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

[brian!]

4 minutes ago, chrisb2012 said:

So they can do the hard sell when the ones not already capitulated are clearer so they may generate some extra dosh maybe?

my reading of that post is that it's just a member interested in discussing the situation with other owned license holders privately... and they've setup a mailing list for those interested.... but I could be wrong. 🙂

[UnwilfulExpenditure]

1 minute ago, brian! said:

my reading of that post is that it's just a member interested in discussing the situation with other owned license holders privately... and they've setup a mailing list for those interested.... but I could be wrong. 🙂

Oh - then my apologies! I read it completely wrong! I thought it was a way to keep track easier and offer different versions of platitudes by the webpros puppets.... I mean whmcs staff

[Kian]

2 minutes ago, brian! said:

btw - you should post that hook... the version I saw seems to solve the long-standing issue of showing hidden inactive clients by default.... WHMCS won't have an issue with WHMCS admins seeing all their clients by default and not just the active ones.

Really? 😲 I wrote that hook just got out of bed. WHMCS will surely change the license check before the 1st July. It can't be based on a count().

13 minutes ago, brian! said:

my mind is already pondering what they might do.... and thinking of potential theoretical countermeasures.... i'm struggling to think of a method they could realistically do that couldn't be got around.

The thing is that even if they base it on multiple tables and conditions, one can still legitimately pass their check and save a lot of money. Prices are based on something that lives in my database. I can do what I want. At the moment I found several methods some of which can work even if they make their check more complex. And I'm just one of the many developers here. I don't know how they can make it work now that prices have been increased up to 3154% on a yearly basis. A backdoor will surely help 😅

Generally speaking, a provider that earns 200k per year, will never try to avoid paying <500$ per year for a software that runs his business but now we're moving to 3.600 $ and 10.200 $ per year 3 months from now. Not to mention the rage of "lifetime" license owners. This will surely trigger many devs and providers. Sigh.

[BigFoot]

I wish these people would be honest and just tell the truth:

Such as:

'Hey we are greedy bastards, so we are jacking you all up, even the most loyal customers we have had from the start, because this is a money grab'

or

'If you bought a lifetime license, you're fu*ked!'

maybe even

'you can still use your lifetime license forever (or until the next php version bricks it, [insert owners' laughter here]'

or better still...

'You dum-dums who bought into our company years ago, what were you stupid fu*kers thinking?'

 

We ALL hope you get what you deserve for this move. Remember Sirius not honoring lifetime licenses? We all hope this happens to your company 10000% over

https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-products/subscriptions/971878-siriusxm-to-pay-96m-to-end-lifetime-subscription-class-action/

Edited April 8, 2021 by BigFoot

[UnwilfulExpenditure]

@WHMCS John any jobs going? Bigfoot seems much more on the ball than the support staff? I'm sure many will stay if you appoint him as chief spokesperson!

If not, for £1300 a month he will train you! 

Edited April 8, 2021 by chrisb2012

[BigFoot]

2 minutes ago, chrisb2012 said:

@WHMCS John any jobs going? Bigfoot seems much more on the ball than the support staff? I'm sure many will stay if you appoint him as chief spokesperson!

If not, for £1300 a month he will train you! 

£1300 is for training ONE person. If you have 2-5 people, it's £13000000 

Don't even get me started if you have more than 5 people.....

[UnwilfulExpenditure]

Just now, BigFoot said:

£1300 is for training ONE person. If you have 2-5 people, it's £13000000 

Don't even get me started if you have more than 5 people.....

That does seem fair! I'm sure they'll sign up for a deal like that in a heartbeat! Although, I can't imagine needing more than 5 staff for the 3 customers they'll have left! 
 

[yggdrasil]

16 minutes ago, BigFoot said:

I wish these people would be honest and just tell the truth:

Such as:

'Hey we are greedy bastards, so we are jacking you all up, even the most loyal customers we have had from the start, because this is a money grab'

or

'If you bought a lifetime license, you're fu*ked!'

maybe even

'you can still use your lifetime license forever (or until the next php version bricks it, [insert owners' laughter here]'

or better still...

'You dum-dums who bought into our company years ago, what were you stupid fu*kers thinking?'

 

We ALL hope you get what you deserve for this move. Remember Sirius not honoring lifetime licenses? We all hope this happens to your company 10000% over

https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-products/subscriptions/971878-siriusxm-to-pay-96m-to-end-lifetime-subscription-class-action/

They are not based in the US but the UK and while some of their owned license sold does break EU laws by trying to backpedal on that promise or owned product, the UK is not the EU anymore. In that regard they are pretty much shielded. They can also just decide to charge $1 million dollars a month for your updates and that would still lock you out. Which is surprising that they actually were stupid enough to just announce they will not allow anyone to keep buying support & updates which is their admission of guilt to break their initial sold agreement.

The worst thing that could happen if you even win for them is that a judge would force them to provide you a non encoded PHP version, so you can keep updating and using it on your own server, probably after a DNA sealed agreement. But they can't legally force WHMCS to provide you with updates. But WHMCS cannot leave your business out of business with such a decision either from day to the other, which is why I personally think they will get in legal troubles for this. The damage to some companies is provable in court which is all they have to do. I'm surprised WHMCS legal department was this dumb. They could just had announced a $1000 a month support & updates for owned licenses but instead they made it very clear they will refuse anyone from buying further updates. The same software is the same, it costs them nothing to support with patches those users, its the code and update. Its very easy to prove their intention is just break their initial selling offering and move everyone by force into a new subscription model, even that would be very hard to show in court but if a company gets hacked because WHMCS decided to refuse them from buying updates, WHMCS is a world of legal troubles because even in the UK a judge would ask them what was the legal reason to stop supporting one specific customer that is using the same software others are using.

I'm not sure what law this would break but refusing to let some customers from buying patches is malicious, when it's the same software. They are at that point hurting your business in a very partial way. They fancy license wording means nothing when its the same code but they refuse to sell it to previous customers. I'm shocked actually they are that honest about it. Like you said, they basically told everyone, screw you people, your purchase is now worth 0 and buy from us again under a new pricing scheme.

For their back luck, it does seem cPanel holds some shares, and as such they are liable in the US as well for selling something they don't plan to honor. Under FTC rules this is a deception trick and absolutely not legal unless they plan to refund everyone or give them access to a way to keep using the software on their own terms.

Edited April 8, 2021 by yggdrasil

[brian!]

7 minutes ago, Kian said:

Really? 😲 I wrote that hook just got out of bed.

hey i've written some of my best hooks whilst asleep... thankfully, not for a long while though! 😴

10 minutes ago, Kian said:

WHMCS will surely change the license check before the 1st July. It can't be based on a count().

yep they'll have to now.

getting back to the secret hook, the version I can still see is just JS and nothing to do with altering license active clients counts etc... and is probably a viable solution for the thread below...

there's an issue with the rp= in_array part that it's not checking for relevant Friendly URL (routepath) paths (your Friendly URL settings are different than mine)... it certainly works as intended on the main clients page.

[FHost]

John, Chris, I implore you to show this post as a screenshot to your leadership team responsible for making such absurd decisions.

This price increase is nothing short of a BETRAYAL to loyal customers who supported you over the years. While a new customer may not realize the true impact of new pricing is, a 'sane' customer wouldn't miss the chance of jumping ship.

I've been your customer since 2008 and while I don't really post much here, I felt backstabbed today with newer pricing.

This is how you looked when a young me became your customer because I saw a honest company building a good product. Over the years, you've developed a good product into a great product, expanded business from UK to US office, gained customers worldwide which sure does add to costs of the product, but what you announced this week is blatant and mindfully ignorant of your customer's beliefs.

This will land you in a territory where newer customers will pay you for your $18 or $24 plans, but you'll pay with loyal customers  who are 10x-100x more worth. Mark my words!

There is NO harm in taking a step back, damage has not been done yet. Remember, none becomes small or big by apologizing, rather than one who condones.

Peace!

[yggdrasil]

4 minutes ago, FHost said:

John, Chris, I implore you to show this post as a screenshot to your leadership team responsible for making such absurd decisions.

This price increase is nothing short of a BETRAYAL to loyal customers who supported you over the years. While a new customer may not realize the true impact of new pricing is, a 'sane' customer wouldn't miss the chance of jumping ship.

I've been your customer since 2008 and while I don't really post much here, I felt backstabbed today with newer pricing.

This is how you looked when a young me became your customer because I saw a honest company building a good product. Over the years, you've developed a good product into a great product, expanded business from UK to US office, gained customers worldwide which sure does add to costs of the product, but what you announced this week is blatant and mindfully ignorant of your customer's beliefs.

This will land you in a territory where newer customers will pay you for your $18 or $24 plans, but you'll pay with loyal customers  who are 10x-100x more worth. Mark my words!

There is NO harm in taking a step back, damage has not been done yet. Remember, none becomes small or big by apologizing, rather than one who condones.

Peace!

You must be new here. They don't care about loyal customers but money. Many of us here are loyal to the brand for years and have tried to help others, as well wasted countless hours trying to make WHMCS better. We always got silence.

WHMCS will not change because a few customers whine about pricing. Their already huge and are making more profit every year. They don't want lousy customers paying a few bucks a month. I don't think you understand what WHMCS wants as a company. They want to move into a leased SaaS model, one you will have to pay them a share of your profits, for every customer and every thing you sell. Why else do you think they even launched something like the MarketConnect...

[FHost]

3 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

You must be new here. They don't care about loyal customers but money. Many of us here are loyal to the brand for years and have tried to help others, as well wasted countless hours trying to make WHMCS better. We always got silence.

WHMCS will not change because a few customers whine about pricing. Their already huge and are making more profit every year. They don't want lousy customers paying a few bucks a month. I don't think you understand what WHMCS wants as a company. They want to move into a leased SaaS model, one you will have to pay them a share of your profits, for every customer and every thing you sell. Why else do you think they even launched something like the MarketConnect...

Not new, been using their product since 2008 and been on this community since November 2013. I just don't post much.

Edited April 8, 2021 by FHost

[ChrisTERiS]

In a very rare case, I can accept their high price increase. Selling web scripts is not so profitable any more. Not due to covid, even if this pandemic made things worst.  For me, and even if it sounds bad to many ears, web business is already a closed field to pioneers. Still there are some money, but only if you work locally. eg Web Hosting for your city.

The main problem is that the WHMCS counts as active client someone who bought a free product. That's incredible. Already in the first posts I read someone who offers free downloads. Sure he can earn some money from Ads, or whatever, but this doesn't change the fact he does not have paid orders.

Back to 2012, so 9 full years before, I've post something for the future of vBulletin, which became the reason to be banned:

https://www.vbulletin.org/community/showthread.php?t=296704

PS: Price increase is a result of sales decrease. That's the secret behind the scene.

Edited April 8, 2021 by WHMUp

[UnwilfulExpenditure]

3 minutes ago, WHMUp said:

In a very rare case, I can accept their high price increase. Selling web scripts is not so profitable any more. Not due to covid, even if this pandemic made things worst.  For me, and even if it sounds bad to many ears, web business is already a closed field to pioneers. Still there are some money, but only if you work locally. eg Web Hosting for your city.

The main problem is that the WHMCS counts as active client someone who bought a free product. That's incredible. Already in the first posts I read someone who offers free downloads. Sure he can earn some money from Ads, or whatever, but this doesn't change the fact he does not have paid orders.

Back to 2012, so 9 full years before, I've post something for the future of vBulletin, which became the reason to be banned:

https://www.vbulletin.org/community/showthread.php?t=296704

 

Anyone choosing to stay in the whmcs - ecosystem should checkout WHMUP! Quality work! I'm hoping he jumps ship though in all honesty!

[dh42]

@WHMUp  That might have been me. I had 22k active users that had just downloaded free modules. I wrote a python script I posted elsewhere in the thread to kick all of those users to inactive, now I am under 1k active users. I expect this is the use case they want. 

[ChrisTERiS]

1 minute ago, dh42 said:

@WHMUp  That might have been me. I had 22k active users that had just downloaded free modules. I wrote a python script I posted elsewhere in the thread to kick all of those users to inactive, now I am under 1k active users. I expect this is the use case they want. 

I can perfectly  understand your feelings... your disappointment.

[yggdrasil]

46 minutes ago, WHMUp said:

In a very rare case, I can accept their high price increase. Selling web scripts is not so profitable any more. Not due to covid, even if this pandemic made things worst.  For me, and even if it sounds bad to many ears, web business is already a closed field to pioneers. Still there are some money, but only if you work locally. eg Web Hosting for your city.

The main problem is that the WHMCS counts as active client someone who bought a free product. That's incredible. Already in the first posts I read someone who offers free downloads. Sure he can earn some money from Ads, or whatever, but this doesn't change the fact he does not have paid orders.

Back to 2012, so 9 full years before, I've post something for the future of vBulletin, which became the reason to be banned:

https://www.vbulletin.org/community/showthread.php?t=296704

PS: Price increase is a result of sales decrease. That's the secret behind the scene.

WHMCS made 5 million in 2019 I think and 7 million in 2020. If anything WHMCS has increased it profits, this is about pure greed if this is true. They are not losing money but just trying to make even more.

[ChrisTERiS]

31 minutes ago, dh42 said:

@WHMUp  That might have been me. I had 22k active users that had just downloaded free modules. I wrote a python script I posted elsewhere in the thread to kick all of those users to inactive, now I am under 1k active users. I expect this is the use case they want. 

Have coded a "KiS" (Keep it Simple) Module for Downloads for my own use. It does, use WHMCS client table, but marks them as Inactive. But I'm not using WHMCS downloads as I want to have it separate with the freedom to add description, gallery etc per download.

[UnwilfulExpenditure]

Just now, yggdrasil said:

WHMCS made 5 million in 2019 I think and 7 million in 2020. If anything WHMCS has increased it profits, this is about pure greed if this is true. They are not losing money but just trying to make even more.

We can all pray, the rest of their existence is filled with stubbed toes and tough trips to the job centre 🙏 🤣

[ChrisTERiS]

5 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

WHMCS made 5 million in 2019 I think and 7 million in 2020. If anything WHMCS has increased it profits, this is about pure greed if this is true. They are not losing money but just trying to make even more.

Who says it? Checking my client database from my first domain ewhmcs.com (2017-2019), from 412 domains, I found only 21 to be active. In just 4 years.

PS: Making money not always means "more sales". eg they can earn more money from Advertising in their Marketplace.

Edited April 8, 2021 by WHMUp

[dh42]

@WHMUp Got ya. That is similar to what I do. I have a jekyll front end built around my whmcs system, so I can have a more feature rich site, and not be stuck with their system. I have done quite a bit of work to it, we have a lot of the whmcs assets in our dev / jekyll pipeline flow. 

[yggdrasil]

2 minutes ago, WHMUp said:

Have coded a "KiS" (Keep it Simple) Module for Downloads for my own use. It does, use WHMCS client table, but marks them as Inactive. But I'm not using WHMCS downloads as I want to have it separate with the freedom to add description, gallery etc per download.

When Parallels purchased Plesk and Virtuozzo they did something similar and people migrated to cPanel in mass.

This model is flawed in the technology industry. This is why VMware lost the virtualization market to KVM and Xen as well, they tried to milk people based on processors and this is why Linux powers the datacenter and Windows Server is a dead product with licensing per core.

Charging per ACTIVE anything is a tax model. Its dishonest when you are not adding anything to those users or company. If you run 50,000 users with WHMCS, you are paying all those servers costs, not WHMCS. This model makes sense if the more customers you have, the more WHMCS costs are, but WHMCS is not hosting the software for you. Its self-hosted. Kayako tried something similar, and they have not been able to penetrate the service market like Zendesk or similar. Actually, almost every vendor I know that used Kayako has dropped them.

It's unfair to charge for a model like this when your costs are zero. Software development is a one time cost and costs the same in distribution. If you only sale one unit, your costs was the same as if you sold 1 million units. I'm talking here about development, not sales or support.

If you run WHMCS with no users, or 100 it costs WHMCS exactly the same. Their development costs are fixed regardless of the number of customers they have or the number of users each of their customers run on their WHMCS installations. But the more users you have, the more money you have to pay them because they falsely assume you make more profits, this penalizes both big and small customers, smaller ones are paying more per user and the more you grow, the more you have to pay WHMCS. This model is completely flawed in a market on which everyone can register an account for free and everyone is offering evaluations and trials or even a free product to get some users.

Imagine Amazon AWS charging you a % per the money you are making every year. Netflix and others would leave them immediately because a company wants fixed costs not another company that taxes them from their revenue. This is why Apple is getting sued by Arizona for their 30% tax on developers.

[yggdrasil]

8 minutes ago, WHMUp said:

Who says it? Checking my client database from my first domain ewhmcs.com (2017-2019), from 412 domains, I found only 21 to be active. In just 4 years.

PS: Making money not always means "more sales". eg they can earn more money from Advertising in their Marketplace.

If making more money does not mean more sales, which you are entirely correct, then why does WHMCS assume more active users means more profits for us?

If you hire 100 people and have huge expenses, that is on you. Even if you only make $1 at the end of the month after paying all your staff. If WHMCS keeps hiring people and as such need to milk us customers more, I find this unfair, I don't need their useless support. Which is truly useless. Now they are telling me they will refuse to sell me future updates because they want to change how they bill me and make my license obsolete. I find their tactic despicable, trying to take others people business as hostage. They said more than once they would honor owned licenses. Now they are giving us the middle finger. I don't like being lied like that. They are now costing me more time once I need to move everything out of them. They will not receive one dollar from me ever again, that is for sure and sadly developers doing WHMCS modules will not either.

The damage is done. Once you lose confidence, the market is done. People will not forget their tactics, not in 15 years. And changing their name and brand will not work either on a world with social networks and Internet. Why could they not just keep making money out of new customers? They seriously had to betray every person that purchased and supported them in the initial years. 

[UnwilfulExpenditure]

2 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

If making more money does not mean more sales, which you are entirely correct, then why does WHMCS assume more active users means more profits for us?

If you hire 100 people and have huge expenses, that is on you. Even if you only make $1 at the end of the month after paying all your staff. If WHMCS keeps hiring people and as such need to milk us customers more, I find this unfair, I don't need their useless support. Which is truly useless. Now they are telling me they will refuse to sell me future updates because they want to change how they bill me and make my license obsolete. I find their tactic despicable, trying to take others people business as hostage. They said more than once they would honor owned licenses. Now they are giving us the middle finger. I don't like being lied like that. They are now costing me more time once I need to move everything out of them. They will not receive one dollar from me ever again, that is for sure and sadly developers doing WHMCS modules will not either.

The damage is done. Once you lose confidence, the market is done. People will not forget their tactics, not in 15 years. And changing their name and brand will not work either on a world with social networks and Internet. Why could they not just keep making money out of new customers? They seriously had to betray every person that purchased and supported them in the initial years. 

I have a lot of sympathy for module devs, I have a great relationship with a select few! 

I now have no choice but drop their work as supporting a company that does this (and if it works out OK for them, they'll push it further) doesn't suit my life view of not ripping people off! 

I refuse to pass these costs to my users - my hosting has yet to make a profit as we put profit into hosting and sponsoring charities/kids sports teams etc.... I'd rather switch and continue that on a different platform as it was only ever a service to try and generate money to give back to others! 

Our other businesses are for profit, but the web hosting was always a more fun thing and I don't wish to be milked with added costs! I certainly won't be going cap in hand to clients or acting like whmcs to demand more 🤔

 

Plenty of options to consider - the annoying thing is we'll be switching from cpanel eventually as we no longer trust webpros and we'll have to explain the reasons and my sense of decency will mean I personally sort all the charities in time I could be spending with my kids or enjoying conversation with clients! 

[alc]

6 hours ago, Mandalorian said:

Blesta it is!

Same here. Fyi get into a chat on their website and they'll tell you a discount code you can use if you get one of the lifetime packages. I just got 10% off the $750 lifetime Blesta package. :)