In what way(s) do you want to license Virtualmin Professional?

General Discussion
1

Howdy all,

We’ve had discussions in the past about licensing, and there are some themes that have come up quite a bit. With the new website (launching in the next few days, based on how much work I have to do on evolving the license manager and shopping cart setup) we’ll be in a technical position to implement most of the most requested ideas…but, it would lead to overwhelming complexity to implement all of them while keeping the current licensing model and pricing.

Eric and I have been talking a bunch about it lately, and it struck me that it would be best to get you all involved in the conversation, because in the end, you’re the folks who will decide whether these changes will be successful or not.

Some things that have come up in discussions, either between Eric and I, or with customers:

  1. Monthly subscriptions. This is, by far, the most requested licensing method. So much so that I considered it a mandatory feature of the new site. So we’ll definitely have a monthly subscription option for all of our products, no matter what else we decide to do.
  2. A lower cost, lower end license. This one is tricky. We already find that we have to spend more time/money supporting our lowest priced licenses, since those users tend to be new to web hosting, and they’re often not actually profitable. It’s an interesting challenge.
  3. Unified renewal pricing. This one may be controversial, but I think it is a good direction. Right now, the purchase price of Virtualmin is much higher than the renewal price. This doesn’t necessarily reflect the reality of ongoing development and support costs, which don’t really go down over time, and might discourage people from buying Virtualmin for the first time. This would bring initial price down, but renewal cost would go up
  4. Finally, and this one will likely be controversial, as well, we are considering switching completely to monthly subscriptions and removing annual purchase options. I think I’d most like to hear from folks about this one, because I have (in the past) felt strongly about companies switching from annual pricing to monthly. It bugged me in the past, but mostly when it meant prices were actually going up a bunch (as in the case of Adobe’s recent move to subscription based pricing, which dramatically increased the cost for most folks). In this case, I don’t think (I hope) we would need to really raise prices to go this route. The total cost of ownership wouldn’t change much, but would be spread out more evenly across the life of the server. Once again, because this is, by far, the most requested feature for our shop and license manager, I’m beginning to think it should be the only way we sell licenses.

Keep in mind that we’d like to simplify the shopping experience as much as possible, rather than simply adding every option that everyone has ever asked for; we simply can’t do all of them, and I think the best option is to choose one of them. Nobody benefits from confusion. And, to be frank, in order to sustain development, we need to increase revenue going forward without increasing our costs, so lowering prices dramatically probably won’t work unless we also reduce how much we spend on support and development costs. Our current revenue simply isn’t supporting costs at the moment; things have to change, or we’ll have to scale back our ambitions for Virtualmin and Cloudmin.

Perhaps I can put it in concrete terms:

If you were planning to buy a Virtualmin 10 license, which option would you prefer, from among the following?

  • Pay $99 up front, and renew at $45 each year (This is the current way licensing is priced)
  • Pay $75 up front, and renew at $75 each year
  • Pay $7/month recurring, for as long as you use the license

As always, upgrading to a new license would cost the license difference, regardless of how the license terms end up; you’ll never be penalized for buying the smallest license that meets your needs today.

So, what do y’all think? What’s the easiest way to pay for Virtualmin you can imagine? Do you hate the idea of any changes? Do you love the idea of monthly subscriptions so much you’ve been waiting for it before you buy? Do you think we should scrap Virtualmin Pro and go get real jobs and work on this stuff in our free time as a hobby?

Thanks for any feedback. I know y’all have some strongly held opinions, as we’ve heard’em for years. Now we’ve got the chance to make something happen on this front. The question is, which path do we take?

Cheers,

Joe

2

My suggestion:

  • Pay $75 up front, and renew at $75 each year - VPS

  • Pay $7/month recurring, for as long as you use the license - VPS

  • Pay $120 up front, and renew at $120 each year - Dedicated

  • Pay $12/month recurring, for as long as you use the license - Dedicated

  • no limits in number of domains for any (paid) plan

  • cut GPL to 10 domains regardless of VPS or dedicated

  • bonus: depending on inside information’s you guys have, remove limits from GPL but keep them on number of domains and master/slave option

  • set the price for clients who want you to keep up the system (usually is around 30$/month) or per case (from 50-80$/hour).

I know my idea about GPL will start a hot discussion (again) but anyone who is opposing this are the same people who make profit based on GPL licence and not paying anything back to you. For normal users 10 domains its enough to host their site and site of their family or pets. Initially i was thinking to limit on 5 but if you want to be generous then lets say 10. You know right now there is many of them using GPL on big VPS-es or even dedicated servers, selling to others and not paying anything back to you. Plus running back here and taking time from you and others when they encounter a problem. If you dont cut the number of domains on GPL you will never move too far from actual problems. Just list the topic on the forum and see how many are using your CP on “home servers”. This amount cant be seen on any other CP forum - ask yourself why.

Next i think there must be a difference between VPS and dedicated. On dedicated server you can host tens or even hundreds of accounts and it should be fair to pay more. In case of only one site it means that site generate (for any reason) so big traffic that its worth to be hosted on dedicated so its fair to pay more.

Compared to others DA is out because offer way less options and settings then Vmin, for plesk and cpanel you would be cheaper (a lot cheaper).

Last but not least, dont be afraid of people threatening to drop Vmin. If they really go in this direction you dont need them in first place. Keeping up with new stuff, updates and quality will bring new customers.

EDIT: Set the list or search option based on the domain so anyone can see if the host is using payed license. Same thing what you can do with cpanel, whmcs, etc. Is not fair that client dont have a way to see if the host is legit or not, its your duty to make this public to protect end users.

3

There are some great ideas in here, and we’re already on the same page with you on a few of them.

I’ve always been hesitant to offer an unlimited VPS-specific license at a very steep discount; these days, a VPS can host thousands of domains, and many very large sites are virtualized for ease of management reasons. So, that’s my concern with that. Jamie added VPS detection code a while back, so it would be possible to license VPS vs dedicated, I just don’t know if we want to go down that path.

We have some ideas about making it more clear who is hosting with Virtualmin Pro, and who isn’t; and I think you’re right that part of the value for hosts in buying ought to be that they can distinguish themselves from folks using Virtualmin GPL (and there are a lot of them out there at this point). We may need to begin asking folks to be more clear about which product they’re offering, and using trademark law to put some weight behind the request. But, in the short term, we will begin putting a bit of flair on users that have active licenses. This will both allow us to more readily recognize when we’re interacting with someone entitled to premium support and allow us to better support the folks who support us in our development, and will allow people reading about hosting offers and such to know they’re reading someone who helps support Virtualmin and is providing the most powerful version of Virtualmin.

I’d also like to make some changes to make it easier for users to recognize when they’re talking to someone who’s been involved in the community for a long time. It doesn’t always equal “smarter or more experienced”, but it usually does. So it should be easier to distinguish between advice that is coming from a place of experience and a wild ass guess by someone who’s new to all this (nothing wrong with new folks contributing; that’s great, but it should be possible to earn some kind of badge to indicate you’ve been in the trenches for a while and know your way around). But, that’s orthogonal to licensing, so I won’t go further on that in this thread. And, it’s something we’ll work out after site launch, because I don’t want to delay the new site any longer than necessary to get the shop and license manager working well.

I believe we have another idea for GPL that doesn’t require limiting domains or require reducing its functionality. First part of that is returning to our model of introducing most new features in Virtuamin Pro and merging them down after a year or two. For a while we’ve mostly been adding features to both at the same time. It’s been rare that we’ve added Pro-only features. This has probably been a big factor in our sales decline (all while usage was going up). But, another idea is to offer Install Scripts for GPL users, at a reasonable subscription rate per-server. Something like $5/month. Install Scripts are one of the biggest features of Virtualmin Professional, and we’ve actually got some competitors shipping products for GPL that compete with us on that front, which is telling us we’re leaving money on the table. :wink:

On the Virtualmin GPL front, I’d rather lure with a carrot (offering new ways for folks to pay us when they use GPL) than push with the stick (limiting what people can do with GPL). We like Open Source and we want to keep providing what is clearly the most powerful Open Source control panel.

I do like the idea of reducing the number of license sizes. Maybe if we dropped out some of the middle tier licenses and lowered the price of Unlimited? So, maybe kill the 50 and the 250 licenses, and drop the 100 and Unlimited licenses in price a little bit to make them more comfortable for people who’ve been using 50 and 250. Having three tiers would feel satisfying to me. And, we made more money and more sales back when we had fewer sizes of license and simpler buying options (even though prices were higher back then).

e.g. (and this is just back of the envelope calculations, I haven’t actually looked at our license size distribution to know if this will actually even maintain current revenue, so don’t hold me to this):

  • 10, $7/month or $75/year
  • 100, $13/month or $150/year
  • Unlimited, $25/month or $250/year

This might be uncomfortable for 250 domain license holders right now, though…since renewals are only $130/year. That’s be a big bite for those folks. So, I guess we need to keep the 250 around, too. So, maybe that one fills in the gap between 100 and unlimited at $190/year or $17/month. That leaves all of our licenses (much) cheaper than cPanel for dedicated servers, and all but Unlimited cheaper than cPanel for VPS. Much cheaper for the vast majority of people.

I really like the idea of a “managed Virtualmin” product. There are lots of companies that do that for specific niches, and we’re obviously well-suited to handle it for Virtualmin customers. So, a full-service support option where we handle things like system updates, service monitoring, backup management and verification, and the usual troubleshooting and such that goes into managing a server. That’s a great idea, and I believe we have a pool of qualified people here in our community that we could employ to do those jobs if it were to be something that scaled up. Most of those folks charge more along the lines of $40 to $100 per month, depending on what they’re doing. So, we’d have to figure out what kind of labor we’d be looking at, and whether it would distract us from development and existing support obligations. But, if we got enough customers committed to it, we could expand staff to cover it.

How many people have IT people that you’re paying for managing your Virtualmin and Cloudmin systems? Would you be interested in a flat rate monthly management offering from us? There’s certainly no other way I can think of that you could get somebody of Eric’s caliber working on your box on a regular basis for less money. :wink:

Thanks for your excellent feedback, Diabolico.

Oh, one more thing: We’re rebuilding the reseller program. Things will actually work going forward, and for folks who offer virtual machine hosting, it’ll get a lot easier to put Virtualmin on it and make a profit on those sales.

4

First to say that i fully understand all your points but lets break things so its easier to keep track on the conversation:

I’ve always been hesitant --snipped-- I just don’t know if we want to go down that path.
You are right, right now there are VPS what could hold a hundred or even more accounts but they are so expensive is not worth the money. Actually its cheaper to buy dedicated server. Take for example French company OVH, they are so cheap but the quality of their servers and network is great and they are not the only one. So there is a limit when the cost of the VPS cant hold anymore and the option to switch to dedicated become more cost effective. Thats why i think the price should reflect this and be different for VPS and dedicated because we are talking about two completely different things. VPS cost less, offer less so its good to have cheaper control panel. Dedicated is whole different game, it can hold hundreds of accounts so its fair to pay more.

We have some ideas about making --snipped-- helps support Virtualmin and is providing the most powerful version of Virtualmin ///
I believe we have another idea for GPL --snipped-- which is telling us we’re leaving money on the table. ///
On the Virtualmin GPL front, --snipped-- Open Source control panel…
I understand your argument of what you said about GPL and “lure with a carrot” but from the marketing point of view i find it better to offer GPL what is actual copy of Pro version but with limits. Lets just use a little logic here - who need a control panel for personal use or testing with unlimited domains? We need to be honest here and the answer is no one. I cant think of any case where someone would use Vmin for personal hosting or testing and need unlimited domains, no way. So i agree with limits like max number of domains, no install scripts, no master/slave, maybe few more but essentially i would keep the rest. This is how i see “lure with a carrot”, you like it, you need it and its cheaper then other cp… Then buy Pro version. Doing this you will still have open source (free) version but for professional use you must pay. Who dont like it there is Plesk and cPanel with double the prices (based on my suggestion).

I do like the idea of reducing the number of license sizes --snipped-- buying options (even though prices were higher back then). ///
e.g. (and this is just back of the envelope calculations, I haven’t actually looked at our license size distribution to know if this will actually even maintain current revenue, so don’t hold me to this): ///
///
10, $7/month or $75/year
100, $13/month or $150/year
Unlimited, $25/month or $250/year
///
This might be uncomfortable for 250 domain --snipped-- and all but Unlimited cheaper than cPanel for VPS. Much cheaper for the vast majority of people.
Reducing the amount of different licenses will make it easier for clients to understand what they get from each one of them. Thats why i find it VPS and dedicated best option to split them. Plesk and cPanel are doing the same so if anyone who is using their control panel come to see Vmin it will be much easier to see all available options and compare the prices.

When you have well know competition and you want to change the prices you must take them into account. Lets start with your last two plans. For example cPanel VPS license can be found around 14$/month. Your second plan is too close to control panel who is well know by almost everyone and one what is being advocated by majority of hosting companies. Even Plesk 12 what is best version of that control panel ever to the point i personally think is even better, faster and proven to be more secure than cPanel still have a stigma to be “second option”. And cheaper for 1-2$ just to not forget. Both control panels come with unlimited domains. Now when we come to your last price you see how become hard to keep up. While you are cheaper then both CP dedicated version you are double the price for VPS. Thats why i said it must be difference between VPS and dedicated or you will never sort this mess with your prices. They will always be too cheap for X or too expensive for Y and you will never manage to come to some sort of middle ground. Limiting domains probably was ok 10 years ago but today cant hold anymore. For the first price you can have DA with unlimited domains or in some cases even free (depending on the hosting company and the server price).

I really like the idea of a “managed Virtualmin” product --snipped-- we could expand staff to cover it.
///
How many people have IT people that you’re paying for managing --snipped-- your box on a regular basis for less money. :wink:
This is great way for making extra money and it could end even with some hefty amounts. Even here you can present your clients with two (or three) options for support:

  • forum where you can continue like its now, well maybe cut the waiting time to not go over 2 days

  • monthly subscription for XX and here the problems are really limited as you will be in charge of the initial setup and keep everything in order.

  • per case what can be XX up to XXX per hour where the price must be at least double the amount of the subscription.

Please dont take me wrong. This are all my ideas/suggestions. I would never dare to ask you to enforce what i said, from price suggestion to everything else but i think you guys must move away from current business model, its old, doesnt hold anymore and doesnt benefit anyone aside of people abusing GPL license. Not even saying that you must copy your competition but why reinvent the wheel - it already here just adapt to suit your need, vision, ideas, etc.

P.S. Its late here so if something is not clear enough free to point it out and will go deeper with my explanation.

5

To respond to this and to see if maybe we can get on a similar page about what our major competitors actually charge:

Lets start with your last two plans. For example cPanel VPS license can be found around 14$/month.

And:

For the first price you can have DA with unlimited domains or in some cases even free (depending on the hosting company and the server price).

This is comparing a reselling hosting provider against retail prices. Which isn’t ideal, and it’s why I mentioned we’re overhauling our reseller system, and it will actually work going forward. So, the ideal would be that we’d be competing on the same playing field, rather than our retail prices competing with hosting providers passing on their wholesale prices to their customers. We offer discounts to hosting providers who resell Virtualmin; we just haven’t had a good system to implement it up to now, so it hasn’t been pushed by us, we haven’t done the biz dev needed to get Virtualmin Pro into these hosting provider’s shopping carts, etc.

When you browse to cPanel’s website, you can buy cPanel for VPS for $200/year or $425/year for dedicated. It is only when you go through a high volume reseller, or hosts with bulk licenses, that you’ll see prices lower than that. When reselling like that, they become the first point of contact for support, and we don’t have that expense any more; meaning we can sell to resellers cheaper without it hitting our bottom line.

Those folks that are selling cPanel for $14/month, would qualify for discounts from Virtualmin, as well, is what I’m trying to say, and they would have the option to pass some of those discounts on to their customers, as long as they’re offering it as part of a supported hosting product. Whether we can build a reasonable network of hosting providers over the next year is probably what determines if we’re successful in our plans to make Virtualmin the top choice for people setting up new servers.

6

Hi,

Chipping in with a couple of thoughts:

1 - Support or management: I am not sure you want to go there, I have been in this business for a long time and it’s not pretty.
You also risk getting a lot of bad press. At work we are bulk resellers of CPanel and Plesk and we do that for next to nothing, all the while having to support the customer - when we fail we go upstream and this is another step where it could get tricky - CPanel’s support has been - to us - very competent and fast, while Plesk’s usual reply is “we’ll get back to you within 12 hours”; we’re in the process of letting Plesk go altogether.
Don’t be Plesk. :slight_smile:

2 - Please do not crazy limit GPL to 10 domains or what not. When I got started it was a great opportunity to use GPL and I would not have had the money to pay for it and even if I had I would have gone with CPanel from a reseller probably, forced by the circumstances (and bosses).

I would make the licences even cheaper and super simple, say $5 a month for Pro (period) and would try to tempt people in from GPL via extra features like the installers or perhaps even more sophisticated stuff like “launch docker stuffs and proxy the website to it” (just a trendy idea).

my 2 pence

7

No hosting just cheap control panel license including some other products used in hosting industry: licensepal[dot]com or this one buycpanel[dot]com/special/.

8

No, I don’t mean we plan to do hosting. That’s not at all one of our goals, and we’ve nixed the idea on a number of occasions in the past when it was suggested by investors. We don’t want to compete with our own customers.

9

2 - Please do not crazy limit GPL to 10 domains or what not. When I got started it was a great opportunity to use GPL and I would not have had the money to pay for it and even if I had I would have gone with CPanel from a reseller probably, forced by the circumstances (and bosses).
And this is what i was talking in my previous post. GPL license should not be used to make money and you just make my argument stronger. No one should be able to use GPL to make any money and that is the reason there is Pro version of Vmin.

Even in the situation where you dont have money 10 domains should be enough to pay for Pro version so how ever you put 10 domains on GPL is still enough.

Looks like because of bad business model some people even feel entitled to make money on free version of Vmin. This was going on for too long and i know there will be some people crying for the domain limitation but this is how it should be from beginning.

10

No, I don’t mean we plan to do hosting. That’s not at all one of our goals, and we’ve nixed the idea on a number of occasions in the past when it was suggested by investors. We don’t want to compete with our own customers.

I was referring on this: as long as they’re offering it as part of a supported hosting product

11

Ah, I think I don’t understand what you’re suggesting, then. So, you mean we shouldn’t offer discounts to hosting providers based on the idea that they’d act as the first line of support for their customers (and thus those users would demand less of us)?

The idea all along has been that we want people who are signing up for hosting, whether it is a VPS or dedicated server deal, or a shared hosting account, to be able to choose from a variety of hosting providers who will pre-install Virtualmin for you or use Virtualmin for their services (in the case of shared hosting). Our lackluster (practically non-existent and always broken) reseller system has been a major impediment to that goal. But, in an ideal world most users would never deal with Virtualmin.com directly, just as most users don’t deal with cPanel or Plesk directly; they buy from a hosting provider who buys from those upstream vendors. We just haven’t ever built a credible infrastructure for doing that, until now (and most of the pieces for this are already functional on the new website…reseller accounts will work, and work well, on the new site within a few days of launch).

Does that make sense? Is that what you’re suggesting we shouldn’t be trying to do?

12

This forum can sometimes be so confusing and i think we lost each other. When i saw as long as they’re offering it as part of a supported hosting product i had feeling you think to offer reseller ONLY to hosting companies.

I mean your idea to offer discounts to hosting companies is great but i would not limit only on them. Like the links i posted before, you should offer reseller even to people who just want to sell your product. Nice bonus would be affiliate program but the money will be used to buy your product(s) so no cash-out option. Of course for resellers i would leave the option to use the money on your products or cash-out. Maybe to facilitate everything using API keys would be best option, similar to what you can see with domain resellers.

13

Before you dwell into this discussion, do you have some data on what percentage of your customers have Virtualmin Pro Licence vs the GPL!? If you have 96% GPL and only 4% Pro, then think about the reason.

Personally I have like 4 GPL in use, and never bought a Pro licence. This is not because I did not love the product, but because I felt the price was too high (actually I just noticed the price has dropped to 99$/year, I remember it being much higher and that has influenced my decision on staying GPL all these years).

So you have a product we all love. If you are planning to increase your revenue and deciding on planning pricing policies, first of all consult your data.
Virtualmin is widely used because it is free as well. Maybe consider using value-added solutions, like CloudLinux and make the money through these solutions…

The suggestion of Diabolico about 10 domains on the GPL will kill a large part of your users.

And “We already find that we have to spend more time/money supporting our lowest priced licenses, since those users tend to be new to web hosting”, seems not a a problem, but an opportunity! There you have a specific target group, who rely on your authority of a good product and they badly need support!

14

It would only “kill” people who are abusing GPL and thats fine. They just use free version of the product to make money, scamming their clients with false advertising and many other bad things. If the percentage is really so high on GPL then this control panel will die as developers dont have any reason to keep up… and Joe even said this (read between the lines). Users who need Vmin for their personal use it would not have any problem with the limit of 10 domains.

So you want them to change everything but the part what could compromise your money making on GPL what is not intended for this exploitation.

But in reality what Vmin have to loose? People who are already using Pro version will benefit even more when the price go down, leechers will drop but there isnt harm in that. Vmin will not lose anything frankly quite opposite. It would free the precious time for them (developers) to focus on coding and helping people who actually pay for the product.

Like i said and this is a fact, anyone who is opposing the change for GPL and reducing the amount of domains to 10 are the same people who are abusing free version of the control panel. Point. Based on the quality Vmin is in range with other big players like cPanel or Plesk and if anyone is not happy and threatening to go for something else is more than welcome. I would like to see when they get hacked because some free control panel have more holes then swiss cheese. Please go ahead and use any other free control panel on production server, i dare you.

15

I just wanted to clarify something – we’re happy that folks use and enjoy Virtualmin GPL, even to make money – we wanted to make an awesome product that people can use for free.

We’re not looking to get rid of it, or to remove it’s features.

We are, however, looking for ways to make it so that Virtualmin Pro is enticing to people.

And we’re also looking for how to enable Virtualmin GPL users to buy things that may be useful and awesome to them, without actually having to upgrade to Pro. For example, what if folks using Virtualmin GPL could purchase Support incidents? That’s one of the things we’ve been considering in the last few days.

So we’re not getting rid of or limiting Virtualmin GPL… but ideas of how to help us pay the bills, while allowing people to use the products they want – we’re all ears!

-Eric

16

Because people who use GPL to make money are wiling to spend money on extra service(s). That would never happen but i wish you luck with your ideas, i’m out of this conversation.

17

We agree, and acknowledge that extracting money from Open Source software users is like squeezing water from a stone. :wink:

But, somehow we’ll have to make it work. Compromising our open source values isn’t an option. You’re also absolutely correct that the cost of having no one pay for the software is that development won’t happen at the pace we’d like it to.

I suspect the biggest problem with having a free version that is almost as powerful as the Pro version is that it sets the value in people’s mind close to zero. No one complains about cPanel charging $200, or even $425, even though the product is (by most measures) actually less featureful/complete than Virtualmin. But, folks look at Virtualmin GPL vs Virtualmin Professional and think, “Why should I have to pay all this extra money for these five extra features?” And, occasionally, angrily demand we charge even less than we do.

So, we don’t disagree with you that an unlimited GPL is a big problem for our bottom line. But, for a variety of reasons, we’ll have to figure out how to explain the value of Virtualmin Pro better, rather than making GPL less capable.

I don’t want to seem like we’re completely clueless about how to go about it, but I’m trying to not to lead the conversation, too much. I’m trying to gather honest feedback to help me shape what we do on the new site. But, we do have a variety of changes coming in the future that will make it easier to distinguish between Pro and GPL and easier for folks to recognize the increased value of Pro for their business. It’s not all product changes; a lot of it is just making it nicer to run a business on Pro by having a stronger support network, a stronger Pro brand, better pricing for people who sell hosting, and infrastructure for automating it all.

Here’s the biggest thing that I think we’ve failed on thus far, and why I think our revenue is way down in recent years even while Virtualmin usage has grown at a constant clip: Can anyone name three big features that Virtualmin Pro has that GPL doesn’t? I bet nobody here can without doing some googling. There are real differences in the products, particularly for people who make money with Virtualmin. We need to do a better job informing people about those differences.

18

Well Joe after so long post you deserve some feedback. You are right, even i would have problem to name all the differences between GPL and Pro and you are right about why Pro when there is GPL. But lets pause for a moment at your idea and lets say Pro in next few months will have 10 or even 20 amazing new features. But GPL right now is good for many people to abuse free version to make money and you really think the new 20 amazing features will make them pay for Pro? Ok lets be full optimistic and say some people will go and buy Pro because of new features but how many of them? Do we talk about 1%, maybe 3% but i’m too generous here. At the end you will not move from the situation you have now.

How i can see long time ago your planing went in wrong direction and now you will hardly change anything without drastic cuts, in one way or another. Dont take me wrong, i dont think free version of Vmin is bad actually is quite opposite. But in the same time you must be realistic when we talk about changes you want to introduce with Vmin. I would really like to think that will help you guys and give more reason to work on Vmin but based on my experience with people i dont think you will move from current state.

Limiting the number of domains you could still offer most of the new stuff so people can get a feeling what they will get and not worry too much how many of them will abuse GPL. Some coprorations offer 15-30 days trial without limits and after that you must pay (like cPanel). If you limits the number of domains you would cover both full trial and in the same time offer free version forever. The price of VPS is going down as with everything, even the dedicated servers become cheaper. On VPS with 3-4GB memory you could host more than 10 clients and even if someone go with piling up VPS after some amount will stop to be cost effective as dedicated become cheaper than 5-6+ VPS.

How you can see however you take with limiting in domains everyone will benefit, people for personal use would still have great control panel for free and others who need for business will need to pay, you will get deserved money what would help you to maybe even expand (support, programmers to help you, etc) or at least give you more reason to keep up with new stuff.

Point is if you dont change GPL all this is useless, even if the new changes from Pro to GPL will take a year people are happy to exploit current state of GPL why they should bother with new stuff in Pro.

You can think or dream whatever you want but this will not change the facts regardless if you want to accept them or not.

19

Joe said to name a few features of the Pro version, indeed I do not know them. Here’s a no-brainer:

  • do not “hide” the Pro features or at least some of them in the GPL version. Let them be linked in the menus and when you click on them instead of opening that particular module, just display a text summarizing what the features it adds and how to enable it (by buying the Pro license).

  • if the feature only has like a secondary link on a page just grey it out, perhaps with a question mark explaining it’s available in Pro.

This ought to raise some awareness.

Also, another thing that could be improved in Pro only is the UI. I have grown accustomed to it over the years and now even like it in a way, but it’s not a good UI. When I introduce people to vmin this is almost always their biggest complain; it’s all over the place and confusing people.
So, just make a theme that comes with UI only that has increased usability, perhaps talk to some UI expert about functionality, ergonomics and so on.

HTH

20

I’m confused Joe. In your point 4 you mention removing annual subs to accept monthly subs only. Yet when you put it in concrete terms you refer to annual subs.

As an individual preference I would definitely go for $99 up front, and renew at $45 each year (The current way licensing is priced). Personally I’d pay more upfront initially knowing that it would decrease an annual sub quite significantly.

If you feel you need to accommodate a monthly option based on client feedback, why do you have to exclude an annual renewal option?