Announcing Account Based Pricing

[Infopro]

Earlier today, we announced new pricing and licensing structure for Partners, Distributors, and our cPanel Store customers. Our pricing and licensing will now be standardized for all of our customers, be billed monthly, and include multiple Tiers.

Our goal is to be as transparent as possible with our prices. We want to make it easier to become a cPanel customer. Additionally, it is essential for us to provide licenses that target smaller instances, opening up a new revenue opportunity for our customers.

Moving forward, we are transitioning all customers to monthly billing. As yearly licenses come up for renewal, we will do a one-time conversion to one of our new Tiers based on what is most appropriate for your server unless you opt to have the license expire in either the Manage Licenses interface of the cPanel Store or List Yearly Licenses in Manage 2.

For cPanel Store customers: you will find in today's email, details on how this new structure impacts your account with cPanel. You can also find details in the Store Licensing Guide.

For Partners and Distributors: Please refer to the email from earlier with details about your new structure, and then reach out to your Account Manager for more information.

 

[vacancy]

Very bad price policy.

One more reason not to use cpanel.

License types and pricing policy need to be regulated, these conditions are unacceptable.

 

[hoststage]

I just received an email saying that basically my invoice will be multiplied by X time which I can't even predict without counting all accounts.

A 2 months heads up during summer, thank you

You start the email by saying you are excited, no wonder ?

2 big companies raising prices out of the blue this month unacceptable.

Unless I got it wrong

 

[hoststage]

So it is true. No please cPanel. The ramification of you changing the prices are huge. We need to change everything around you and that's not a good practice. A big no . Such an increase over no value increase is absurd.

There is zero benefit for us and 5 accounts cost now more than the previous VPS license.

I fell out of my chair with such announcement.

 

[nixuser]

You are excited because you will make a ton load of money.

And why there was not a notice period? Shouldn't there be a heads up.

 

[mrvpjb]

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, unfortunately. Support has been going downhill, and this is the same licensing Plesk uses. This isn't Nick's company anymore. And it should be no surprise that a corporation has zero regard for what he built. I guess we know why we never got that Convert Account to Addon domain feature we've been asking for. Shocking awful customer service decision here today.

 

[tejli]

You are killing the hosting industry, most the small fishes. This is how monopoly works. I hope EU will take an action against those theafs.

 

[mvandemar]

A 2 months heads up during summer, thank you

That heads up only applies to annual licenses. Monthly licenses got a 3 days heads up.

So my development server with 36 "accounts" on it has now over doubled in cost on the license, giving me a 3 days advanced notice and my options are to either pay up or find some other solution. Nice.

I am not saying that cpanel isn't entitled or even worth a price increase, but a no notice increase this drastic, at least in terms on % jump, seems uncalled for. For many small developers, with the cost of cloud vps servers being what they are now the cost of the license for cpanel will be the majority of the bill. No longer can people offer to host low traffic sites for friends and non-profits without taking into consideration how many other sites there are on there.

I mean, think about this: old pricing: $20/month, unlimited sites -> $20/month, 5 sites. Look at that restriction jump and just ponder it for a moment. Clients with 6 low traffic sites on a $10/month VPS will now have a 50% jump in license cost, causing their cpanel license to be 3x that of their server.

-Michael

 

[ronaldst]

What is the price increase on dedicated servers with less than 100 accounts? Anyone had a look at the numbers yet?

 

[mrvpjb]

For us, unless you have 1 account only on the server the pricing went way up. Our overall cost went up about 4500 a year, to 10500 (nearly double)

 

[hoststage]

3 days heads up for all the monthly licenses????

I call this a robbery. It can't be true. Many companies business models is based on cPanel and they just trash it out in a single email and 3 days. How disrespectful is this.

We won't have time to migrate clients who rightfully refuses the pricing change (making us look very bad) and we will have to pay the bill??

 

[mvandemar]

What is the price increase on dedicated servers with less than 100 accounts? Anyone had a look at the numbers yet?

The new pricing guide is linked to in the original post. The new cost for dedicated bare metal servers is $45/month plus $0.20/account for all accounts over the first 100.

It also looks like they eliminated cpanel personal. Apparently they are trying to make cpanel geared exclusively towards actual hosts now, and not individuals, small businesses, or developers.

-Michael

 

[CanSpace]

Jesus christ - what an insane increase. This is gonna kill a lot of small hosting providers and push a TON of people away from cPanel. How are they possibly justifying such a massive increase in such a small quantity of time?

What are providers going to do who offer reseller hosting? Continuously monitor and adjust their clients pricing? Same for VPS and dedicated server providers.

This is easily the most disappointed I've ever been with cPanel - I can see a ton of customers speaking with their wallets here and moving away asap.

 

[mrvpjb]

Interesting still no reply from cPanel, shows you how much they care *rolls eyes*

 

[mvandemar]

On August 20, 2018 cPanel announced it had signed an agreement to be acquired by a group led by Oakley Capital. While Nick sold his interest in cPanel, he will continue to be an owner of the company that owns cPanel. cPanel will keep its business customer and support focus.

And there you have it. cpanel went from being a developer owned company to one owned by an investment firm. Development will be more costly going forward now as well since the passion won't be there anymore, unfortunately.

-Michael

 

[mrvpjb]

And there you have it. cpanel went from being a developer owned company to one owned by an investment firm. Development will be more costly going forward now as well since the passion won't be there anymore, unfortunately.

-Michael

Yep, support was already going in that direction, no passion at all from anyone, just predefined replys

 

[mrvpjb]

For us, unless you have 1 account only on the server the pricing went way up. Our overall cost went up about 4500 a year, to 10500 (nearly double)

My apologies, that meant to say monthly*** it truly is ridiculous.

 

[mvandemar]

Interesting still no reply from cPanel, shows you how much they care *rolls eyes*

The staff that helps us here on the forums are not the ones making these decisions. I do hope that everyone remembers that if and when they do chime in here. They are great people who have been nothing but helpful the whole time I have been a member of this community, especially Michael and Lauren.

-Michael

 

[Stanly Martyn]

This is robbery. This is - Removed -. We are medium size web hosting company. My license cost increase to %600-650.

 

[CanSpace]

The crazy thing is in most cases now, monthly cPanel licensing will cost way more than the actual hardware rental costs it is being run on.