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Input Enormous price increases yet again for 2025
- Thread starter Tim_Wakeling
- Start date
HHawk
Regular Pleskian
@J.Wick though that might be true, Plesk pricing increased 7 or 8 years ago already substatianlly, I think I created a post about it back then as well as we had price increase of 2400% back then. Might be even a year before that though. Anyways, back on topic, the price increases happened before AI becoming so promoted. But still, what you say, can still be true. And therefor Plesk is increasing their prices every year from here on.
GeoCities... Good old time. I think I created my first "website" back then. I used it for several websites, however stopped using it because of more and more advertisment banners. Anyways, that is quite some time ago.
//edit
Looked GeoCities up:
GeoCities websites existed from 1994 to 2009, with the service being shut down by Yahoo!. It was a popular web hosting service from the mid-1990s to the late 2000s that allowed users to create their own free webpages, capturing the aesthetic of the 1990s internet with its unique graphics and style.
1994.... Wow.
@Bitpalast
I fully agree with
but I would like to hint - with all due respect - that the other parts of your post are related to something that we should not give into : polarization.
This whole topic thread has become - more and more - a battle between two camps that cannot convince each other, with polarization as the endresult.
This endresult is not desirable, not at all.
Plesk pricing is highly related to (opportunistic and irrational) investor behavior - what is not, nowadays?
Plesk Team is not related at all to investment firms or management of investment firms - Plesk Team should not get the full load of disgruntlement.
Plesk users cannot solve the issue by switching back and forth to alternatives - the same issues will occur when using the alternatives.
Plesk users can only solve part of the problem by making distinctions between the various issues and the root causes of those issues - this is not happening!
Plesk users can only solve part of the problem by being unified - this certainly is not happening ........... to my regret.
In my humble opinion, this is "game theory" where parties are working towards a Nash equilibrium that is suboptimal for all parties involved.
Kind regards.....
I fully agree with
but I would like to hint - with all due respect - that the other parts of your post are related to something that we should not give into : polarization.
This whole topic thread has become - more and more - a battle between two camps that cannot convince each other, with polarization as the endresult.
This endresult is not desirable, not at all.
Plesk pricing is highly related to (opportunistic and irrational) investor behavior - what is not, nowadays?
Plesk Team is not related at all to investment firms or management of investment firms - Plesk Team should not get the full load of disgruntlement.
Plesk users cannot solve the issue by switching back and forth to alternatives - the same issues will occur when using the alternatives.
Plesk users can only solve part of the problem by making distinctions between the various issues and the root causes of those issues - this is not happening!
Plesk users can only solve part of the problem by being unified - this certainly is not happening ........... to my regret.
In my humble opinion, this is "game theory" where parties are working towards a Nash equilibrium that is suboptimal for all parties involved.
Kind regards.....
HHawk
Regular Pleskian
Sigh...
I am not saying Plesk panel is a bad product, let me be clear on that. Though Plesk is becoming filled with extra stuff/gimmicks which are hardly or even not used at all, at least by our (server) customers. I think the big majority of our Plesk (server) customers, between 75% and 80% only use Wordpress Toolkit and setting up hosting packages and accounts. They do no install or use extensions or use other stuff (GIT, Laraval, Docker, etc). Let alone Plesk shared hosting customers.
We get on regular base customers who ask how they do login on their Plesk interface, though they have been years a customer with us. Heck, the most of them do not even update e.g. their Wordpress installation. In other words; they do not even use the interface at all. The only one who are using it, to make (simple) changes, are we. I think Plesk should go back to the more basics and perhaps provide more different versions at better pricing, that would solve the case. Or provide paid support contracts with more affordable licenses. And not I am not asking for cheaper licenses, but more affordable as in more fair prices. The current pricing is simply to excessive and mark my words, more and more customers (at least server owners) will ditch Plesk and look for alternative solutions.
Free solutions? Mweh. I cannot recommend that, though perhaps we should provide it to server customers who really want it, but inform them about the risk and no free support (from our side) for those hosting interface or control panels. However at this moment (paid) alternatives like Webuzo, DirectAdmin, ISPmanager do the same or similar thing as Plesk, faster and more affordable. So, again, I am not ranting about Plesk, though the pricing behind it. Don't you think I contacted WebPros or the investment group(s) behind it in the past? I did and even many, many times. They do not care, THEY DO NOT CARE!
In the past, when Plesk was a real company of their own and nobody was pulling the strings, Plesk actually listened to their customers/partners. Those days are long gone. Plesk is only busy with providing new things and (imho) gimmicks (not necessarily innovations as mentioned for the price increases). Also, though we hardly use Plesk support anymore nowadays (just checked; only 8 times this year and mainly because of, reported, bugs in the interface/migration/Plesk itself); support is considerably slower than it was a few years back. I can only assume that WebPros is also ditching/cutting down on (support) staff. Another "innovation" perhaps for the price hikes? Doubt it.
So Plesk on itself, as a control panel, is nothing wrong with (perhaps less gimmicks and more real improvements instead) it does what it do. And I really adore the Plesk repair functions, the Plesk Migration Tool (if the migrations are handled correctly e.g. correct PHP-handler), multiple PHP-versions (when e.g. DirectAdmin was limited to only 4 versions; not anymore though) and so on. So Plesk itself is not a bad product! The issue is WebPros or CVC Fund VII (or Oakley Capital whatever) are completely ruining the "Plesk"-experience which we had. Plesk used to be an excellent product, as hosting interface for customers and server owners at a decent price, however this clearly shifted in the past few years. And becoming an (too) expensive product for the majority of Plesk server owners.
The excessive pricing strategy is not only killing our Plesk server customer base, but also turning new (possible) Plesk server customers away. And that is not a strange as a simple virtual server itself costs about 1/3 of the cheapest Plesk license (Web Admin Edition). Customers who are looking for an affordable server nowadays, at least with us, tend to look to other options we have to offer. And I can't blame them. We used to be proud to be a Plesk Platinum Partner back in the day (when it really meant something and when Plesk actually listened to the input of their Plesk Partners) and we sold a lot, really a lot of servers with a Plesk license. Things started to shift lightly when Plesk came up with new licenses e.g. Web Pro Edition (30 domains/accounts) and ditching the 100 domain licenses. That was the beginning, however that was not the main problem. The biggest problem came 1 or 2 years after that when they started to increase their pricing substantially (and every year after that). The current pricing scheme is not maintanable, as it is starting to become unhealthy (or is already given the amount of cancellations).
Yes the hosting business is harsh and is nowhere the same as several years ago and yes, things change. And yes (again) everything is becoming more expensive. I understand that, but the current pricing and the yearly increase and the reasons advertised behind it are absurd in my opinion. But apprently I am the only who is tired and frustrated by these price increases. The rest are probably happy with it as it seems (and that was what I meant with my previous remark, where a few were annoyed about) or simply do not care. Ah well. As I mentioned, now several times, Plesk is not a bad product in general, the pricing is bad/unhealthy. Will there be done something about this? No. Time (and WebPros) has proven that already.
Sidenote; we used to sell (way, way) more Plesk servers than any other interface, but for us it cleearly shifted now towards DirectAdmin and our own solution. Also we started to investigate the alternatives and test them. We will "always" (never say always) be a Plesk hosting provider, but probably only for shared hosting, but not that much anymore for Plesk server customers.
So hopefully this will clear the air and my intentions for some of you. And once again; Plesk, as an interface/hosting control panel, is not a bad product by itself, it's not offering the value of the prices hikes over the years imho. That's my humble opinion.
Have a nice day all.
I am not saying Plesk panel is a bad product, let me be clear on that. Though Plesk is becoming filled with extra stuff/gimmicks which are hardly or even not used at all, at least by our (server) customers. I think the big majority of our Plesk (server) customers, between 75% and 80% only use Wordpress Toolkit and setting up hosting packages and accounts. They do no install or use extensions or use other stuff (GIT, Laraval, Docker, etc). Let alone Plesk shared hosting customers.
We get on regular base customers who ask how they do login on their Plesk interface, though they have been years a customer with us. Heck, the most of them do not even update e.g. their Wordpress installation. In other words; they do not even use the interface at all. The only one who are using it, to make (simple) changes, are we. I think Plesk should go back to the more basics and perhaps provide more different versions at better pricing, that would solve the case. Or provide paid support contracts with more affordable licenses. And not I am not asking for cheaper licenses, but more affordable as in more fair prices. The current pricing is simply to excessive and mark my words, more and more customers (at least server owners) will ditch Plesk and look for alternative solutions.
Free solutions? Mweh. I cannot recommend that, though perhaps we should provide it to server customers who really want it, but inform them about the risk and no free support (from our side) for those hosting interface or control panels. However at this moment (paid) alternatives like Webuzo, DirectAdmin, ISPmanager do the same or similar thing as Plesk, faster and more affordable. So, again, I am not ranting about Plesk, though the pricing behind it. Don't you think I contacted WebPros or the investment group(s) behind it in the past? I did and even many, many times. They do not care, THEY DO NOT CARE!
In the past, when Plesk was a real company of their own and nobody was pulling the strings, Plesk actually listened to their customers/partners. Those days are long gone. Plesk is only busy with providing new things and (imho) gimmicks (not necessarily innovations as mentioned for the price increases). Also, though we hardly use Plesk support anymore nowadays (just checked; only 8 times this year and mainly because of, reported, bugs in the interface/migration/Plesk itself); support is considerably slower than it was a few years back. I can only assume that WebPros is also ditching/cutting down on (support) staff. Another "innovation" perhaps for the price hikes? Doubt it.
So Plesk on itself, as a control panel, is nothing wrong with (perhaps less gimmicks and more real improvements instead) it does what it do. And I really adore the Plesk repair functions, the Plesk Migration Tool (if the migrations are handled correctly e.g. correct PHP-handler), multiple PHP-versions (when e.g. DirectAdmin was limited to only 4 versions; not anymore though) and so on. So Plesk itself is not a bad product! The issue is WebPros or CVC Fund VII (or Oakley Capital whatever) are completely ruining the "Plesk"-experience which we had. Plesk used to be an excellent product, as hosting interface for customers and server owners at a decent price, however this clearly shifted in the past few years. And becoming an (too) expensive product for the majority of Plesk server owners.
The excessive pricing strategy is not only killing our Plesk server customer base, but also turning new (possible) Plesk server customers away. And that is not a strange as a simple virtual server itself costs about 1/3 of the cheapest Plesk license (Web Admin Edition). Customers who are looking for an affordable server nowadays, at least with us, tend to look to other options we have to offer. And I can't blame them. We used to be proud to be a Plesk Platinum Partner back in the day (when it really meant something and when Plesk actually listened to the input of their Plesk Partners) and we sold a lot, really a lot of servers with a Plesk license. Things started to shift lightly when Plesk came up with new licenses e.g. Web Pro Edition (30 domains/accounts) and ditching the 100 domain licenses. That was the beginning, however that was not the main problem. The biggest problem came 1 or 2 years after that when they started to increase their pricing substantially (and every year after that). The current pricing scheme is not maintanable, as it is starting to become unhealthy (or is already given the amount of cancellations).
Yes the hosting business is harsh and is nowhere the same as several years ago and yes, things change. And yes (again) everything is becoming more expensive. I understand that, but the current pricing and the yearly increase and the reasons advertised behind it are absurd in my opinion. But apprently I am the only who is tired and frustrated by these price increases. The rest are probably happy with it as it seems (and that was what I meant with my previous remark, where a few were annoyed about) or simply do not care. Ah well. As I mentioned, now several times, Plesk is not a bad product in general, the pricing is bad/unhealthy. Will there be done something about this? No. Time (and WebPros) has proven that already.
Sidenote; we used to sell (way, way) more Plesk servers than any other interface, but for us it cleearly shifted now towards DirectAdmin and our own solution. Also we started to investigate the alternatives and test them. We will "always" (never say always) be a Plesk hosting provider, but probably only for shared hosting, but not that much anymore for Plesk server customers.
So hopefully this will clear the air and my intentions for some of you. And once again; Plesk, as an interface/hosting control panel, is not a bad product by itself, it's not offering the value of the prices hikes over the years imho. That's my humble opinion.
Have a nice day all.
Obsession with this topic? Oh come on, that's disguised condescension. Let me provide you something for an X amount of money and then increase my price toward you every year, and when you complain, I will response with: why the obsession? Ok right?
Azurel
Silver Pleskian
I'm not happy with the current situation either, but I don’t think discussing it here on the forum will really change anything. What I’m really missing is a Lite plan for private users who run their own root server with own small projects. Something that only includes a single admin login to the GUI (without logins for subscriptions), with more than only 30-domains. A single project of mine have over 20 domains. This limit is shite.
That said, Plesk is still a very well-designed system. I like it. However, what really made me start questioning whether I should switch was this topic: Important: Imunify Auto Installation and Possible Data Leak
That whole situation was outrageous, even if it was a mistake, it’s something that should never happen. And the way Plesk downplayed it afterwards really damaged my trust. If private files are being sent to third parties without explicit consent, I can’t feel confident that my data is secure with plesk anymore.
The price increase isn’t great, but in the end, it’s up to them to decide whether that’s sustainable or if other providers will take the opportunity to step in. What I really don’t get, though, is why DirectAdmin keeps being recommended. It’s actually more expensive and feels like a trip back to the 2000s – definitely not what I’d call modern GUI.
Plesk with Hetzner (exists customers before drop plesk) is 13,80 € with DirectAdmin would it be for me 15 €.
It depends very much on who is buying and how many licenses. For private individuals, I think Plesk is the better choice, especially in terms of the user interface and the options available.
That said, Plesk is still a very well-designed system. I like it. However, what really made me start questioning whether I should switch was this topic: Important: Imunify Auto Installation and Possible Data Leak
That whole situation was outrageous, even if it was a mistake, it’s something that should never happen. And the way Plesk downplayed it afterwards really damaged my trust. If private files are being sent to third parties without explicit consent, I can’t feel confident that my data is secure with plesk anymore.
The price increase isn’t great, but in the end, it’s up to them to decide whether that’s sustainable or if other providers will take the opportunity to step in. What I really don’t get, though, is why DirectAdmin keeps being recommended. It’s actually more expensive and feels like a trip back to the 2000s – definitely not what I’d call modern GUI.
Plesk with Hetzner (exists customers before drop plesk) is 13,80 € with DirectAdmin would it be for me 15 €.
It depends very much on who is buying and how many licenses. For private individuals, I think Plesk is the better choice, especially in terms of the user interface and the options available.
The fact is, I won't waste time complaining or predicting the downfall of your product for years; I'll simply find an alternative and stop using that doesn't meet my expectations.
Oh, Mister Superior.
The fact is, you won't complain, but at the same time, you judge and label people who complain "obsessed" because they find themselves in a different position than you.
How nice. Touche Igor.
This place became condescending, and since the Plesk/immunify data upload fiasco, I had my doubts, but in reality, this is all going absurd for some quite time.
HHawk
Regular Pleskian
I'm not happy with the current situation either, but I don’t think discussing it here on the forum will really change anything. What I’m really missing is a Lite plan for private users who run their own root server with own small projects. Something that only includes a single admin login to the GUI (without logins for subscriptions), with more than only 30-domains. A single project of mine have over 20 domains. This limit is shite.
That said, Plesk is still a very well-designed system. I like it. However, what really made me start questioning whether I should switch was this topic: Important: Imunify Auto Installation and Possible Data Leak
That whole situation was outrageous, even if it was a mistake, it’s something that should never happen. And the way Plesk downplayed it afterwards really damaged my trust. If private files are being sent to third parties without explicit consent, I can’t feel confident that my data is secure with plesk anymore.
The price increase isn’t great, but in the end, it’s up to them to decide whether that’s sustainable or if other providers will take the opportunity to step in. What I really don’t get, though, is why DirectAdmin keeps being recommended. It’s actually more expensive and feels like a trip back to the 2000s – definitely not what I’d call modern GUI.
Plesk with Hetzner (exists customers before drop plesk) is 13,80 € with DirectAdmin would it be for me 15 €.
It depends very much on who is buying and how many licenses. For private individuals, I think Plesk is the better choice, especially in terms of the user interface and the options available.
@Azurel thank you for pointing to that post about the Plesk/Imunify (CloudLinux) Possible Data Leak. It indeed seems to be in violation of EU GPDR, as it seems... That's not good.
Okay, maybe DirectAdmin is expensive for you, but with sufficient licenses, as we have, it really is more affordable than Plesk. Especially for unlimited domains; that's a real no-brainer.
But you state it's and I quote "feels like a trip back to the 2000s", I doubt you know how DirectAdmin nowdays look though. There are even demos online and sure, in the past DA was really ugly, but with the updated Evolution skin it's pretty nice. And it's fast. Even with 100+ domains on it. Only downside is, is that I still have to search for certain, while in Plesk I know where to find them easily. Also DA compiles everything, where Plesk uses standard packages. Compiling takes some time. Especially during server setup. Oh well, no interface is perfect. And it will never be perfect.
That is factually incorrect. You are referring to the Plesk plan on Hetzner that was dropped three years ago and no longer exists. No one can access it except for users who have it and are active. So, an edge case that is not even available commercially anymore.The price increase isn’t great, but in the end, it’s up to them to decide whether that’s sustainable or if other providers will take the opportunity to step in. What I really don’t get, though, is why DirectAdmin keeps being recommended. It’s actually more expensive and feels like a trip back to the 2000s – definitely not what I’d call modern GUI.
Plesk with Hetzner (exists customers before drop plesk) is 13,80 € with DirectAdmin would it be for me 15 €.
It depends very much on who is buying and how many licenses. For private individuals, I think Plesk is the better choice, especially in terms of the user interface and the options available.
Regardless of that and regardless of the features and how you experience them between Plesk and other interfaces, DirectAdmin's price is cheaper than Plesk by every metric. Look at Plesk's prices, look at the domain limits, look at Directadmin and then come here and claim that Directadmin is more expensive.
Don't mislead people.
Thanks.
Hangover2
Regular Pleskian
I think this topic is so emotionally charged because it’s the small and mid-sized companies who chose Plesk as a hosting partner that are now being forced to swallow all these greedy price hikes from the usual “locust” private-equity types.
All the hosts where I rent servers or manage packages for clients generally don’t raise prices—at most they bump domain fees when a registry goes off the rails and arbitrarily jacks prices to maximize profit. Usually, hosting prices stay stable and you gradually get more performance for the same money as new tech comes to market.
The hosting business needs stability—especially on pricing. We simply can’t pass on hefty annual price increases to our customers, or they’ll stop being our customers. Since we typically run small servers and don’t have massive volume, we can’t scale our way out of it either. Sure, we could switch to another panel, but customers don’t like being forced to relearn things. Small hosts like us also end up having to do that migration for free, because our customers will say: “Why did you put us on Plesk in the first place if we now have to pay more every year? Choose your partners more carefully!” The support burden and cleanup work from such a switch is enormous—but what choice do we have? Either we leave everything as is and make nothing on hosting (even cross-subsidizing it)—in which case the only winner is, as always, the locust—or we invest even more resources to migrate customers to a new solution that (at least right now) can’t match Plesk. And the locust knows this perfectly well.
If you’re active in the community—helping others, filing bug reports, pushing the Plesk ecosystem for years—and the “thank you” is getting squeezed like a lemon, well, I can see why people end up with ulcers. Plesk is inflicting massive financial damage on its partners simply because it can. In my view, that’s just antisocial.
In my opinion, Plesk and cPanel should never have been brought under the same roof. Unfortunately, the model “works” because antitrust law often doesn’t catch many small but strategically important firms. And now we’re living with the result.
Many small hosts like us would love to keep using Plesk, but the pricing policy makes it impossible to remain partners. The employees at Plesk aren’t to blame for this. I suspect many of them are frustrated too, watching years of their work get undermined—knowing they could be doing more for partners at a better price—and realizing that all that effort ends up benefiting the locust, while customer trust is gone for good.
All the hosts where I rent servers or manage packages for clients generally don’t raise prices—at most they bump domain fees when a registry goes off the rails and arbitrarily jacks prices to maximize profit. Usually, hosting prices stay stable and you gradually get more performance for the same money as new tech comes to market.
The hosting business needs stability—especially on pricing. We simply can’t pass on hefty annual price increases to our customers, or they’ll stop being our customers. Since we typically run small servers and don’t have massive volume, we can’t scale our way out of it either. Sure, we could switch to another panel, but customers don’t like being forced to relearn things. Small hosts like us also end up having to do that migration for free, because our customers will say: “Why did you put us on Plesk in the first place if we now have to pay more every year? Choose your partners more carefully!” The support burden and cleanup work from such a switch is enormous—but what choice do we have? Either we leave everything as is and make nothing on hosting (even cross-subsidizing it)—in which case the only winner is, as always, the locust—or we invest even more resources to migrate customers to a new solution that (at least right now) can’t match Plesk. And the locust knows this perfectly well.
If you’re active in the community—helping others, filing bug reports, pushing the Plesk ecosystem for years—and the “thank you” is getting squeezed like a lemon, well, I can see why people end up with ulcers. Plesk is inflicting massive financial damage on its partners simply because it can. In my view, that’s just antisocial.
In my opinion, Plesk and cPanel should never have been brought under the same roof. Unfortunately, the model “works” because antitrust law often doesn’t catch many small but strategically important firms. And now we’re living with the result.
Many small hosts like us would love to keep using Plesk, but the pricing policy makes it impossible to remain partners. The employees at Plesk aren’t to blame for this. I suspect many of them are frustrated too, watching years of their work get undermined—knowing they could be doing more for partners at a better price—and realizing that all that effort ends up benefiting the locust, while customer trust is gone for good.