Input Enormous price increases yet again for 2025

[Hangover2]

i am with @seqoi here. Unsere what is the Diskussion Basis: is the Hosting Panel needed for some fun topics or for real business. I don’t think that a free Open Source Tool can be the Basis for critical Infrastructure.

That’s an interesting perspective! Linux and many hosting panels are open source, their use in critical infrastructure is widespread and proven. Linux itself powers a significant portion of global servers, cloud services, and even supercomputers, largely due to its stability, flexibility, and security.

Open-source hosting panels, like others, can indeed be used for real business when implemented correctly. The key lies in choosing a well-maintained tool and combining it with professional support, regular updates, and robust security measures. Some businesses prefer proprietary solutions for specific needs, but open-source tools are at the core of some of the most critical and resilient systems worldwide.

 

[Gary W.]

Guys, I'm not here to sell you my ideas but to share the feelings I experienced after making a change that once felt impossible.

I don't see your point on the "price of creativity".

Let’s start by saying that I’ve been managing and owning websites for many years, and during this time, I’ve spent a lot of money on Plesk. It never really bothered me, of course, because these projects generated a respectable EBITDA, so the expenses for hosting and Plesk were negligible compared to the income.

Over the past couple of years, with the rise of AI, I realized that my €50/month server was oversized for my traffic, as was paying a fee for Plesk. This shift was made possible because, with AI, I’ve been able to directly apply changes to the server — with some hiccups and server crashes along the way. However, thanks to Hetzner snapshots as a safety net, everything has always worked out in the end.

Now, why do I say that paying an ever-increasing fee impacts creativity? Well, because today, there are many more cost-effective and efficient alternatives. Plus, the time and knowledge that were previously out of reach before AI are now accessible to everyone.

So, paying more today feels like a lack of optimization. If you optimize down to the bone, you can save a lot in the process. Money and optimization go hand in hand.

i am with @seqoi here. Unsere what is the Diskussion Basis: is the Hosting Panel needed for some fun topics or for real business. I don’t think that a free Open Source Tool can be the Basis for critical Infrastructure.

If you're on this forum, I assume you have at least some knowledge of servers. The open-source tool I’m referring to (CloudPanel) offers the exact same functionalities as any other panel, and the majority of these are open-source as well. What CloudPanel—and even Plesk—do is package them into a single product.

So, the claim that you can’t have a critical infrastructure using open-source tools doesn’t hold true in reality.

That’s an interesting perspective! Linux and many hosting panels are open source, their use in critical infrastructure is widespread and proven. Linux itself powers a significant portion of global servers, cloud services, and even supercomputers, largely due to its stability, flexibility, and security.

Open-source hosting panels, like others, can indeed be used for real business when implemented correctly. The key lies in choosing a well-maintained tool and combining it with professional support, regular updates, and robust security measures. Some businesses prefer proprietary solutions for specific needs, but open-source tools are at the core of some of the most critical and resilient systems worldwide.

Exactly, I agree with you @Hangover2 . It’s thanks to open-source projects like Linux that the web as we know it today is possible. A world of servers dominated by Microsoft licenses would never have existed. And it’s not about money. It’s about optimization and the desire to learn and experiment (I’ll admit, with the help of AI nowadays).

 

[scsa20]

So I've been holding off on providing my 2 cents since I wanted to think and mull it over for a bit and ultimately yes I think the price hike sucks balls (especially since I've been been using Plesk for many many years, at one point I did stopped using Plesk to use something else just to go back to it a few months later) but I think I'll still stick with it.

I've tried a few control panels in the past including cPanel (I honestly do not like cPanel because of how they do everything that I find it annoying to navigate and use). But the features that Plesk has I, and a few friends that I host on there, actually use. On a few of the sites I have hosted through Plesk uses Sitejet Builder (for example), the WP- Toolkit (the free version, homie ain't gonna pay for no other subscription for a few WordPress sites) is useful for making sure I keep those small handful of instances up to date, etc. So to me the pros completely outweighs the cost (for me) for the the time being. And I'm just a nobody who is hosting a handful of sites for myself and a few friends who has their own accounts so they can do whatever they want with their hosting instance.

I think the extra costs is coming from a few factors that Plesk added over the last few years such as Sitejet Builder (you know how they say that it's free? Ye it isn't, it's now included in the base cost and just not mention it was ) and new sites now has the ability of using a temporary page on plesk.page (to just name a few items).

But ye, it sucks but to me, since the cost isn't too far off for me still at the moment, I'll stay with it. But I do have my max point and if they go past that point then at that point in time I would have no choice but to look for alternatives which I really really really do not want to do.

Again, just my 2 cents.

 

[manni]

That’s an interesting perspective! Linux and many hosting panels are open source, their use in critical infrastructure is widespread and proven. Linux itself powers a significant portion of global servers, cloud services, and even supercomputers, largely due to its stability, flexibility, and security.

Open-source hosting panels, like others, can indeed be used for real business when implemented correctly. The key lies in choosing a well-maintained tool and combining it with professional support, regular updates, and robust security measures. Some businesses prefer proprietary solutions for specific needs, but open-source tools are at the core of some of the most critical and resilient systems worldwide.

You are absolutly right, maybe the way I communicate things is wrong. I am a big fan of open source solution, I am supporting the crowd in it's initiatives. What I want to say is, that Linux has a huge community in regards to support & development.

We typically host 100-150 domains per Plesk server, most of this sites are pretty critical. We need easy to use, multi-language control panels, individual flexible configurations in regards to Anti Spam, Mail configurations, DB configurations, etc.

If I would not need this service for the customers, the easiest way anyway would be Webmin or something like this - or not?

So I've been holding off on providing my 2 cents since I wanted to think and mull it over for a bit and ultimately yes I think the price hike sucks balls (especially since I've been been using Plesk for many many years, at one point I did stopped using Plesk to use something else just to go back to it a few months later) but I think I'll still stick with it.

I've tried a few control panels in the past including cPanel (I honestly do not like cPanel because of how they do everything that I find it annoying to navigate and use). But the features that Plesk has I, and a few friends that I host on there, actually use. On a few of the sites I have hosted through Plesk uses Sitejet Builder (for example), the WP- Toolkit (the free version, homie ain't gonna pay for no other subscription for a few WordPress sites) is useful for making sure I keep those small handful of instances up to date, etc. So to me the pros completely outweighs the cost (for me) for the the time being. And I'm just a nobody who is hosting a handful of sites for myself and a few friends who has their own accounts so they can do whatever they want with their hosting instance.

I think the extra costs is coming from a few factors that Plesk added over the last few years such as Sitejet Builder (you know how they say that it's free? Ye it isn't, it's now included in the base cost and just not mention it was ) and new sites now has the ability of using a temporary page on plesk.page (to just name a few items).

But ye, it sucks but to me, since the cost isn't too far off for me still at the moment, I'll stay with it. But I do have my max point and if they go past that point then at that point in time I would have no choice but to look for alternatives which I really really really do not want to do.

Again, just my 2 cents.

Totally what I mean. We also tried in the past to go away, but if your customers like what they have, they are unhappy when going away.
Easiest topic is MagicSpam: It's one of the most loved products that we currently offer to them. cPanel is - for my understanding - far more expensive. Also, especially in the EU, we have to find partners where GDPR is not a problem. E.g. we here in our country are not allowed, to buy/use some products, e.g. if they are delivered by Russian companies. For ME I don't care, because the political situation is always a separate one, but if you use it for BUSINESS then we have to comply with regulations.

Same BTW for US products, maybe a legal topic but something that you can simply not ignore.

Or am I wrong here?

 

[Gary W.]

Guys, you're all right. I'm the first to love Plesk—it’s been an efficient panel that saved me from manual configurations and saved me time. What I don’t like about Plesk is the monthly formula. And it’s not even about the money itself but the fact that it’s perpetual—I’m forced to pay a subscription until I no longer have a website or until I die. And that doesn’t sit well with me in a society where the average American pays around $1,000 a year on subscriptions.

So I say no, but that’s just my opinion, and I don’t expect everyone to agree with it.

 

[manni]

Hello 8

Guys, you're all right. I'm the first to love Plesk—it’s been an efficient panel that saved me from manual configurations and saved me time. What I don’t like about Plesk is the monthly formula. And it’s not even about the money itself but the fact that it’s perpetual—I’m forced to pay a subscription until I no longer have a website or until I die. And that doesn’t sit well with me in a society where the average American pays around $1,000 a year on subscriptions.

So I say no, but that’s just my opinion, and I don’t expect everyone to agree with it.

Interesting view. i Like this approach.

But how do you deal eg with Office? This is much more extensive, and our customers force us to provide Outlook & Exchange.

We have tried one week Rolling out Thunderbird: 80+ customers immediatly cancelled the contract :-(

 

[Gary W.]

Interesting view. i Like this approach.

But how do you deal eg with Office? This is much more extensive, and our customers force us to provide Outlook & Exchange.

We have tried one week Rolling out Thunderbird: 80+ customers immediatly cancelled the contract :-(

I have an Office license because it costs me $3.50 per month (I purchased a few years in advance). But I pay it only because the plan includes 1TB of storage for server backups and so on. Fun fact: I don’t use Outlook anyway because, after they introduced ads, I switched to Thunderbird.

So, as you can see, it’s easy to stick to familiar tools, but Outlook has proven over the years to perform quite poorly. I was in the corporate world for six years. Many people didn’t use Outlook due to the numerous bugs, and a significant minority would read and write emails directly in the browser.

It’s clear that your clients are very diverse, so it wouldn’t make sense for you to remove Outlook, as it would result in a loss of revenue. However, when it comes to startups or small businesses, like in my case, an approach like MX Route + Thunderbird is both more cost-effective and less plagued by bugs.

 

[manni]

Hello Gary, so may i ask you from where you are? Here in the CET area ALL our customers use Outlook. We have NOT one Single Customer - and we have 1500+ - that use something different. Private people sometimes use Thunderbird but Not one Single Business Customer. Maybe because of the Region?

 

[Polli]

For my part, I also see a problem in the pricing of Plesk. I have to pay for extensions that include OpenSource software such as ClamAV or CalDAV and CardDAV. Just to name a few examples, not to mention other things. The monthly costs for the basic version (I use WebPro) are still acceptable and fine and I am willing to pay them. I have been using Plesk for many years now. But the fact that they are reaching into my pocket again for OpenSource is a bit brazen. In addition, standards have often been integrated into Plesk late, such as DANE. Which still does not work correctly. Protocols are missing here and the configuration of the server for the use of DANE is not yet well implemented. There is still a lot of work to be done by the developers. In particular, the ever-changing conditions of the mail providers are not implemented promptly by Plesk and repeatedly lead to mails not being delivered correctly. Here it is always necessary to intervene in Plesk myself or to configure it at OS level, which I don't really want, which is why I pay for an all-in-one solution. Most extensions are also simply far too expensive and should always be part of the overall package. Just my2cent.

 

[Gary W.]

Hello Gary, so may i ask you from where you are? Here in the CET area ALL our customers use Outlook. We have NOT one Single Customer - and we have 1500+ - that use something different. Private people sometimes use Thunderbird but Not one Single Business Customer. Maybe because of the Region?

The examples I was giving you were in the same area as yours, a tech company (maybe that's why the discrepancies). I notice that the more tech-savvy the audience becomes, the less they are willing to pay for solutions that can be found elsewhere at a lower cost.

For my part, I also see a problem in the pricing of Plesk. I have to pay for extensions that include OpenSource software such as ClamAV or CalDAV and CardDAV. Just to name a few examples, not to mention other things. The monthly costs for the basic version (I use WebPro) are still acceptable and fine and I am willing to pay them. I have been using Plesk for many years now. But the fact that they are reaching into my pocket again for OpenSource is a bit brazen. In addition, standards have often been integrated into Plesk late, such as DANE. Which still does not work correctly. Protocols are missing here and the configuration of the server for the use of DANE is not yet well implemented. There is still a lot of work to be done by the developers. In particular, the ever-changing conditions of the mail providers are not implemented promptly by Plesk and repeatedly lead to mails not being delivered correctly. Here it is always necessary to intervene in Plesk myself or to configure it at OS level, which I don't really want, which is why I pay for an all-in-one solution. Most extensions are also simply far too expensive and should always be part of the overall package. Just my2cent.

Those monthly microtransactions for add-ons, even at €0.99 per month, which seem like small change, are the real downfall of Plesk. The current ecosystem is designed to squeeze as much money as possible out of a product that was solid even 10 years ago but has now become unnecessarily complex.

For instance, I would have been fine with a $5/month subscription for 30 sites, using the version from 10 years ago with updated PHP versions and a few tweaks. Instead, we now pay dozens of dollars a month for essentially the same tool as before, just with a better-packaged interface.

 

[daanse]

(I will also switch a bunch of "WebHost" Servers. This is so annoying! Resellers can't believe the Price Increase and I always have to make sure that they know, it's not my fault. Really annoying ....)

 

[manni]

We have cancelled appx. 45 licenses in the last days. Was a joint decision with other Partners and customers as well. 20 more to follow upcoming week. All 3rd Party licenses have been cancelled as well.

Not only because of pricing, primarily because of the Communication way. Sad, es we use Plesk since Version 7.

 

[HHawk]

We have cancelled appx. 45 licenses in the last days. Was a joint decision with other Partners and customers as well. 20 more to follow upcoming week. All 3rd Party licenses have been cancelled as well.

Not only because of pricing, primarily because of the Communication way. Sad, es we use Plesk since Version 7.

Plesk is EOL

 

[Polli]

We have cancelled appx. 45 licenses in the last days. Was a joint decision with other Partners and customers as well. 20 more to follow upcoming week. All 3rd Party licenses have been cancelled as well.

Not only because of pricing, primarily because of the Communication way. Sad, es we use Plesk since Version 7.

Yepp. Another point that I have not yet addressed. The support is unfortunately poor. My requests are often not understood and/or the answers do not match my question in the forum. I do not have a direct license from Plesk but through my server provider. If I have a problem, I have to talk to the support of my server provider instead of the manufacturer, as I am often told to write a ticket in the forum. This then costs me additional money. I hardly have any understanding for that. Plesk support is in urgent need of improvement.

 

[manni]

Yeah same here - we also have to go through Partners for Support. We will not change to any other Control Panel, we will go back to good old bash scripts for 80% of the configuration tasks. Just got the Information from my colleagues that another 30 Plesk Servers are schedulded to be cancelled until end of February / Early March.

 

[Bitpalast]

Yepp. Another point that I have not yet addressed. The support is unfortunately poor. My requests are often not understood and/or the answers do not match my question in the forum. I do not have a direct license from Plesk but through my server provider. If I have a problem, I have to talk to the support of my server provider instead of the manufacturer, as I am often told to write a ticket in the forum. This then costs me additional money. I hardly have any understanding for that. Plesk support is in urgent need of improvement.

Actually, Plesk support is THE perfect support, the best you can get. Your issue is not Plesk support. Your issue is that you do NOT have Plesk support, but are going through your service provider. And obviously their support is poor. Instead, try Plesk support directly. Use the 30 days free trial for it. It'll be a whole new quality experience, because they really know how to deliver support.

 

[LTUser]

..... Your issue is that you do NOT have Plesk support, but are going through your service provider.

And obviously their support is poor. Instead, try Plesk support directly. Use the 30 days free trial for it. It'll be a whole new quality experience, because they really know how to deliver support.

But that sounds like a defensive claim, because how are new customers in particular supposed to know that Plesk sells its products to resellers who do not (want to) offer any meaningful support for them? (~Hetzner)

Then there are customers like us who have not needed support for years, but still have to pay higher prices?
Or customers who would like to have new features in basic functions, but are constantly ignored.

As an example, I will mention Apache2, for which you first have to use additional resources like nginx to get HTTP2 or PHP optimization, but you don't want to use them at all because of the overhead. (...)

For customers like me, the product has not improved for years, but has only changed unnecessarily, yet the price is constantly increasing.

 

[HHawk]

Funny thing to note is that "Bitpalast" used to work for Plesk, didn't you Peter (Peter Debik). ;-)

 

[Polli]

Actually, Plesk support is THE perfect support, the best you can get. Your issue is not Plesk support. Your issue is that you do NOT have Plesk support, but are going through your service provider. And obviously their support is poor. Instead, try Plesk support directly. Use the 30 days free trial for it. It'll be a whole new quality experience, because they really know how to deliver support.

I find this statement a little arrogant. This is a slap in the face for all hosters who offer Plesk. They also suffer from the bad support of Plesk. This is probably how this statement should be interpreted. Then it can only be in the interest of Plesk to improve the “bad” support of the hosters. Otherwise this is just a scam to make extra money. Unbelievable.
And why should I pay extra for support even though I already pay for the product. Perhaps Plesk should start to fundamentally rethink its pricing policy and support model. It is simply not a good business model to make customers pay for everything. Especially since the product is already way too expensive. Apart from the fact that some functions are still not properly integrated and constantly cause problems. If no improvements are made here, I will probably have to turn my back on Plesk after more than 10 years of using it.

 

[HHawk]

I find this statement a little arrogant. This is a slap in the face for all hosters who offer Plesk. They also suffer from the bad support of Plesk. This is probably how this statement should be interpreted. Then it can only be in the interest of Plesk to improve the “bad” support of the hosters. Otherwise this is just a scam to make extra money. Unbelievable.
And why should I pay extra for support even though I already pay for the product. Perhaps Plesk should start to fundamentally rethink its pricing policy and support model. It is simply not a good business model to make customers pay for everything. Especially since the product is already way too expensive. Apart from the fact that some functions are still not properly integrated and constantly cause problems. If no improvements are made here, I will probably have to turn my back on Plesk after more than 10 years of using it.

I completely agree with you, Polli! Just with a bit more nuance…

Plesk support has seriously deteriorated over the years, despite their absurd price hikes. In the past, support tickets were handled much faster, original requests were carefully read, and real effort was made to solve issues.

Nowadays, that’s simply no longer the case (unless you respond furious in the ticket). Instead, you receive generic, canned responses that repeat information you already provided, or half of what you submitted is completely ignored. Then, you’re handed some half-baked solution, and the ticket is conveniently marked as "Solved"—even when it clearly isn’t. And let’s not forget the frequent "not our problem" response, where Plesk happily redirects you to Postfix, Dovecot, or whatever service is involved, washing their hands of any responsibility.

That never used to happen. So now, you pay 10 times more for Plesk while receiving 10 times worse support. In that regard, Polli is absolutely right!

Peter Debik—now under Bitpalast—is clearly afraid that his revenue stream from Plesk will dry up if users and companies (like Hetzner) start boycotting Plesk or seeking alternatives. And honestly? Who could blame them?