sheep. If anything accepting something so unreasonable, instead of standing up against it, makes him a very poor candidate. Who is cPanel to dictate how much a web hosting provider should charge and who should "suffer"? If a client has a few static html pages and is paying his host $1/month for hosting, what is wrong with that? Why should cPanel be entitled to 20% of the revenue from this plan? Hopefully in another 1-2 years the market will shift away from cPanel entirely because of their greed, and we won't have to deal with this terrible pricing anymore, but in the meanwhile we don't need to bend over and accept it. So that $1 a month covers CPU, RAM, Disk, Network, Electricity and Support resources that this $1 customer will use? I don’t think so. Simple fact whether people like it or not that there shouldn’t be $1 web hosting. As I’ve said previously, I don’t agree with cPanels pricing structure but on the other hand I kind of do. They provide support for pretty much anything albeit slow at times. I could easily send them several tickets a month asking them to fix a 500 error on different accounts and they wouldn’t batter an eye lid and still pay no more than 15-30 on the original pricing. They are supporting you and your clients so damn right they should get a piece of the pie! Again, I don’t agree with the way the price increase was done and I’m not happy that there is no unlimited option but hey, life is life. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gei Posted August 1, 2019 Author Share Posted August 1, 2019 8 hours ago, MikeP said: So that $1 a month covers CPU, RAM, Disk, Network, Electricity and Support resources that this $1 customer will use? I don’t think so. Simple fact whether people like it or not that there shouldn’t be $1 web hosting. As I’ve said previously, I don’t agree with cPanels pricing structure but on the other hand I kind of do. They provide support for pretty much anything albeit slow at times. I could easily send them several tickets a month asking them to fix a 500 error on different accounts and they wouldn’t batter an eye lid and still pay no more than 15-30 on the original pricing. They are supporting you and your clients so damn right they should get a piece of the pie! Again, I don’t agree with the way the price increase was done and I’m not happy that there is no unlimited option but hey, life is life. Again I don't think you understand how business works. A statement like there "should not be" $1 web hosting is just absurd, and there are many cases where this is justified. This is not "life", and this is not the way you treat your customers. It's only a matter of time before cPanel begins to lose their market share, and a new panel steps in as the leader. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeP Posted August 2, 2019 Share Posted August 2, 2019 21 hours ago, gei said: Again I don't think you understand how business works. A statement like there "should not be" $1 web hosting is just absurd, and there are many cases where this is justified. I'm very well aware "how business works" - I've been in the industry for over 15 years. I totally agree what cPanel has done is absurd - maybe you should ask them if they understand "how business works". The point I'm getting at is - If you don't like the new pricing then move on - no point sitting on here (or elsewhere) slating them as it's not going to change anything. 21 hours ago, gei said: This is not "life", and this is not the way you treat your customers. It's only a matter of time before cPanel begins to lose their market share, and a new panel steps in as the leader. It is "life" as there is nothing you, me or anyone else, can do about it. Even a backlash from the entire industry didn't make them change their mind. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHMCS ChrisD Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 Hi Everyone, Whilst I appreciate that there is a robust discussion around this topic can I please remind everyone to be courteous to each other. While we understand that users will disagree and have different points of view at times, this can be communicated in a civil manner 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bear Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 On 6/28/2019 at 3:59 PM, MikeP said: WHMCS already counts the users on each server under the "Product/Services -> Servers" area. It doesn't currently count any accounts under a reseller. On just one server of ours, the count in WHMCS is roughly 1/3 of the actual number that are on that box. That's an issue, where the Cpanel pricing change will bring a "surprise" bill at some point. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeP Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 3 minutes ago, bear said: It doesn't currently count any accounts under a reseller. On just one server of ours, the count in WHMCS is roughly 1/3 of the actual number that are on that box. That's an issue, where the Cpanel pricing change will bring a "surprise" bill at some point. At the time of writing I completely forgot about “resold” accounts. Let’s just hope something is released by WHMCS to assist with this. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisHermannsen Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 5 minutes ago, bear said: It doesn't currently count any accounts under a reseller. On just one server of ours, the count in WHMCS is roughly 1/3 of the actual number that are on that box. That's an issue, where the Cpanel pricing change will bring a "surprise" bill at some point. Utilities -> Domain Resolver. This shows the total accounts on any server. It's not the best way to get the total number of accounts, but it's pretty simple. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bear Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 1 hour ago, DennisMidjord said: Utilities -> Domain Resolver. This shows the total accounts on any server. It's not the best way to get the total number of accounts, but it's pretty simple. That is also inaccurate, I'm afraid. It shows a bit less than half the total accounts on that same server. The main issue is it shows the reseller's account, but not the ones under it. That info is only within the Cpanel accounting at this point. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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