Just got the email - going from $45 a month to $850 a month - What are you all migrating to?

[ptoone]

WHMCS has been a sinking ship for years. This has given me the motivation to move quite a few licenses to other services that honor their word. WHMCS simply cannot be trusted and it is shame. RIP WHMCS. 

[Salamg]

Ah, this is such a shame. Looks like i'll be moving my services sooner rather than later too, not long till https://upmind.com/ launch so will be a perfect move.

[Kian]

1 hour ago, brian! said:

nothing - but I can't believe that the active client count (in the licensing sense) is based solely on that.

I'm pretty sure it is but even if they improve their check, sooner or later one will figure out how to avoid the new fees legitimately.

In less than an hour we found 3 ways (2 easy, 1 stlish and really cool). All legit but I think WHMCS staff already know that. Honestly I'm a little bit scared of the possible outcome if someone reveals anything or come up with new ideas.

[isdoo]

Sadly I can't find an alternative that links to Nominet - so despite having an owned licence it looks like I will have to stay 😞 

[UnwilfulExpenditure]

6 minutes ago, isdoo said:

Sadly I can't find an alternative that links to Nominet - so despite having an owned licence it looks like I will have to stay 😞 

Blesta are planning to implement! If not, just hire someone to! It'll be much cheaper! 

[isdoo]

2 minutes ago, chrisb2012 said:

Blesta are planning to implement! If not, just hire someone to! It'll be much cheaper! 

Thanks. 

Sadly I am getting to old for this. 

I suspect I will simply shut up shop. 

I can't even get the latest version to install and so am out of my depth. 

I just downloaded it, but my last attempt to install went wrong and I had to restore my backup. 

So much for all the money I have spent over the years

[NoMoreWHMCS]

Oh, i see that WHMCS is going to Die. Who uses WHMCS? Only little till middle Big Hosting Companies and not Big Hosters.  I am glad that I was able to sell my licence and no longer have to take part in this brainless procedure. But this is your death blow WHMCS team 😉

[brian!]

3 minutes ago, Kian said:

I'm pretty sure it is

yeah, as I posted in another thread, i'm coming round to that conclusion too.

6 minutes ago, Kian said:

In less than an hour we found 3 ways (2 easy, 1 stlish and really cool). All legit but I think WHMCS staff already know that.

yeah I saw your hook code - in the version I could see, I saw absolutely nothing wrong with the code, nor could WHMCS object to it... mind you, there was a capsule use link that was going unused, so maybe it was doing something to the db that I can't see in the version I saw. 🙈

7 minutes ago, Kian said:

Honestly I'm a little bit scared of the possible outcome if someone reveals anything or come up with new ideas.

why? the ways things are going, the last one to leave at night can turn the lights out on this place... this will be just one of those situations that get discussed privately by those interested....

if a user runs a SQL query to set clients as inactive, what can WHMCS do?

if they write a hook that makes a new client inactive by default, what can WHMCS do ??

granted, if an account when from 15,000 to 248 some questions might get asked, but how could they tell 100% it wasn't a genuine change ?? answer in the short-term, not easily... perhaps with future versions...

besides they seemingly weren't actively chasing paying users who were using JS to remove the WHMCS branding link (not that will matter much in the future).

anyway i'm long past caring what WHMCS think about anything - they've conceded the moral high ground on everything.

[UnwilfulExpenditure]

12 minutes ago, brian! said:

anyway i'm long past caring what WHMCS think about anything - they've conceded the moral high ground on everything.

I think that about sums it up! 90% of my needs are covered elsewhere! We did plan on a break next month and do support only/improve some materials to let employees relax after a busy year  - that is now out of the window! 😂 or I may hire you for a day to solve all our issues! What is the day rate for a brian!?  😛 

Having been a long time reader of the content you post - do you have a personal preference on the blesta/boxbill/clientexec front? I know, one size doesn't fit all - but what would be second choice?  WHMCS (Company ethos aside) has long dominated the market for good reason! And I know find myself in a precarious position of choosing software I never thought twice about and I assume they realise the eco-system is established enough to trap many! I won't be staying, it just doesn't sit right with me and puts us at risk of more cost in the future, I'd much rather pitch the idea of moving and pay employees the money we save each year by moving as a bonus for the misguided email I sent about reducing workload for a month! 🤦‍♂️ what a difference a day makes! 

If anyone is adapting anything for an isp/voip we'd happily look at splitting time and cost! Or if anyone has some good advice we'd love to hear it! 

[zitu4life]

I am totally agree that  combine one or two hooks can deal with auto- turn client inactive and before this active client subscription related to end date get it active active and WHMCS will run automation, after get paid, aput a client inactive active and so on. I can not code it, but I am hundred sure it can be done.

[silebis]

For a small business with a small margin are the new pricing killing. We are selling only onetime products that's mean, that due we have only up 50 clients, we have to pay over x times more.

Why the owner of the lifetime licence has the same price as new clients that only buy monthly lease? Please add some special program or change the price for the support of lifetime owners.

 

[ManagedCloud-Hosting]

Hi Everyone,

Never Host All Your Clients With A Single Server Even If It Costs Less!!  We have 3 companies and yes this is going to change how we use WHMCS 

I had been expecting such a change as cPanel prices changed allowing almost no time and raised their price 2019 (While this came all of a sudden and I was going through my OHS and hospitalized. It was a very challenging situation for us and my team members has real tough time discussing with clients know that why they were being given a chance to migrate to Direct Admin at such a short notice else their pricing will increase. This again happened in 2021 JAN and now we have more clients on Directadmin than cPanel

We had been working on WordPress Recurring Billing   with WooCommerce however that is in a complicated stage currently. 

We had been using Vision HelpDesk since 2011 for client support and Yes it's very Stable. Vision HelpDesk  Support Rocks. We use WHMCS only for Server Management and client billing (3 companies).

Now we plan to use - we are working things out - 

1. WordPress / PHP based software for Billing 

2. Vision HelpDesk For Tech Support 

3. WHMCS For Server Management (1 License) 

4. Busy Accounting For Accounting based Needs /  Zoho Accounting 

5. FreedCamp For Task Management (Using since 2018)

 

Please share your thoughts, we are on the same boat...

 

 

 

 

[johannes]

14 minutes ago, ManagedCloud-Hosting said:

Never Host All Your Clients With A Single Server Even If It Costs Less

divide et impera!  full agreed.. thought i am the only one

[Danse]

Hi, 

this is a disaster and to keep it short: 

This: "changes to our pricing will not take effect until July 1st, 2021." and this  "You will not be able to purchase or renew support for your owned WHMCS license, effective immediately." is not understandable. 

Some Friend bought a Blesta License for 750$ today and we will follow for 100% sure if WHMCS will not apologise and tread their Customers as... Customers....

I honestly feel cheated. Really sad story. 

[johannes]

I just purchased the wisecp enterprise lic (with perpetual updates and support. for arround 750), and will you hold updated, my friends.

[UnwilfulExpenditure]

Leave a review here: https://trustpilot.com/review/whmcs.com they actively encourage reviews so I say give them as many customer opinions as possible! At least explaining the situation will new potential customers to get a clear picture! 

[ozgurerdogan]

This is perfect time for WHMCS to proove that they listen user feedbacks. If not now then when?

[Dragoni25]

@chrisb2012

Done!

Edited April 8, 2021 by Dragoni25

[zooky]

Really disappointing from WHMCS 😞 Im just on the normal licensing model ($39.95 pm).  Hardly ever use support, so no real benefits for me to stick around.

Luckily there are other alternatives out there, which I'm looking at moving over too.

For all the others looking, so far I have found the below to be similar

- WiseCP
- HostBill
- ClientExec
- Blesta

[yggdrasil]

I'm not that surprised. I think @brian! , @bear and me included, said this for years now.

Likewise, I would have no problem if they just increased their support pricing which in the end is still a subscription as I tend to always pay and keep up to date with the security patches. This new email is very deceiving because they basically say you can keep using the software, but you will not receive further security patches which is basically telling everyone "Your owned license now is worthless...).

If the software was open it would be a different story but we all know that WHMCS is locked and the second there is a security hole (which is a question of time) you will have no other option but to move to their subscription option.

This is something I will not do. One because I will not move to a per-customer license model, my business cannot work under that model when I even lose money for some active accounts. And Covid hit us hard, I'm hardly paying bills every month and WHMCS expects more money, cPanel expect more money, I'n done with those companies that try to squeeze my growth. The more users I have the money they want, even when I'm the one paying the server bills every month, and I never use their support. It costs the same if I have 1 customer or 10,000 because I'm the one running my hardware and paying the bills every month, not them. Their software works the same.

Second, WHMCS is going the vendor lock approach for years now. Anyone in their right mind would be insane to use a locked software for their business and company because WHMCS can tomorrow say, now its $1 per customer a month and your options are none but to keep paying their fees. And per the email I received they had no warning or notification, the price change is effectively immediately. They had no intention to even let existing customers buy support packages...The email was very aggressive. It basically claims my license is not obsolete.

I'm not that sad either because WHMCS is doing us all a favor. We just to move and their competitors will use the new cash flow to improve their products. Yes, we don't have all the modules but it's a question of time until a third party starts to develop a module for other products. Nobody wants a subscription closed product. I know exactly what will happen to WHMCS, in a year from now they will increase their subscription pricing. Then again... Their module market will start to die as developers move on making the whole product less worth and as they need more money they will just try to lock users into their services.

WHMCS is going the subscription/service model. They are not interested in people running the software on their servers. Eventually they will not even offer a self-hosted version. The boat was sinking for years now folks. WHMCS is not going to change their tune as a company. I personally have expressed them plenty of ideas and things they could change, it's very clear to me the company is going losing customers by the day and just like cPanel has lost a chunk of their market to better open products like Virtualmin (just to name one), WHMCS is also losing income. Their reaction instead of trying to gain more market is a reactionary one, they are starting to adjust their business model by squeezing existing people pockets. This rarely works. They will maybe earn a buck here and there from some people that have no choice but to keep using WHMCS, but I suspect those that can, will leave.

I think in the end they are doing some of us a favor by kicking us out. I only regret having invested so much time in customization and coding, most of the time on trying to fix and implement workarounds because their code is behind IonCube. I will never get that time back but I will certainly not buy more WHMCS module or fix one single line of code in the software anymore. For me, it now has no future, as eventually they will kill the self hosted all together. They will probably start by killing the hooks and API first. Then implement even more change to make it less developer friendly. WHMCS wants to be a shopify service. Not a software for you run in your servers.

[yggdrasil]

44 minutes ago, zooky said:

Really disappointing from WHMCS 😞 Im just on the normal licensing model ($39.95 pm).  Hardly ever use support, so no real benefits for me to stick around.

Luckily there are other alternatives out there, which I'm looking at moving over too.

For all the others looking, so far I have found the below to be similar

- WiseCP
- HostBill
- ClientExec
- Blesta

I'm 100% sure about something. I will never go with a ion cube product like WHMCS again. I think its Blesta for me, even while its very simple, I consider this software to be critical for your business, as such it's an investment on the long run, and they promote open code which is what is the most interesting in the long run as other people can code modules and things around it. That is what creates a product and its ecosystem. WHMCS basically told us in the email our purchase is now obsolete. I'm not going to again waste money on temporary products with a short lifecycle.

[yggdrasil]

On 4/6/2021 at 12:25 PM, Ithiel said:

My annual support expires in just over a month. 

This is a 450% increase in fees for me, in the middle of a pandemic.

WHMCS are nothing but thieves and liars...

I'm also surprised by their timing. The possible worst time in human history, everyone, even banks which is surprising are giving timeframes and lowering costs, yet some companies decide to milk people in a global recession. Some people said to me Internet businesses are booming as everyone stays at home. This is not my experience even close. Most people cancelled their hosting services and are moving to free gmail and sort services. They are cutting their bills, not spending more. The first thing someone cuts when it comes to money are subscription fees.

On 4/6/2021 at 12:33 PM, bady said:

This price increase, including the abolition of support for owned licences, is an absolute impertinence. I am curious how WHMCS wants to justify this, because this is how WHMCS is doing away with itself.

They always did what they wanted. Please read the forums here, complaining has resulted in nothing with them, ever. I don't think they have eve listened their customers. My feature requests all of them just archived without further explanation. Suggestions here in the forums rarely get any reply except the common marketing reply.

On 4/6/2021 at 12:38 PM, ravex said:

We are migrating to Blesta.

Already with them for one of my brands, and will be migrating the other one over the next month or so.

Most bigger VPS and cloud providers I talked moved to Blesta years ago already and have build nice custom things around it. Something impossible with WHMCS today because of the bugs nobody except them can fix and their locked code.

On 4/6/2021 at 12:48 PM, ScrltOTara said:

Please post other solutions you have found here.  I paid for a LIFETIME license so I wouldn't have to pay monthly.   So now my cost went from $100/year to $25/month.  I don't have enough clients to justify this price increase, so I will be looking for a new solution.  At least I have until September.

Even if you have enough customers, why would you pay a tax? If you have thousands of users, it does not mean you are making more money. Maybe you offer free products and are actually not earning anything based on active customers. The tax model makes no sense for software. It only works on a leased model. Example, it makes sense for Office365 to charge more per users if they are hosting all your email but charging MS Word based on the documents you create, or Outlook Desktop based on the amount of email you received makes no sense. Its your computer and the software is running locally. WHMCS also runs in your servers, you paying the costs to run it. If their argument is that people with more users cost them more in support, this makes no sense either, they could just charge per support instead of punishing everyone equally. The truth is they want more money. The bigger your website is in terms of users, the more you have to pay them. In the end they are penalizing grow and success.

On 4/6/2021 at 12:52 PM, chrisb2012 said:

Yeah, we operate on low profit margins - This would remove all profit and then some across all businesses! We'll be moving! Unfortunately my morals don't allow allow for me to change pricing structure dramatically for customers and I will not be doing! I would rather migrate 

You could pay their unlimited license but something tells me they are removing this option as well in the future once they realize most people go with the unlimited license they will just take it away and charge per number of users for everyone.

On 4/6/2021 at 1:04 PM, ravex said:

The team over at Blesta are amazing!

Their development is slow. I guess its because they are a tiny company, but not for long it seems. They passed the test of time at least and are not going away.

On 4/6/2021 at 1:18 PM, jin said:

Actually if someone knows a lawyer this move by the greedy POS WHMCS/cpanel on two points is illegal.

What to expect from greedy POS cpanel now you will lose even more and I will also be moving 3 more cpanel license away you stupid fcking morons.

I'm not sure if illegal, but it does seem like cheating. You sell me one thing and then change the terms. I never accepted a monthly term for my software. It was a one time payment with support and upgrades paid extra.

On 4/6/2021 at 1:55 PM, ravex said:

From my understanding, new monthly licenses use the new pricing from today. You are also unable to purchase a new support plan for owned licenses.

Those of us that have a current monthly license will be grandfathered in to the old pricing until our first renewal after the 1st July, when we will be paying the new prices.

This is not the email I received. My email said the change is immediately and you cannot buy any more more support packages, but the current active ones will remain valid until expiration.,

On 4/6/2021 at 5:07 PM, ravex said:

There won't be! Best to start investigating other billing platforms and start planning a migration before July,

Exactly. People just need to start planning their migration. WHMCS is over as a company. They are probably killing the self-hosted version in the future. Every step they did so far is what a company does when slowly start to move into that business model.

First they stop selling owned licenses.

Then they forbid people from transferring owned licenses.

Then they move to a per-account model.

Now they kill support for owned licenses.

Next step?

Kill self-hosted license. Then kill the unlimited license as well and charge only per customer. If that is not enough they will start charging based on the amount of paid invoices, or money you make or maybe based on the amount of modules you have active. The WHMCS we know is gone.

On 4/7/2021 at 3:48 AM, xyzulu said:

As much as you are upset by WHMCS actions.. have they really broken the law? (rhetorical question) I'm not happy either, this is poor customer treatment at the least (especially to the owned license holders), but have they really taken anything away they had promised? 

Anyway.. no need for a legal debate... I hear in some countries you can sure for anything you like.. but is is really worth the stress and money (it goes to the lawyers mostly)?

I know in the EU there some law about this. Selling owned software and then changing the terms. It's deceiving for sure. You are allowed to change the rules for new purchases, but you are supposed to honor your sold terms. But even if that was true, they could just say, updates and support now cost 1 million dollars a month and you would have no choice either. In the end this why companies are moving to open source. Companies like WHMCS, you are vendor locked, they can and will move what they want. At this point I don't trust them anymore. They have broken their terms and words multiple times before and will as well.

What will you earn with a lawsuit? They will probably go bankrupt before you even win in court which you would of course if you can show damage to your business.

22 hours ago, bady said:

@WHMCS ChrisD

Everyone understands that price adjustments are necessary after a certain time. But the way WHMCS wants to adjust its prices is simply shameless.
A user with over 1000 customers used to pay $39.95, now he is supposed to pay $99.95 for the same service. That is more than a doubling, with what justification?
WHMCS only counts active customers, that is true. But if I, for example, offer a product with a one-time payment, where the product remains for life, then this customer costs me money every month without me earning anything from it.

The statement that owned licences remain valid is cheeky. Of course the licence itself remains valid, but at some point (with PHP X or security holes) the licence is no longer usable because you can't buy updates. Why couldn't they just adjust the price realistically? The 100$ per year for support and updates was really cheap and no one would say anything if it was 200$. But the fact that some users now have to pay 100$ per month or more is unbelievable.

 

It's not cheeky is just a lie. What happens once your PHP version is not supported anymore. Your software will stop working, The software is locked with ioncube, you cannot just patch the software and keep rolling out your own security updates. WHMCS by saying they are not going to give support and updates anymore, they basically tell you, your software is now EOL (end of life). Your installation is now obsolete, and it's a virtual fake limit, since it's the same software they give with a subscription. Does it cost them more to patch your version? No! Its the same software!!!

Legally, they should be forced to give every owned license a fully decoded PHP version. Then what they said would hold true, but since the whole code is obfuscated, it's deceiving to claim you can keep running it for as long as you want when they don't give you the key to unlock the software. I'm curious what they would do if some of those customers decide to break the Ioncube. Will WHMCS claim you are breaking their license? How would they if they broke the license first? I'm convinced just like in the US they ruled that its was legal for iPhone users to jail break their phones, its legal to break the encryption in your owned products. In the end, they sold us an owned software, and now they are changing the terms. I dare WHMCS so sue anyone for trying to keep using the software they paid for. What would they claim? That your company is now allowed to patch its software to keep its servers and customers safe? That would be hilarious.

21 hours ago, bear said:

You can't be serious with this statement.
WHMCS will run until the PHP version no longer supports it, or some security flaw comes along that you won't offer a patch for, just like the most recent one. 
As for "spreading the cost out over the year"? Disingenuous at best. 
Bring consistency for users? You've got to be kidding. This is a money grab, and a way to finally do away with the folks that thought purchase of an owned license would get them actual consistency. Little did we know that the final objective would be to get all users paying far more, "consistently", for you. 

Disheartening, and I'm sure it's all falling on deaf ears, since any pricing changes here will likely be upwards, and not in favor of any "grandfathered" licenses. We're being "grandfathered" in the Eskimo sense...stuck on an ice floe to drift until it melts.

The grandfathered was clearly a lie. They deceived owned purchases. I guess some people still have those email, or maybe screenshots on what the terms of services were at the time of purchase and how they changed it multiple times without even a notification.

19 hours ago, ptoone said:

WHMCS has been a sinking ship for years. This has given me the motivation to move quite a few licenses to other services that honor their word. WHMCS simply cannot be trusted and it is shame. RIP WHMCS. 

Its a sinking ship for years because their competitors are listening to people, and they are not. Just look the feature requests, they keep ignoring everything and then release things that nobody asked for. WHMCS is still living from all the old features they build many years back and from those people that are using the software for years. I'm curious who in 2021 would go with WHMCS for a serious business. Its a sad story on how bad decisions can destroy a successful business. I expect WHMCS to be sold in one or two years, and new owners will then probably just kill the entire company, similar to how cPanel is going to eat dust in a few years. When free open source products do a better job than paid commercial products, they have no future. The only thing that keeps WHMCS alive is their modules ecosystem. And that is also starting to fade away now. Of course, developers need to make money, the few developers I spoke that created things for WHMCS said its not profitable anymore as WHMCS user base is shrinking.

[bear]

13 hours ago, Danse said:

Some Friend bought a Blesta License for 750$ today

They sell for $300 on the Blesta site, owned unbranded. 😉

[yggdrasil]

Oh wait, my predictions are actually already a reality. It seems WHMCS is indeed increasing the pricing for leased licenses as well and going away with unlimited accounts. I missed that before.

I only receive the email as an owned license customer about them stopping the support and updates. Well, if you read my previous reply then I was already correct on those remarks and trust my words. WHMCS is completely going to kill the self-hosted version as well in the future. They will only run a SaaS model hosted on their servers. Good luck folks. I'm off to new shores. Let's hope we see some of you in the new forums because I will surely miss some people here. It was good while it lasted.

[yggdrasil]

1 minute ago, bear said:

They sell for $300 on the Blesta site, owned unbranded. 😉

Can someone confirm their code is indeed open? Normally I would not invest $1 on ioncube PHP anymore (thanks to WHMCS), but I just want to confirm is Blesta only encodes the license part, but the rest, like frontend GUI is indeed fully open.