Input Enormous price increases yet again for 2025

[Tim_Wakeling]

This seems to have become a recurring theme, and it is not a good one. Plesk has started seriously pressing into price gouging, and I can only imagine it's because switching Web server panels is such a non-trivial thing to do, and they calculate that most people will simply pay up.

Today Plesk informed me that the 2025 price for my Web Host Edition will be £659.81 including VAT. That's a 23% increase on last year's price of £534.67, and a 205% increase on 2017 when it was only £216 for the year.

The Bank of England inflation calculator shows that inflation between 2017 and now should have increased the price from £216 to £280.57. So these increases are not even remotely justified by the inflation excuse. What is the justification, then?

These increases are not sustainable. As a host for my clients, I do not use the reseller features. I would only need Pro, except for the 30 domain limit. If that were removed, it would soften the blow somewhat ... for now. But we are still getting used to bracing for larger and larger percentage increases every year, and it is not acceptable.

 

[Maarten]

Plesk is a part of WebPros, which in turn is owned by Oakley Capital. You can find more information about their portfolio of companies here:

https://www.oakleycapital.com/our-companies/?sector=Technology&status=Current

As long as shareholders want to see profits, I don’t think prices will go down. It’s common for companies owned by investment firms to raise prices to meet financial goals and provide returns to investors. The recent price increase of 23% is quite high and may be due to broader market trends and the need to continue developing and supporting Plesk’s features.

However, there is a point at which customers might start looking for alternatives if prices keep rising. We see this trend in the mobile market, where constant price increases push consumers to seek cheaper options. If Plesk continues to raise its prices, it risks losing customers to competitors offering more affordable solutions.

This situation can be frustrating for users, especially when they feel the impact of rising costs. Ultimately, the decisions made by investment firms and their focus on profit can shape the direction of pricing, making it crucial for Plesk to balance its financial goals with customer satisfaction.

I agree that Plesk should consider offering the reseller option separately, instead of including it in the highest-priced Host plan. This feature might not be widely used, so making it optional could lower the cost of that plan and make it more appealing to users.

 

[HHawk]

It's every year the same. See the other thread here: Question - Massive price increase for reseller licenses?. Sigh.

And like Maarten said; it's because they have shareholders behind the Investment Group. Prices will increase every year and also every other product in the WebPros portfolio e.g. SolusVM, WHMCS, cPanel, etc... All will be increased every single year, over and over...

And when they lose too many customers, Plesk (and others) be sold off to the highest bidder probably. And who will own it then? Worse or better?

I would advice to move something else. A lot of alternatives. We hardly use Plesk support or the fancy stuff installed nowadays, which also seems to bring down server performance in general. Less is more. Plesk used to be excellent, however the past few years it's going really downhill.

Also people are fed up to pay an increase here, an increase there and especially absurd increases like the 23% Tim_Wakeling mentioned... I-n-s-a-n-e...

Plesk and everything else owned by Oakley Capital Investment Group (under WebPros) are becoming a sinking ship. Beat to jump from board, before it really sinks and takes everything with you!

 

[Maarten]

Despite the pricing policies influenced by Oakley Capital as the investment company behind Plesk, I’m still incredibly proud of what they’ve built since Plesk v8. IMHO, it’s simply a fantastic system. Of course, there are some less favorable aspects, like pushing Plesk services to our clients, which means they end up earning from our clients directly without us being involved. And some bugs just don’t seem to get fixed. But honestly, I think other panels have their own set of challenges as well.

 

[HHawk]

I have been using Plesk since it was still owned by SWsoft or something. Yes proud till Onyx and first released of Obisdian. Afterwards it went downhill fast. Especially after 2017. Oh well. Only about 10% Plesk servers left. The rest already migrated to something else, because our customers were getting fed up with the yearly (absurd) price increase. And to be honest; can't blame them either. ;-)

I think the 10% will remain using Plesk with us. But that amount will decline after next years price increase...

 

[Kaspar]

Plesk is a part of WebPros, which in turn is owned by Oakley Capital. You can find more information about their portfolio of companies here:

https://www.oakleycapital.com/our-companies/?sector=Technology&status=Current

Oakley sold Webpros almost 5 years ago. Not that it matters much, it certainly does not matter within the context of the subject of this thread. However Oakley's name keeps getting mentioned in these types of threads, so I feel this might be good to clarify this anyway

 

[Maarten]

Ah, I misread the portfolio.

https://www.oakleycapital.com/our-companies/webpros

Well, they are to blame for this. Who puts a company in their portfolio when they sold it years ago?

 

[J.Wick]

There are solid points on this thread regarding what happens to products and services owned by investment companies.


Plesk Web Host Pro Edition Monthly (PLSK-PRO-M)

• 2014 $7.25
• 2015 $14.25
• 2017 $14.25
• 2018 $12.75
• 2020 $14.03
• 2023 $17.43
• 2024 $19.43
• 2025 $26.99
• 2026 $2,025.99 (est.)

I'm done; this is ridiculous. I'm looking at CloudPanel as an alternative.

 

[Maarten]

I discovered that Oakley Capital, the parent company of Plesk and WebPros, actually sold WebPros to another investment firm, CVC Fund, back in 2019.
Here’s the article:
Oakley Capital agrees sale of WebPros to CVC Fund VII

So, the cycle continues with price increases, as those investments need to generate returns. It’s absurd because it’s the end users who ultimately pay the price with these huge increases.

It feels like we're being squeezed for profits to satisfy investors, and it’s the customers who bear the burden. This kind of system isn’t sustainable in the long term.

 

[Sebahat.hadzhi]

I understand that this situation is not ideal and I can see that there is constructive criticism in your feedback. Thank you, it is invaluable. I would like to encourage anyone willing to share their input on what improvements/features would in your opinion justify a price increase, what changes you would like to see in the future, even your own view of better structure of the licensing. Thank you in advance.

 

[HHawk]

I understand that this situation is not ideal and I can see that there is constructive criticism in your feedback. Thank you, it is invaluable. I would like to encourage anyone willing to share their input on what improvements/features would in your opinion justify a price increase, what changes you would like to see in the future, even your own view of better structure of the licensing. Thank you in advance.

You have increased the prices so much the past 7 years that nothing can be done to turn this around. I have migrated 80% of our Plesk servers to different solutions already, because our customers were also completely fed up with the price increase. Heck; the frigging Plesk license is costing the customers more than a server with us. We cannot sell that to them!! So we turned things around the last 2 years.

Every support ticket we get from our (remaining) Plesk server customers about Plesk increasing their prices again, we inform them to send emails to Plesk directly instead to make an official complaint. But we also mentioned; Plesk (and whichever investment group now owns Plesk, CVC I guess) does NOT care. They only want to see money. That's why they increase prices every year along with same fake ELS support ideas which is another way to temper the greed for more and more money. Plesk is killing the hosting business in terms of control panels... That's for sure. I doubt Plesk will maintain to exists in 2 years. Plesk has really, really staken a stupid course back in 2017. And now you are going to regret it.

This was for me as well for others (see here) the final straw to be honest. The past few years after the increase it was quiet, but this time... Oh boy. I see really a lot of complaints and cancellations; not just here, but on real hosting forums as well (in the US as well as in the EU). I think Plesk went one step to far this time. I even dare to bet money on it; this will hurt Plesk a lot. A good thing that Plesk is not that great anymore as it was, as there are quite a few other players (= companies) who offer also great products/solutions. Some of them are 100% free, some are only paid support and some charge 1/3 what Plesk is asking.

Plesk is a sinking boat. It was great while it lasted. But I have seen a ton of mismanagement and (again) it started shortly after "Nils Hueneke" sold his soul....I mean Plesk, to Oakley Capital Investment Group. Shame on you!

 

[clemensmol]

I understand that this situation is not ideal and I can see that there is constructive criticism in your feedback. Thank you, it is invaluable. I would like to encourage anyone willing to share their input on what improvements/features would in your opinion justify a price increase, what changes you would like to see in the future, even your own view of better structure of the licensing. Thank you in advance.

I see a lot of customers moving from WP to NextJS, but self hosting NextJS in Plesk is awful, most of these clients are now moving away from Plesk. The NodeJS hosting support on Plesk is subpar. NodeJS processes are automatically killed by Phassenger after some inactivity.

Blue green deployment options for NodeJS/WP projects

Some WordPress clients are moving to other panels. WPToolkit from Plesk is great, but lacks all the tools to improve WP performance. 1-click object caching for WP would be a great step forward.

Outgoing spam filtering should work out of the box.

Better backup options/extensions. SFTP, SSH or S3 server backups should be accessible by clients, just like the local backups. But they aren't.

Better tools to prevent common customer tickets, like making it easier for clients to setup their email accounts (correct ports, encryption, etc). Autodiscover just doesn't seem te work for most of my clients.

 

[HHawk]

I see a lot of customers moving from WP to NextJS, but self hosting NextJS in Plesk is awful, most of these clients are now moving away from Plesk. The NodeJS hosting support on Plesk is subpar. NodeJS processes are automatically killed by Phassenger after some inactivity.

Blue green deployment options for NodeJS/WP projects

Some WordPress clients are moving to other panels. WPToolkit from Plesk is great, but lacks all the tools to improve WP performance. 1-click object caching for WP would be a great step forward.

Outgoing spam filtering should work out of the box.

Better backup options/extensions. SFTP, SSH or S3 server backups should be accessible by clients, just like the local backups. But they aren't.

Better tools to prevent common customer tickets, like making it easier for clients to setup their email accounts (correct ports, encryption, etc). Autodiscover just doesn't seem te work for most of my clients.

Ah yes... Plesk will gladly add all of these functions and increase the price next year with 50%. ;-)

 

[Sebahat.hadzhi]

Thank you for the invaluable input, @clemensmol.