Owned license stuck on v8 (no patches) - why not offer a "one time fee" to at least let me upgrade to version that at least keeps receiving security patches?

[Tesla]

As stated in title, I have a small operation, I use whmcs to service 5 clients (yes, 5) and an owned license since the beginning. I am stuck in version 8.0 - there are no "security patches" or downloads listed on https://download.whmcs.com/#patch for my version any more... my version is from 2020 (3 years ago).

If v8.9 is the latest and greatest, why not offer owned license holders a "one time fee" for the right to be able to upgrade (no support) to at least some version that will continue to get security patches... I don't know maybe v8.6 ??!

[WHMCS John]

Hi @Tesla,

Support and Updates was a flawed model, allowing some users to receive many months or years of updates when only paying intermittently for access. It is for this reason that in 2021 we stopped allowing for such gaps in payment of Support and Updates, by requiring Owned license holders to migrate to monthly billing.

Security Updates are provided in accordance with our published Long Term Support policy: https://docs.whmcs.com/Long_Term_Support

 

We believe that access to our technical support, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is a key value benefit of the WHMCS product and is vital to a good long term experience with our product.

In 2020, we introduced Live Chat Technical Support for Business customers and expanded access to the Business tier in July 2021, giving more of our users access to this premium support offering.

Staffing a support team for 24x7 coverage and with the ability to scale for peak times such as new releases requires significant investment and it would not be possible to offer the same level or quality of support on a purely pay per ticket basis.

 

If you still have questions about switching to a monthly license, I invite you to contact Customer Services via https://www.whmcs.com/submit-a-ticket/

[bear]

2 hours ago, WHMCS John said:

Support and Updates was a flawed model, allowing some users to receive many months or years of updates when only paying intermittently for access.

The fix would have been to disallow "intermittent access" and force contiguous service, not to change to a tiered model based on a number of active clients while those clients have no affect whatsoever on your product or support. It always felt like an excuse to increase profit, and based on a thread recently opened about how "active" is determined, very questionable indeed. 

[WHMCS John]

7 minutes ago, bear said:

The fix would have been to disallow "intermittent access" and force contiguous service

Moving exclusively to the monthly licensing module does exactly this.

 

15 minutes ago, bear said:

not to change to a tiered model based on a number of active clients while those clients have no affect whatsoever on your product or support. It always felt like an excuse to increase profit,

Our goal is to continue improving WHMCS for the long term, investing in the product to make it more powerful and deliver a better experience to our customers. That requires a significant amount of energy, time and resources. As a result, we ask those people who get the most value from WHMCS to help us make that investment. This is directly related to the volume of business being conducted through the platform, and the automation and efficiencies the product is delivering to the underlying business. A tiered pricing model allows us to continue to offer a low entry-level price for micro and small businesses whilst also catering to the needs and budgets of our largest enterprise users.

[bear]

3 hours ago, WHMCS John said:

Moving exclusively to the monthly licensing module does exactly this.

At the last of it being available, support renewal was $99 for half a year. That's $198 per year. At the lowest tier, the leased is $18.95, coming out to $227.40 per year. With the newest pricing (lowest tier), that's $24.95 per month, or $299 per year.
It does a bit more than doing "exactly that". Makes a tidy profit over the measly $198. 😉