Reseller’s Series: Billing Software
Hopefully, you’ve been thinking about how you want to charge your clients, because it is a fairly big decision. Rather than go over every single billing option out there, we’ll let you know about the WHT Wiki, which has an overview of Current Billing Software available specifically designed for web hosts.
We’re going to go ahead and caveat right now that we’re not a reseller for any of the following software, so nothing that we say here is in any way motivated by us being paid for the recommendation or referral. If you buy any of these products and say that we recommended you, the company’s response will be that that’s nice, but we won’t get anything out of it. (Considering the rate that people attempt to monetize blogs, we thought we had to say that).
We’re also only focusing on cPanel, Linux based software packages since that’s what we do and offer.
PHPCoin is located in your Fantastico area, and its free, so there’s a benefit for you right there. You know what they say about free, right? You get what you pay for and this is very true with the PHPCoin Software. It is very basic, and it functions for the most part. There is no integration.
We use Ubersmith, and have since 2002. Ubersmith, when we signed up, was expensive and extremely high quality - however, for smaller web hosting companies, their focus has wandered a little bit. We’re still pleased with the software but the developers are not as responsive as they once were considering the company itself seems to have shifted its focus to Ubersmith for Data Centers, and the Lite and Pro versions seem to resemble a tad bit of an afterthought. For us, though, we’re used to these features and so we’re sticking with it. We’re not sure we’d recommend it at this point for other folks starting out. It does come with an integrated support desk. It starts at $24.95 a month for a leased version or Lite, and $499.00 to own. Support is forum only unless you pay for it.
Modernbill has long been popular with web hosting companies, and for a long time was somewhat of the undisputed “It Girl”. It is free for up to 10 clients, $24.95/mo for up to 50 clients, and $49.95 a month up to 1000 clients - after that, you have to call for pricing. There is no owned version. You can get telephone support for it - for $150.00 an hour, which puts it out of the price range for most small resellers without knowledge to tweak it. It does have an extensive amount of features, though, including automation that is fairly easy to set up and integrate. As you grow, it’s pricey. (Disclaimer: We have not used ModernBill.)
Coming back down into the affordable range, we have AccountLabs Plus written by the same folks that bring you Fantastico and, as you guessed, it’s available in Fantastico - but is not free. It’s domain-based license is $45 initial year for a single domain, $15 renewal fee every year thereafter, putting it in the much more affordable range than many other offerings. It is a strict ordering/billing system without a support desk or knowledge base and may be appropriate for those folks who are designers offering hosting with no interest in being a full-fledged web hosting company. We have tested this system, and it was “ok” - we were a bit underwhelmed with features, however, they were more than adequate considering the price. Support is generally forum only.
WHMAutoPilot has been the other “It Girl” for a while. It’s developers have a pretty good reputation as being responsive to client needs, and the software package scales nicely. The pricing is also tiered, though less than ModernBill - free for up to 10 clients, $19.95 monthly for 2.x leased, and $199.95 for an owned version. Support is unlimited and free from them for the leased version, and for 6 months with the owned version. It does not have an integrated helpdesk, though you can purchase two (Kayako or Cerberus) and integrate them.
There is, however, a current “It Girl” called Web Host Manager Complete Solution, or WHMCS for short. Around the turn of the year, we helped migrate 7 different web hosting companies from the Alabanza platform to LiquidWeb servers and the cPanel platform due to the selling of Alabanza to Navisite and the complete and unparalleled botching of the technological merging of those companies. In every case, these established companies chose to go with WHMCS after testing multiple solutions due to cost, features, as well as the responsiveness of WHMCS to the emergency issues that were being faced by the unfortunate companies that got caught up in the Alabanza meltdown fiasco.
WHMCS attempts to be just that - a “complete” solution for a hosting company, including billing and automation and integrated support desk and knowledge base. A monthly lease is $15.95 if you leave the “powered by” line in it, and $18.95 if you want it out. It’s $249.95 to own with the “powered by” line, and $324.95 without it. If you purchase it, you can purchase support and upgrades after a year for a $44.95 renewal. It includes a support desk, a knowledge-base, as well as a fairly robust billing system that enables automation if you choose to do it.
Though it’s not a billing solution, we can’t leave the post without mentioning the Kayako Helpdesk - it’s the helpdesk “It Girl”, but doesn’t do any billing. The pricing varies, and is generally not cheap - you can spend upwards of $50 a month on your support solution. (For those curious, DrakNet’s costs just based on our systems run around $250 a month.)
Next time, we’ll talk about support pages, demos, and their cost/benefit ratio.
