Input Why I'm quitting Plesk after nearly a decade

[Gary W.]

The problem with SaaS licenses is that they are perpetual. You end up paying for the same service, slightly improved, for years without ever truly owning anything. I quickly calculated how much I’ve spent on Plesk licenses, and it’s an astronomical number that far exceeds my server expenses. This is a serious issue, which I imagine you are already noticing in your sales data.

I started with a Web Host subscription where I also hosted other clients' sites, then moved to Web Pro, managing less demanding projects with Webmin. Recently, I was about to downgrade to the Web Admin plan, hosting the 10 most demanding sites on Plesk and all the others elsewhere. However, I mustered a lot of patience and finally migrated the last few projects to Webmin and CloudPanel, implementing missing features directly on the server.

Over the years, Plesk has become a very comprehensive platform but also overwhelming and complex to manage. So, here are some suggestions:

• Improve the UI for managing sites and settings. It’s not normal that you have to navigate through layered sections just to enable previous PHP versions;
• Simplify the feature set, especially for managing Nginx and Apache;
• Stop selling extensions for as low as $0.99 per month. This business model is predatory. You get users hooked and then prevent them from accessing important features that should be included;
• Offer a very basic version, similar to CloudPanel, that is not limited by the number of sites. This would be useful for managing school and hobby projects with limited resources.

I know you're a large company that needs to make a profit. I respect that, and I am aware that if Plesk is such a good tool today, it's also thanks to this drive. However, by increasing the price every year, you will only push away loyal customers, the ones who have supported you for many years.

 

[HHawk]

The problem with SaaS licenses is that they are perpetual. You end up paying for the same service, slightly improved, for years without ever truly owning anything. I quickly calculated how much I’ve spent on Plesk licenses, and it’s an astronomical number that far exceeds my server expenses. This is a serious issue, which I imagine you are already noticing in your sales data.

I started with a Web Host subscription where I also hosted other clients' sites, then moved to Web Pro, managing less demanding projects with Webmin. Recently, I was about to downgrade to the Web Admin plan, hosting the 10 most demanding sites on Plesk and all the others elsewhere. However, I mustered a lot of patience and finally migrated the last few projects to Webmin and CloudPanel, implementing missing features directly on the server.

Over the years, Plesk has become a very comprehensive platform but also overwhelming and complex to manage. So, here are some suggestions:

• Improve the UI for managing sites and settings. It’s not normal that you have to navigate through layered sections just to enable previous PHP versions;
• Simplify the feature set, especially for managing Nginx and Apache;
• Stop selling extensions for as low as $0.99 per month. This business model is predatory. You get users hooked and then prevent them from accessing important features that should be included;
• Offer a very basic version, similar to CloudPanel, that is not limited by the number of sites. This would be useful for managing school and hobby projects with limited resources.

I know you're a large company that needs to make a profit. I respect that, and I am aware that if Plesk is such a good tool today, it's also thanks to this drive. However, by increasing the price every year, you will only push away loyal customers, the ones who have supported you for many years.

Gary, you summed it up perfectly. Every single point you raised is exactly what we—and many others—have been saying for years. The SaaS model ensures you keep paying endlessly for what is essentially the same product, with only minor tweaks, while the pricing spirals out of control.

Your experience is all too familiar: starting with Plesk Web Host Edition, then downgrading step by step, only to eventually migrate everything away because the costs became outrageous. The numbers don’t lie—Plesk is now more expensive than the actual hardware it runs on. And yet, they act as if this is a perfectly reasonable business strategy.

We saw the same trend among our customers. When Plesk dropped their latest 40% price increase on Web Host Edition, it became impossible to justify. Many clients assumed we were inflating the costs ourselves and even contacted Plesk directly to complain. Amusingly enough, they received the exact same dismissive responses we did. At least that confirmed we weren’t the problem.

So, what did we do? We migrated as many customers as possible to other platforms. And the result? We’ve canceled 80% of our Plesk licenses in just a few months. Not that Plesk will lose any sleep over it—for now. But when another 25-40% vanish in January 2026, someone, somewhere in the corporate chain might finally start asking questions.

But hey, I’ll let the screenshot do the talking. Plesk can keep pretending all is fine, but when longtime customers are running for the exits, maybe—just maybe—there’s a problem worth addressing.

 

[Gary W.]

Gary, you summed it up perfectly. Every single point you raised is exactly what we—and many others—have been saying for years. The SaaS model ensures you keep paying endlessly for what is essentially the same product, with only minor tweaks, while the pricing spirals out of control.

Your experience is all too familiar: starting with Plesk Web Host Edition, then downgrading step by step, only to eventually migrate everything away because the costs became outrageous. The numbers don’t lie—Plesk is now more expensive than the actual hardware it runs on. And yet, they act as if this is a perfectly reasonable business strategy.

We saw the same trend among our customers. When Plesk dropped their latest 40% price increase on Web Host Edition, it became impossible to justify. Many clients assumed we were inflating the costs ourselves and even contacted Plesk directly to complain. Amusingly enough, they received the exact same dismissive responses we did. At least that confirmed we weren’t the problem.

So, what did we do? We migrated as many customers as possible to other platforms. And the result? We’ve canceled 80% of our Plesk licenses in just a few months. Not that Plesk will lose any sleep over it—for now. But when another 25-40% vanish in January 2026, someone, somewhere in the corporate chain might finally start asking questions.

But hey, I’ll let the screenshot do the talking. Plesk can keep pretending all is fine, but when longtime customers are running for the exits, maybe—just maybe—there’s a problem worth addressing.

View attachment 27949

If I were the CFO of Plesk, the sight of this chart would be terrifying. I can only imagine the sheer amount of work you had to endure to migrate all those projects. From the perspective of a Plesk provider like you, their pricing strategy becomes even more incomprehensible. I mean, they lost a partner who was supplying almost 800 licenses? It’s pure madness from a business standpoint.

I’m glad you can finally consider yourselves free from Plesk.

 

[manni]

May I ask you - sorry if i overread it - what your Target Solution will be ?