What about Hostbill now?

[Nicman]

Hi,

A few months after license price changes and official forums closure i want to know what do you fell now about hostbill.

I think it is in a better way now, but what do you think?

Thank you

Kind regards,

[lowprofile]

Buggy as hell... but you can get it to work...

Our main issue is, the way everything is locked down + support is almost non-existing. $75 for a ticket is unfair. Many of our issues are not actually "support" but rather the bugs this software is filled with... broken themes, broken plugins, very slow bugfix after submitting. A simple fix can take 6months! If you log-in to their bugtracker, you will see extreme many bugs....

And then, there is this custom development which almost nobody offers. Hostbill themself do, but it so amateur the way they charge $75 for a ticket for custom dev request, which they MAY refund, if it suits them.

We are just shocked that they haven't learned anything in times past.

[BRJP]

We started using HostBill late in 2013 as custom development was going nowhere for our Business.  We had burnt considerable money creating a 'good' back-end system and a 'light' customer control panel.  The maintenance, progression and in-house support was getting unruly and as a small business it was time to look for an off-the-shelf solution with a newly defined budget.

Our experience of HostBill has been good.  However, it is worth pointing out that we have used our budget to expedite fixes/bugs/issues that mean something to our Business.  Engagement has been excellent and turn-around time on fixes fast – all of which you would expect for $75 per ticket.

We certainly have had to perform a lot of customisation and also applied fixes ourselves.  There are themes and order-pages that come with issues and you need to repair yourself with in-house skills or turn to HostBill for these changes post the 30-day support.  $75 is a fair chunk to pay but HostBill – to this point – have been fair with their fixes.  In way of an example, we had 4 related fixes/enhancements in one support ticket that took a week to turn around and closed off our problems.  $18.75 is reasonable enough for us to 'out-source' this work for each issue but I fully understand that some of this community don't like the ethics of having to pay for bugs/fixes or wait an inordinate amount of time to receive them.

We have settled on Cloudy Theme which, amongst all the themes, seems to be the most complete and offer a good user experience.  There have certainly been some challenges on the way getting some older Order Pages working with Cloudy but, again, we spoke to HB who offered us a good path and we now have some Order Pages that work.  (Not completely – we are just waiting a final round of fixes/enhancements before we close this off and fully 'settle' in that area – but the light is firmly at the end of the tunnel).

We have spent a good chunk of money on HostBill – enough money for experienced people on this forum to question our sanity!  But this remains within our defined budget and far outstrips anything we could produce "in-house" for the same budget.  Despite HostBill flaws, there is a good foundation for automation and user experience and we simply could not have built this from scratch without spending more than we would with HostBill.

So, how to sum-up our early experience up?  HostBill has good features and provides us what we need (especially in the later generation of Client Themes) within a budget envelope.  It has certainly cost us some money to get there – and we still have some work to do – but it's taking good shape.  If you don't have a budget when you purchase then you need to have one for what you purchase off the shelf AND then some for continued support post the 30 days.  (I am not here to argue the ethics of whether one should pay for timely bug fixes and I would agree that the testing/bugs/compatibility continue to be HB's biggest challenge in taking the product to the next step).  The 30 day and paid support has been very good and we have no complaints in that area.  Overall, it is working for us and I really hope that this continues to improve to benefit our business and the wider HostBill using community.

[Enterprisevpssolutions]

Good review. Do you have the old license or a new one? Also Have you had any luck with the bug reports or are all your communications with them vi ticket?

[BRJP]

Good review. Do you have the old license or a new one? Also Have you had any luck with the bug reports or are all your communications with them vi ticket?

I believe we have the new license; although not totally sue what that means!  It was purchased in late 2013 and everything is pretty much an add-on.  It has meant we only choose what we want but there is obviously a (costly) trial and error overhead here.

We budgeted for support post the 30-days free offering and therefore that's the method we use to expedite development.  We do, however, raise bug requests on behalf of the wider user community if we feel appropriate and beneficial.  The speed of which these separate bug requests make a production/live version is currently invisible to us.

So here is a good tip for people at the later stages of making a financial commitment with HostBill.  Free support is only for 30 days which means you will only achieve 3 development cycles before it becomes chargeable.  Maximise your free 30 day support by understanding the product, building a list of suitable themes/order pages/ modules/plugins BEFORE your purchase.  You should then purchase/ install the product with pace including add-ons and quickly build a support/change list that is required to make the product work for your Business.  This will mean you can maximise your free 30 day support period and stand a better chance of having the product you want at the end before dipping into further money-boxes.  Preparation is the key here.

[Fusionhost]

What's your website?

[BRJP]

I have sent you a Personal Message.

[whfpro]

hello,

What's your website BRJP ?