How much would you pay for yearly updates?

[nibb]

Its clear that a software cannot live without sustained revenue income. And by all this changes recently we know clearly that Hostbill needs a recurring stream of income from existinting clients.

Updates for 999$ where completely crazy and I think this was when most hostbill customers started to drive away and drop the product. But lets be honest, 0$ or 45$ is almost nothing as well to keep the product going on. So my question here is how much would you be willing to pay for yearly updates.

Lets for a moment think that:
1. Forget all things that where done, just think what the software does for you now and how much is it worth for you.
2. This poll is for updates to new features and bugs, NO support.
3. Its for those that had all orderpages and modules before 4.6.0, so updates includes all of them

Please be honest how much you or your company can spend yearly on a software like this. Forget Hostbill, forget Kris and all his troubles, I just want to make an honest poll about how much you would be willing to invest to keep using the product because lets be all honest, if we do not give him money eventually the product will die. Now I understand everyone here is pissed off and would probably not spend a dime again on the product, but lets forget everything and just see how would be an average for most here to pay for yearly updates for the points 1, 2 and 3 mentioned above.

Also, this post assumes bugs are fixed, and everything works. I did not put anything over 10,000$ a year because to be honest at even 3,000$ a year some would be better off paying their own developers to run something custom in house, as you would make an calculation on how much you would end spending in a 5-10 year period.

[thetrusteeco]

I voted this one based on what I think HostBill in currently worth to me.  My perspective is skewed by their history.

Although for a new customer I would vote lower, as the new customer only gets bug-fixed, and those should be free.

[Paul]

$99 per year with support. That's what this software is worth. This stupid fool really needs to go back to a monthly subscription model. Seems to be working magnificently for WHMCS! I'd pay $50 a month for it, with full updates and support, or say, 1 ticket a month limit or something. He could make it $99/month with Colo and IPAM and 3 tickets a month limit. That's $600 and $1200 per year, respectively. And people would pay it. Good god he's a business fool.

[tallship]

I would never pay that. I would use ubersmith and onapp before hostbill anyday, or citrix, or one of the other enterprise solutions that are actually viable and work as advertised if I was inclined to pay for software on a subscription basis.

$45/yr is reasonable for software that works as advertised, which hostbill doesn't at this time. I see that a few people here in these forums have already let their subscriptions lapse in just the past week or so - kbkp is being fired.

Support is a completely different concept from software subscription updates - completely apples vs oranges.

[Lawrence]

I voted $45/yr simply for economical reasons. It's a proven fact that lower rates bring in new individuals into the market. This naturally grows the industry, and over time affects all of us and our profits.

Although we're all technically competitors, I wouldn't want to be the only guy in the market. No way I can handle thousands of subscriptions per day, as appealing as it may be. I'd like to grow my team and business over time, and eventually buy out other companies and possibly inherit good employees in the process. (From companies with a proven track record of course)

The lower, the better. If it's for free, I won't consider it. I'd like to see some form of stability. I don't care about support, just put up proper documentation.

[nibb]

$99 per year with support. That's what this software is worth. This stupid fool really needs to go back to a monthly subscription model. Seems to be working magnificently for WHMCS! I'd pay $50 a month for it, with full updates and support, or say, 1 ticket a month limit or something. He could make it $99/month with Colo and IPAM and 3 tickets a month limit. That's $600 and $1200 per year, respectively. And people would pay it. Good god he's a business fool.

That does not completely make sense. You would only pay 99$ a year for updates but pay 50$ to 99$ a month? Try to explain me that logic.

One of the reasons I went with Hostbill was not recurring fees. I hate them. I prefer to pay 2000$ for the software and then yearly updates vs a recurring fee for ever. I like to own software.

50$ a month would make it 3,000$ in a 5 year period, and 6,000$ if its 100$. That is why more than 495$ for the yearly update you suggested of 99$.

Also, one of the reasons Hostbill killed monthly leased, was because he was flooded with newbies asking how to transfer their files in binary mode just to name one. You need to give support with monthly leasing licenses, and I think that is exactly what he is trying to avoid.

[nibb]

I would never pay that. I would use ubersmith and onapp before hostbill anyday, or citrix, or one of the other enterprise solutions that are actually viable and work as advertised if I was inclined to pay for software on a subscription basis.

$45/yr is reasonable for software that works as advertised, which hostbill doesn't at this time. I see that a few people here in these forums have already let their subscriptions lapse in just the past week or so - kbkp is being fired.

Support is a completely different concept from software subscription updates - completely apples vs oranges.

Citrix? Where does Citrix offer a billing software? If they did I would use it, as I use their products regularly. You mean CloudPortal?

I don´t think that is for billing but I may be wrong as its new, the last time I checked its for management of accounts, of course I may be wrong.

[electric]

This poll is worthless and pointless because it is not clear if we are supposed to vote based on how Hostbill is NOW or based on how Hostbill COULD BE.

In other words... right now, I would not pay more than $0/year for support.  The software is useless because it is not only full of bugs, but there is no testing of new releases so every new release introduces new bugs.  And I'm supposed to pay for that?  I don't think so.  Also, the company and person behind the company is an idiot.  Why would I give him money to continue making stupid decisions that are going to end up costing me more money?

Now.. .if we're talking about what the software COULD be, if it was actually managed by a proper business person who knew what he was doing, was listening to his customers, and communicated effectively with his customers, and did not release every new version with new bugs... well... then I would be very happy to pay for that.  I won't put a price, because Kris is so stupid that he would ignore the first part I wrote and simply fixate on whatever price I suggested, as if that's what I meant.

[tallship]

Citrix? Where does Citrix offer a billing software? If they did I would use it, as I use their products regularly. You mean CloudPortal?

I don´t think that is for billing but I may be wrong as its new, the last time I checked its for management of accounts, of course I may be wrong.

http://www.citrix.com/products/cloudportal-services-manager/features/business-manager.html

Not sure if it's still available now that everything's been open sourced though.

There's others too, like http://www.enstratius.com/ and a wiki article on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enstratius

Enjoy

[nibb]

http://www.citrix.com/products/cloudportal-services-manager/features/business-manager.html

Not sure if it's still available now that everything's been open sourced though.

There's others too, like http://www.enstratius.com/ and a wiki article on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enstratius

Enjoy

I just researched CloudPortal.

The price is 50,000$ + for standard and another ledition is at 250,000$

Support is also more or less 50,000$ a year.

Wow!!!! 

[nibb]

This poll is worthless and pointless because it is not clear if we are supposed to vote based on how Hostbill is NOW or based on how Hostbill COULD BE.

In other words... right now, I would not pay more than $0/year for support.  The software is useless because it is not only full of bugs, but there is no testing of new releases so every new release introduces new bugs.  And I'm supposed to pay for that?  I don't think so.  Also, the company and person behind the company is an idiot.  Why would I give him money to continue making stupid decisions that are going to end up costing me more money?

Now.. .if we're talking about what the software COULD be, if it was actually managed by a proper business person who knew what he was doing, was listening to his customers, and communicated effectively with his customers, and did not release every new version with new bugs... well... then I would be very happy to pay for that.  I won't put a price, because Kris is so stupid that he would ignore the first part I wrote and simply fixate on whatever price I suggested, as if that's what I meant.

I explained this in the first post.