Magicklug Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 Are any of you using a billing system other than WHMCS for your web hosting company? I have a web hosting/SaaS company with 200+ paying customers and I'm trying to find a way to simplify the billing and email automation process. Here is what I have now: Whmcs for billing Convertkit for marketing automation Sendgrid for sending email 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnwilfulExpenditure Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 4 hours ago, Magicklug said: Are any of you using a billing system other than WHMCS for your web hosting company? I have a web hosting/SaaS company with 200+ paying customers and I'm trying to find a way to simplify the billing and email automation process. Here is what I have now: Whmcs for billing Convertkit for marketing automation Sendgrid for sending email B.lesta is a good open source alternative! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bear Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 7 minutes ago, chrisb2012 said: B.lesta is a good open source alternative! It's not "open source", but it's mostly unencrypted, at least for now. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnwilfulExpenditure Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 2 minutes ago, bear said: It's not "open source", but it's mostly unencrypted, at least for now. Yeah, the licensing files (2 or 3 files) are encrypted iirc an yeah you never know but it seems the most promising alternative to me 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bear Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 The term "open source" is commonly misused when it comes to something like this. Not encrypting and making it "open source" are not the same. Pretty sure the author would object to the free redistribution of that product. 🙂 Open source, defined:"software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified" 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnwilfulExpenditure Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 Yes, I agree - Open source is misused! I define it as unencrypted, then licensing is a whole other issue! I work in media mostly, where licensing is a separate entity to accessibility but I shouldn't conflate the two! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evolve Web Hosting Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 4 hours ago, chrisb2012 said: B.lesta is a good open source alternative! You must work for them. Used that system and it falls quite short of what's needed for many hosting companies. Most every feature is very basic. Still hoping someday they get to where it needs to be but it's not there yet. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnwilfulExpenditure Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 28 minutes ago, evolve hosting said: You must work for them. Used that system and it falls quite short of what's needed for many hosting companies. Most every feature is very basic. Still hoping someday they get to where it needs to be but it's not there yet. I don't work for them, but being able to read the code and make appropriate changes means we can make it fit our needs, I don't need to play whack a mole with 47 different hooks on each update - nor remove yet more addon products they've forced on me Oh, and price... price is much better 👌 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evolve Web Hosting Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 5 minutes ago, chrisb2012 said: I don't work for them, but being able to read the code and make appropriate changes means we can make it fit our needs Helpful if you're a skilled developer. If not, the end user has to pay a developer more money to add the missing features they need. 5 minutes ago, chrisb2012 said: I don't need to play whack a mole with 47 different hooks on each update - nor remove yet more addon products they've forced on me I won't argue this although I will say that MarketPlace can just be disabled through user permission and the SSL check can be disabled and removed from the theme. That's what I did with them. 6 minutes ago, chrisb2012 said: Oh, and price... price is much better As long as you're content with the basic features and/or you can write your own code to overcome the shortcomings of the software. I am glad there are other options and for some, Blesta works better. For others, WHMCS works better, etc. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnwilfulExpenditure Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 33 minutes ago, evolve hosting said: Helpful if you're a skilled developer. If not, the end user has to pay a developer more money to add the missing features they need. Like 99% do with whmcs aswell either through themes, modules or general meddling 34 minutes ago, evolve hosting said: I won't argue this although I will say that MarketPlace can just be disabled through user permission and the SSL check can be disabled and removed from the theme. That's what I did with them. Yeah, we had to modify each change out too 🙂 35 minutes ago, evolve hosting said: I am glad there are other options and for some, Blesta works better. For others, WHMCS works better, etc. Absolutely, it's whatever suits your needs I was quite happy using whmcs and had spent money on buying modules/time on fixing the issues inherent to this eco system All very valid points, but you certainly don't have to work for blesta to give it a go and enjoy seeing what it does - I'm loving it, I don't have to feel like I'm stealing brian!'s work everytime we run into a dead end 🤣 I also considered HB, until I learnt more about them... I won't be using obfuscated code again though- and thus in the topic of other billing systems... I only had the one real choice! I've always been uneasy about all my legal documents as I can't actually know what is and isn't collected, it's all a bit generic and avoided IMO so now I'm forced to changed I won't make the same mistakes twice 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnwilfulExpenditure Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 43 minutes ago, evolve hosting said: Helpful if you're a skilled developer. If not, the end user has to pay a developer more money to add the missing features they need. Like 99% do with whmcs aswell either through themes, modules or general meddling 44 minutes ago, evolve hosting said: I won't argue this although I will say that MarketPlace can just be disabled through user permission and the SSL check can be disabled and removed from the theme. That's what I did with them. Yeah, we had to modify each change out too 🙂 44 minutes ago, evolve hosting said: As long as you're content with the basic features and/or you can write your own code to overcome the shortcomings of the software. I am glad there are other options and for some, Besta works better. For others, WHMCS works better, etc. Absolutely, it's whatever suits your needs I was quite happy using whmcs and had spent money on buying modules/time on fixing the issues inherent to this eco system All very valid points, but you certainly don't have to work for blėsta to give it a go and enjoy seeing what it does - I'm loving it, I don't have to feel like I'm stealing brian!'s work everytime we run into a dead end 🤣 I also considered HB, until I learnt more about them... I won't be using obfuscated code again though- and thus in the topic of other billing systems... I only had the one real choice! I've always been uneasy about all my legal documents as I can't actually know what is and isn't collected, it's all a bit generic and avoided IMO so now I'm forced to changed I won't make the same mistakes twice 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evolve Web Hosting Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 37 minutes ago, chrisb2012 said: All very valid points, but you certainly don't have to work for blėsta to give it a go and enjoy seeing what it does - I'm loving it, I used it for 3-4 years. Thought is was ok until I switched back to WHMCS and then started to realize more Blesta features missing. The real trouble was moving back. The Blesta to WHMCS importer didn't work well at all. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnwilfulExpenditure Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 29 minutes ago, evolve hosting said: I used it for 3-4 years. Thought is was ok until I switched back to WHMCS and then started to realize more Blesta features missing. The real trouble was moving back. The Blesta to WHMCS importer didn't work well at all. Yeah, its been a common theme with most things whmcs have made 😂 Themes, modules, plugins are being developed at a much faster rate due to uptake (so the Internet says) we'll likely commit all of our staff work with the hope it gets used in the core. I was hoping the few active users here would go to that system and the rate of development would most certainly increase! The code quality is of a much higher standard, which I imagine slows speeds down as well as a small team without the VC funds.. I have high hopes for the future 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magicklug Posted May 19, 2021 Author Share Posted May 19, 2021 Hey guys, actually I'd like to find a simpler way to handle all of this. Maybe just having my programmer write code for triggering emails in the saas backend would be the best option? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magicklug Posted May 26, 2021 Author Share Posted May 26, 2021 My business is growing rapidly and I want to implement the best solution possible. Ideally customers could login to SaaS product and handle billing under the same account as the SaaS product is in. Currently they have to log into a completely separate billing system (whmcs) and they have different login/password for that. What do companies use who sell multiple different products and handle billing under the same dashboard? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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