Pricing changes/updates as of July 1, 2019 (No, we aren't raising our prices)

DirectAdmin Sales

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Hello everyone!

As a result of the demand created by the cPanel pricing fiasco, we've been forced to drop our loss-leader "Lifetime Licenses" earlier than planned. These licenses were not sustainable to begin with, but with an community-minded & non-abusive customer base like ours, we've managed to offer them for almost 15 years. I don't think anyone else could have done that. :D

Most importantly, we are not taking away anyone's lifetime license, and we are not going to start charging for updates. A promise is a promise. This announcement only relates to the sale of new licenses.

So here's what's happening:
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New Accounts

Sorry, our traditional lifetime licenses are no longer available. This applies to datacenter (internal) licenses as well.

EDIT: We ultimately decided against the "Owned" license, which is a permanently activated license at $299 with one year of updates, and then $99/year after that. First, it's not a true lifetime license -- it's just a yearly license with a high upfront fee. Second, industry security experts have asked us to reconsider this offering because it encourages saving money by staying with older, potentially vulnerable software that becomes a risk to the server itself and other servers on the net. I apologize for this -- we were trying to introduce a hybrid/transitional product from the $299 lifetime but now I realize it should of been dropped just the same as our datacenter lifetime licenses, so we can move onto a more sustainable product type.

A new "Lite" license is being introducted on August 15 that can be installed on any type of server. It will be heavily discounted and intended for the personal user, hobbyist, etc. for those who need a few users/domains.

Existing Accounts

We realize that your business model may depend on the regular ordering of these licenses, so we are phasing them out over 60 days, to ensure there is plenty of notice. It would be unfair & disrespectful to simply remove these licenses without warning or explanation.

You have until September 1 to keep ordering lifetime licenses. To prevent abuse (hoarding), new purchases will be throttled (controlled) automatically by our system. You will be able to purchase new licenses at the same general rate/quantities you normally order at.

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To prevent unauthorized reselling and a lifetime license "black market" we are going to be a little less helpful about a couple things we've been overly accommodating about in the past. We are no longer pushing/moving licenses between accounts, especially after several of our customers have been scammed by people selling licenses from hacked accounts. License portability/reselling is never something we offered as a feature so we need to crack down on this a little better.

The second issue relates mostly to the internal/datacenter bulk lifetime licenses. We've been allowing near-excessive levels of free license recycling (IP changing so the license can be reused over and over as customers come and go). This in itself is not a bad practice. Recycling is good ;) But it is also used for unauthorized reselling. It is also used for piracy (back-and-forth IP changing to allow one license to operate many servers).

Unlimited updates is something we promised, but unlimited recycling is not. We plan to crack down on this by allowing a very small amount of free changes, and then a minimal fee (maybe a dollar or two) for each change after that. Not enough of a fee to be a money grab, but it will help a bit with sustainability (and mostly as an anti-abuse measure).

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Finally, please share your comments and let's discuss. This announcement has been a long time coming and I really hope that our intent is viewed as productive and respectful to our customer base. We are forced to make these changes, but I certainly hope anything above doesn't make our valued costumers feel like they have been betrayed or mislead in any way.

Let's discuss! :cool:
 
Hello,

Thank you for your post. Just to recap:

1. No internal pricing for future purchases of lifetime licenses (existing customers are effected as of September 1)
2. No lifetime updates included in lifetime licenses for future purchases (effected on September 1)
3. A new "Lite" license will be started in sales on August 15
4. No license pushes
5. Limitation in IP changes.


Did I miss anything?
 
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Hello,

Thank you for your post. Just to recap:

1. No internal pricing for future purchases (effected on September 1)
2. No lifetime licenses for future purchases (effected on September 1)
3. A new "Lite" license will be started in sales on August 15
4. No license pushes
5. Limitation in IP changes.


Did I miss anything?

This only pertains to lifetime licenses. For brand new accounts, it's effective immediately. No internal lifetime licenses.

For current accounts, lifetime internal licenses vanish on Sep 1 but they can keep ordering normally until then (within throttling limitations)

Monthly licenses unaffected.

Doesn't sound like you missed anything. IP change limitation not set in stone, but just wanted to give advanced notice that some level of restriction is coming.

If the entire thread has to be summarized in one sentence: Unprofitable licenses being dropped, all other licenses remain the same.
 
I think the changes are fair for current customers :)

Thanks very much for the feedback! That is always the biggest part of the problem. If something needs to be done, making sure it is done in the most fair & respectful way possible.
 
Thank you for clarification. It's clear now. I'm very curious about "Lite" licenses. Any estimation on when you post additional information?
 
I'm not sure how big of IP update abuse you have. But I think it's reasonable for existing internal lifetime licenses to have 12 free IP update per year, and it flushes at the beginning of every year.

I don't believe updating once per month would consider abuse especially if you sell servers. Since you are dropping lifetime licenses altogether, this should really only affect the existing abusers.
 
Thank you for clarification. It's clear now. I'm very curious about "Lite" licenses. Any estimation on when you post additional information?

We are still working on the exact details, but your feedback and suggestions would be more than welcome. In fact, we would really like to hear what you have to say. Aside from being limited to a certain amount of users/domains, the Lite license would be fully functional.

We do not have a good retail VPS/low-end type license, so this would be the solution. There are also dedicated servers like those from Kimsufi that are priced lower than many VPS. So we want something that will cater to this group. A group that would normally never buy a commercial panel, because their hardware cost is low, and they don't want a control panel that would be more than their hardware cost.
 
I'm not sure how big of IP update abuse you have. But I think it's reasonable for existing internal lifetime licenses to have 12 free IP update per year, and it flushes at the beginning of every year.

I don't believe updating once per month would consider abuse especially if you sell servers. Since you are dropping lifetime licenses altogether, this should really only affect the existing abusers.

Thank you for your feedback, that is a very fair and important point. It would not be right to punish (fee) for normal IP changing in the course of business. Our intent is to stop abuse, not to make extra money from users who have been doing honest business.

lonea, has this ever been an issue for you? Our system currently defaults to 5 IP changes per year before a manual review/reset is required. Barely anybody hits this threshold. It sounds like it would have to be a very high turnover business to have customers who only last a month? (12 IP changes per year)
 
My clients usually stay for a few months. So the 5 IP changes never been a issue. 12/year may be a little high, I guess maybe 6 or something... hell just keep it at 5... lol

lonea, has this ever been an issue for you? Our system currently defaults to 5 IP changes per year before a manual review/reset is required. Barely anybody hits this threshold. It sounds like it would have to be a very high turnover business to have customers who only last a month? (12 IP changes per year)

haha good to hear! Means we are close at least. If the current setting isn't causing you any annoyance.
 
well i suggest maybe leave the DA lifetime or increase its price for a bit, some people uses those like small agencies or people that not really need support, yeah for internal there is no need for lifetime but as simple customer it could be good idea to have it, if people want to get some support the could pay some fee for a year support, or maybe put 299 usd with no support to add support pay 99 usd a year or 120 idk, but i preffer knowing that same price structure remain, already people talking wait DA start get traffic and already stop lifetime? people scared right now i think this move is wrong, or maybe for not abuse lifetime, limit it for "1" per year or something like that or client for X time you can order a lifetime cause some people can handle things and if they want support they could just renew support
 
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Problem is lifetime license is not sustainable. We all know that.

Regular license is still only $30/month with unlimited accounts. Not sure why people would be scare of that.

well i suggest maybe leave the DA lifetime or increase its price for a bit, some people uses those like small agencies or people that not really need support, yeah for internal there is no need for lifetime but as simple customer it could be good idea to have it, if people want to get some support the could pay some fee for a year support, or maybe put 299 usd with no support to add support pay 99 usd a year or 120 idk, but i preffer knowing that same price structure remain, already people talking wait DA start get traffic and already stop lifetime? people scared right now i think this move is wrong, or maybe for not abuse lifetime, limit it for "1" per year or something like that
 
well i suggest maybe leave the DA lifetime or increase its price for a bit, some people uses those like small agencies or people that not really need support, yeah for internal there is no need for lifetime but as simple customer it could be good idea to have it, if people want to get some support the could pay some fee for a year support, or maybe put 299 usd with no support to add support pay 99 usd a year or 120 idk, but i preffer knowing that same price structure remain, already people talking wait DA start get traffic and already stop lifetime? people scared right now i think this move is wrong, or maybe for not abuse lifetime, limit it for "1" per year or something like that

It sounds like your suggestion is pretty much what we announced. That's great! ;) We did leave the $299 lifetime there, with the option of $99 upgrade/support but it's completely optional. If you decided never to pay anything more, the license would still keep working forever. It's not $299 + required $99 + $99 + $99 etc. It's just the $299 everybody is used to and if you want to add more upgrades/support, it's possible but there is nothing forcing you to do it.
 
your not going to remove the lifetime? cause thats what i was understanding from it
 
your not going to remove the lifetime? cause thats what i was understanding from it

Yes, we are phasing out the internal lifetime licenses. It is like asking you to give me a VPS license for one low price, and it has to work forever. It is just not sustainable, after a while you will lose money. We've been able to offer a product like this for 15 years but it has now become unsustainable.

However, as mentioned in the first post, we are still allowing existing customers 2 months to keep buying them. It is not a shock announcement to tell you that the license have instantly vanished.

And of course, the licenses you have will remain there. We are not removing anybody's license. It just means we won't be selling more in the future.

EDIT: As the main post states, the $299 lifetime has not be phased out, but there is now the option of support/upgrade fees to it.
 
Well, one server can be easily running a single Magento shop with 1000+ goods. Will you allow a Lite license here?

Another server can run 100+ domains under a single admin user. Will it be qualified for the same Lite license?
 
We mainly use the internal lifetime licenses for our vps clients, and bundle directadmin with the VPS directly without any additional costs. This will not be economically feasible for us if a VPS license is going to cost the same as a normal dedicated server license.

It would be great if there would be a lite license at a cheaper price focused on VPS servers. Maybe with a maximum RAM or users/domains limit?
 
x) As existing lifetime customer with 1 license, when I order now (before 1.sept) a 2nd lifetime license, will it be lifetime including upgrades?
x) And if yes, can i "horde" just this 1 additional lifetime-license for later use (maybe in 1 or 2 years)?
 
I think this is a good change, and I thank you for letting existing customers keep their Life time licenses. I feel better about DirectAdmin future after this change, so it is welcome.

By the sound of it, it seems to me that the new Lite license also would be perfect to use for DNS only servers setup with multiserver.
 
I truly support this price increase! This will only make the panel stronger and these are realistic pricing too!
 
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