Recently, cPanel announced changes to its pricing policy regarding the use of cPanel. Changes that increase prices!
What is cPanel
cPanel is the world’s most popular control panel for managing Linux servers. Whether they are VPS or dedicated servers (metal as the new terminology is). Millions of websites and hundreds of thousands of servers use it. Including us.
It is a reliable control panel that is constantly improving. Easy to use and familiar to users.
It is absolutely intertwined with the use and existence of millions of websites and hundreds of thousands of servers around the world.
The big change in pricing policy
Until the end of July 2019, cPanel was charged per server using it and for unlimited web hosting accounts. That is whether a server hosted 1, 10, 50, 50, 100 or 1000 websites the price for a cPanel license was the same.
Suddenly and without much warning, cPanel changed its pricing policy and now charges the license to each server according to the number of web hosting accounts it hosts. So the cost is now calculated per account and the unlimited is removed.
This has resulted in the cost of using cPanel for web hosting companies to increase up to 300%! Something which of course none of us had predicted.
Global upheaval, reactions and concern
Naturally, such a big difference in cost, and unexpectedly, created a huge uproar and reaction.
It is typical of the hundreds of comments you can read in the official cPanel forum in the section: Announcing Account Based Pricing.
The reaction was strong and negative to the reviews the company received on Facebook, and as a result they are no longer available: https://www.facebook.com/pg/cpanel/reviews/.
The change in the pricing policy and prices of cPanel, puts all web hosting companies that use it out of business.
The difference in cost is huge. Sometimes the cost of a web server’s hardware can be less than the cost of the cPanel licenses it will use!
Other questions are also starting to arise from the fact that because until now there was no per account charge, many customers and/or companies opened trial accounts, development accounts, accounts exclusively for email service, etc. And they did so because they were not expensive. With the new pricing policy, all that is changing.
The background behind the change
The background has a name and it’s called Oakley Capital. It’s the investment firm that bought cPanel. Apparently the intention of the management is to increase their profits as much as possible by taking advantage of the customer base and recognition that cPanel has.
And aren’t they afraid that customers will abandon cPanel and go to its competitor Plesk?
Probably not, because Oakley Capital and their company WebPros also owns Plesk. Yes, you read that right!!!
I’m copying from their site:
WebPros comprises two of the most widely used web hosting automation software platforms, simplifying the lives of developers and web professionals the world over.
WebPros Group, encompassing cPanel and Plesk, is the leading SaaS platform for server management globally.
And this raises the fear that the pricing policy for Plesk will soon change as well. That’s why moving to this control panel doesn’t seem to be the salvation.
Our attitude
The many reactions made cPanel hint that it will reconsider the amount of the price increases. Not that there won’t be increases and a change in tariff policy. Perhaps milder.
Until the landscape clears up, I decided for the next one to two months to absorb the increases in the cost of using cPanel and not to change the prices in the hosting plans directly.
And this is difficult, as profit margins are already small. But I respect the customers.
When the landscape is clear, we will inform our customers by email.
