Announcing Account Based Pricing

[Kent Brockman]

This is a sad day for any cPanel customer.

CPANEL, you wondered if you could make history? Well, indeed you are doing it: you will seriously damage the hosting industry and the entire internet. Why? Because we, the ones who feed you, will abandon cPanel, and start using ugly, insecure, buggy control panels, making the whole Internet UNSTABLE and INSECURE. And when people ask why would we, as providers, have taken such a decision, guess who have forced us to do that?

You want to be remembered as the company that ruined the webhosting industry? Good job, guys. But I won't be part of that.

 

[MACscr]

Luckily I don't have as much tied up with cpanel anymore, but my costs are still go up almost 300% according to a calculation I just did on my servers. Ugh.

 

[konnorgg]

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.

The community is very upset behind this, and I'd suggest taking it back. I know that we will be moving to another option if you do not, an option who wouldn't rob us.

 

[zeoz]

Totally unrespectful to your clients, Yes! those that made you who you are today!. But you're missing something... The same people will destroy you!!
I'm a client since the begging, but not anymore...
i changing panel asap and i will never look back again.

good luck crooks

 

[wswd]

Very, very poor decision, and I truly hope this bankrupts them. I don't think it will. They've obviously done their research.

I know I will be making the move to DirectAdmin. They are an absolute pleasure to deal with.

 

[MACscr]

As much as the situation irritates me as well and it will change my plans for this particular service offering, but to those that say they are switching to another control panel, my question is: to what? Plesk? Same company. There isn't another solid solution out there, which is why they know they can hike the prices so high. Yes, there are some other open source projects and maybe some even small commercial ones, but not at the same level as cPanel and with a solid track record. Let alone the migration process.

 

[wswd]

As much as the situation irritates me as well and it will change my plans for this particular service offering, but to those that say they are switching to another control panel, my question is: to what? Plesk? Same company. There isn't another solid solution out there, which is why they know they can hike the prices so high. Yes, there are some other open source projects and maybe some even small commercial ones, but not at the same level as cPanel and with a solid track record. Let alone the migration process.

To DirectAdmin. Their product is very solid, just not as robust or as popular as cPanel. But with the newly-found cash flow from everyone hopefully leaving cPanel, it should give them a lot more money for development.

 

[twhiting9275]

I can only say thanks, cPanel!
You just saved me a ton of money by encouraging me to switch to other products. Great job there!

 

[mvandemar]

The community is very upset behind this, and I'd suggest taking it back. I know that we will be moving to another option if you do not, an option who wouldn't rob us.

Is there a feature by feature comparison of cpanel vs open source alternatives such as Webmin/Virtualmin/Usermin anywhere? Most reviews I see are opinion based rather than comprehensive. For me I think the lack of EasyApache (and actually, these forums) would be the biggest loss. Any other features that would be big selling points for staying with cpanel?

-Michael

 

[parawing742]

Terrible news and an absolutely scummy way to treat your customers. I was hoping this would be rethought somewhat today after the inevitable backlash. I've been using cPanel since 2003 (look at my account age), but I'll never use cPanel again. Can't trust a company who doesn't care about their customers.

 

[ddrhost]

Raising prices is acceptable because the current price remains the same for several years. But it is not feasible to charge for each account, the prices will be absurdly high.

The license will become more expensive than the server's own physical structure.

 

[dServ]

Hello,

An opinion, cPanel can raise the price, 10$ or 15$ per license, I would see it up to acceptable, but this change, is something that has never been seen before, ups sorry, remember Modernbill?

lords of cPanel, should reconsider and raise another form, or lower those prices, because, as they say, the avarice breaks the sack, hopefully it does not happen as Modernbill, a year, it no longer existed, larger companies have fallen.

Regards

 

[JoseDieguez]

Cpanel, don't make the wrong decision.

Our VPS Customers already know about this, and they are asking support to change to other Control Panels.

We as a shared / reseller mainly business, will be more difficult, you will get more money from us, but for a short term. we will for sure abandon your software for this terrible practice.

I recommend you to change to a model similar to WHMCS, make tiered licenses, but the higher to be unlimited Cpanel Acc, at a higher price, say $90usd, instead of $200/$300.

i hope there is someone inside Cpanel who can pass along all the TERRIBLE feedback your are getting in just 24 hours.

 

[barko]

Can someone @ cPanel tell us how we don't get screwed with reseller accounts? I REFUSE to treat my resellers like you have just treated us. How do we deal with resellers? You went from a flat price to per-account. Now we will pay for each account our resellers have, or we are forced to screw them too?? We now have to deduct the cost per account from our flat-pricing to resellers. Thanks for just reaching in our pockets and stealing $$$

 

[twhiting9275]

An opinion, cPanel can raise the price, 10$ or 15$ per license, I would see it up to acceptable, but this change, is something that has never been seen before, ups sorry, remember Modernbill?

Oh, it's been seen before... The reaction was pretty much just the same with WHMCS too.
The difference in this case? WHMCS set limits to their greed. Of course, who knows exactly how long that'll remain, since they're now under the same umbrella.

 

[UnderHost]

We did a small calculation with one of our client renting a small VPS 34.95$/m with cPanel included he running multiple one page html account, the price increase for him alone would be approximately 1200% with this new policy and he will now need to pay about 260$ alone for the license that's insane. We are stopping deploying cPanel license immediately and strongly advise our client to migrate to DirectAdmin. cPanel is a nice software but going ahead with these changes are the end of an era for cPanel and hosting industry in a whole. cPanel will lost way more than gaining from this and new panel will rise.

 

[IndicHosts.net]

Sad day for cPanel.

Shows a lack of positive innovative future-based outlook after the change of ownership. Then again to be expected as not everyone can create a cPanel in their lifetime. Such exception persons are hard to find and no longer making the calls in cPanel.

I do wonder who is the majority investor in OakleyCapital's Funding rounds and if this is to their benefit.

A major challenge for Linux as a whole, if Linux shows same tendencies as a Mircosoft commercially, then Microsoft wins!.
Unless the Linux community can throw a counter to cPanel in the future with the traditional Linux values.

 

[kunnusingh]

I am against evil move of cPanel, Where are main developers of cPanel?

vBulletin was takeover by investment company, Only 2 developers quit job and started their new software called XenForo.



We used cPanel from 10 years but now we need to leave them. I hope our next Control Panel Partner(DirectAdmin) will be also good for us, Does not take decision to sell their company or hike price by 100x times or 600%.

We tested DirectAdmin(Screenshot Here - Removed -), It have all required features we need to run hosting business. We have lot of work, Need to take backup, reinstall OS on customer's server, Migrate accounts to DA.


Look like end of business relationship with cPanel forever.

 

[Paul Shultz]

Oh wow.

Apparently I see immediate benefit with this change.

I would love for someone in cPanel to explain to me how a 300% price increase is an immediate benefit to me.

 

[ronaldst]

I run a small company based on cPanel hosting. We were already looking for cheaper alternatives, but up until now we have managed to keep above water.

I have nothing but good things to say about the cPanel software, but as a small fish in a big industry we are not able to keep the wheels rolling after the increased cost.