After cPanel switched from a per-server to a per-account license model, the web hosting industry needed some time to recover from the shock and find the strength to move on.

Faced with the huge per-account-based price increase from cPanel, we had to evaluate our business models to cope with the revised pricing of cPanel too.

For that reason, we were forced to pause the cPanel upgrade options for VPS and dedicated server setups until a solution is found.

Today, we are ready to announce our new cPanel tier pricing scheme that will allow us to make a smooth transition to the new licensing model and minimise inconvenience to our existing customers.

cPanel price change – a quick look back

It’s been almost a year since the radical change to the cPanel license model initiated by Oakley Capital took place.

It was a shocking move that caused a serious turmoil in the web hosting industry.

The new, much more costly, per-account billing scheme forced many small- and mid-sized providers to either go out of business or take the risk of passing the new, much higher fees onto their customers.

The new reality, however, was a good opportunity for the web hosting industry to re-assess its dependence on monopolies and allow for alternative solutions to shine through.

As a web hosting provider having our own, in-house built Control Panel solution for years, we always strive to offer our customers a choice.

For that reason, most of our reseller hosting partners were not affected by the cPanel crisis.

Just the opposite, they got a great chance to make the most of the situation by offering a proven alternative to the mainstream Control Panel solution and drive in new customers.

However, we also have a very strong community of cPanel reseller partners who we had to find the most balanced solution for, in light of the situation.

For that reason, we had to revise our plan portfolio for cPanel resellers and settle on plans that offer a reasonable balance between features and price.

Also, we introduced the new cPanel Nano package, which offers a great way for trying out cPanel reseller hosting at a reasonable cost.

Apart from our cPanel partners, however, we also had to think of all VPS and dedicated server users under the Free Reseller Program who use cPanel as a Control Panel choice.

Finding a solution for those required a great deal of investment in programming and server administration force so that a per-account cPanel license model could be applied on both managed and unmanaged servers.

Finally, after months of testing and debugging, we’ve managed to implement a new licensing account-tier structure for all cPanel-packed VPS and dedicated servers.

New cPanel licenses for Virtual Private Servers

The following is the pricing that is now in effect for all KVM and OpenVZ Virtual Private Servers:

New cPanel licenses for Dedicated Servers

This is the new pricing tier model for all dedicated servers:

cPanel license changes to existing customers

All existing VPS and dedicated server accounts have already been assigned the corresponding license based on the number of cPanel accounts on the user’s server.

All license tiers have hard account limits i.e. when a user hits the fixed number of cPanel accounts for their particular tier, they won’t be able to create more accounts unless they switch to a more account-packed license option.

All current recurring payments have been canceled. А user’s upcoming renewal payment will have to be carried out manually.

If a customer wants to reduce their monthly bill, they can try to cut down the number of accounts on their server.

Here are a few tips on how to do that:

Review account usage

Check if you have dormant accounts that are no longer in use and remove them, if you do. Don’t forget to make a backup first, in case you want to use the content in these accounts.

Use add-on domains

Instead of using new accounts for each domain on the server, domains can be moved as “add-on domains” to existing cPanel accounts. These add-on domains can still have a separate website and email accounts attached to them.

Keep in mind, however, that having a lot of add-on domains in a single cPanel account could pose a security risk.

If a website in the account by some chance becomes compromised, this could put all websites hosted in the account at risk.

NOTE: If a user optimises their account usage and wants to move to a tier with a lower number of accounts, they should contact our tech department by ticket to have their license downgraded.

Explore other control panel solutions

Working with cPanel as a mainstream solution may well be within your comfort zone.

However, there are other panels, which are on par, if not better, with cPanel in terms of features, security and reliability.

With each of our Virtual Private Servers, users could also get the Hepsia Control Panel or DirectAdmin for free.