BryanG Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 IPS is getting to be too expensive. My site went offline for a while, so I did not reactivate my license. When I did, it cost me $95 to reactivate it. Then a few weeks later my CC get hit with a $110 charge for my "6 month upkeep". But I just renewed it! Then I just went to change the URL of my license and was told it would be a $15.00 CHARGE to do that?? So far it has cost me over $220 just to get my site back up and running. On top of that, it would cost me $220/year to upkeep it. It's getting to the point that I can no longer afford to use IPS anymore. :no: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Management Lindy Posted February 5, 2014 Management Share Posted February 5, 2014 Bryan, I don't mind admitting when there's room for improvement. I do share your concern and frustration with this instance. Renewals are tricky with our current structure and direction we're heading with 4.0 (a true suite approach.) Everyone starts with the core -- you then add applications (IP.Board, IP.Nexus, IP.Gallery, etc.) -- with each application, your core renewal price changes to allow for single, simplified billing. Your renewal date is also dictated by the core/parent package. If you already have even one active product that keeps the "core" alive, any reactivations do not update your renewal date - you're simply bringing that product back into the suite. We would love to be able to pro-rate based on your license expiration, however, there's no fair way to handle this. One could maintain the cheapest application, then reactivate all the others a few days before the suite expires for pennies on the dollar. In most cases, this isn't a big issue; most recognize the value and maintain renewals. In this particular instance, you still had IP.Chat 50 active on your account and that's all you had. You activated all of your other products, but the parent was still set for a January expiration due to IP.Chat. I agree, this doesn't seem appropriate and as such, I've credited your $95 payment in December to your account. We are actually in the process of reviewing our licensing structure to avoid confusion and issues such as this. There are many ideas on the table, including the possibility of selling software bundles that keeps everything nice and tidy for everyone. As for the URL change -- you are permitted one change per license renewal period. Please feel free to contact us if something went wrong with that process. I'm sorry for your frustration on this and appreciate the opportunity to correct the matter, hopefully to your satisfaction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmacleo Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 fwiw I needed to change it once and fee popped up, before paying I sent ticket as it was within the one per renewal time or really close and they just fixed it for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtech Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 To be honest, i also think ipb is getting more and more expensive till the point i'm just out. I fully agree with BrianG. I have bought a full IPS suite in september + copyright removal. Big money. If i have bought it today, i would have spent a lot more. Huge money. The copyright removal fee, for example, was up almost 100% from $275 to $500, in six months! The full IPS suite is much more expensive now, also. Yes, quality software is paid, i understand. But such a price increase is enormous. You have the right to ask whatever money you wish, but consumers have their right to buy it or not. I am not satisfied with support, also. In 4 tickets, only one i consider was "satisfatorily answered". so no i am almost sure i won't renew my licence, nor consider IPB for any other project in the short/medium term. I am thinking to start other projects, but almost surely i won't chose IPB due to recent huge price increase. I'm sorry, but i feel IPB has become too expensive for me, and i had not have a positive opinion of support. Just my opinion, though. I hope people with different opinions to respect mine, also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tripp★ Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Seriously that went up?! I was considering on getting the copyright removal on my next renewal but I think I'll pass now. I didn't see a warning or anything posted up about it though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Management Lindy Posted February 5, 2014 Management Share Posted February 5, 2014 To be honest, i also think ipb is getting more and more expensive till the point i'm just out. I fully agree with BrianG. I have bought a full IPS suite in september + copyright removal. Big money. If i have bought it today, i would have spent a lot more. Huge money. The copyright removal fee, for example, was up almost 100% from $275 to $500, in six months! The full IPS suite is much more expensive now, also. Yes, quality software is paid, i understand. But such a price increase is enormous. You have the right to ask whatever money you wish, but consumers have their right to buy it or not. I am not satisfied with support, also. In 4 tickets, only one i consider was "satisfatorily answered". so no i am almost sure i won't renew my licence, nor consider IPB for any other project in the short/medium term. I am thinking to start other projects, but almost surely i won't chose IPB due to recent huge price increase. I'm sorry, but i feel IPB has become too expensive for me, and i had not have a positive opinion of support. Just my opinion, though. I hope people with different opinions to respect mine, also. Thanks for the feedback. We take price increases quite seriously and they are never made without careful consideration. The fact of the matter is, we are an ever-evolving company that prides ourselves on continually investing back into the company and our people. Naturally, we cannot meet today's demand and ever changing needs with 2008 pricing. Our goal is to make our products and services available to as many as possible, but we are not the cheapest community provider out there nor do we aim to be. Likewise, we are not the most the expensive, but I feel we are certainly among the best. I may have a slight bias. :) Our brand is important to our growth. The copyright in the footer is something we factor into our base license pricing. We've determined the value of removal to be $500 and to be frank, it's not intended to be particularly affordable to those who do not have an absolute need to remove it. It of course does not impact use of the software or otherwise hinder your experience. In fact, many prefer to let their end-user know that they've gone the extra mile to provide their community with world class, industry leading software. In regards to support, I've reviewed your ticket history and am sorry that we were unable to assist with your Windows server locale issues. I wish we had the ability to support all possible server configurations that come our way, but unfortunately, we simply cannot. I'm sorry for your frustration on that issue. It does seem, based on your other requests that you've been happy with our support otherwise, but if that is not the case, please feel free to e-mail me or ask that your request be escalated. I'm happy to ensure that we do all that we can to meet your needs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PatrickRQ Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Not a really big money I'd say. Anyway, they just keep using Nexus for maintaining their sale where Nexus itself is not a greatest sale maintainer solution at the very moment. If it would be more flexible then for sure the payments and charges would be maintained other way. I experienced this issue myself with Nexus while trying to configure easy and quick sale and purchase maintaining. As soon as they will rebuild Nexus then you can expect improvements on their sales in relation to charges. They are simply limited with Nexus possibilities ;) as far as Nexus is great app it requires the biggest workload to be done over among all the other IPS.Apps at the very moment - just my personal feeling about where IPS does not fulfill my needs. I remember few times I cancelled some of my app by the mistake, however filled a ticket and they made it up for me without a charge - so they aren't heart-less :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmacleo Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 TBH I would like to see the copyright removal around 250 and not 500, but thats because 500 will never be an option for me. as far as prices for the rest of it, yeah who would not like it cheaper but, to me, its a good value and I have no issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtech Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 Hi Lindy, thank you for your words. In fact everybody from the staff has been polite, and i value that very much. The thing is that i was not aware i would have those kind of issues in windows server, as it was not written anywhere when i bought IPS. The official answer to this encoding problem has not changed since 2010 as we can see here at the last answer, which is "Ultimately, it's a server limitation. If you need UTF-8, and Windows doesn't support it, don't use Windows. This is not an issue with IPB specifically. You'd have the same problem with any PHP script." First, this is not entirely true, as this problem could be solved. Almost 4 years gone, i have seen other people around >here complaining about it without IP solving this problem. Nevertheless nobody at IP acknowledges that problem or tells people when they are buying: be aware if you use Windows server, you will have some issues. The windows server encoding issues will be solved in IPS 4.0 i know, because finally it will use decent PHP multibyte functions from what i know. So this confirms that despite support denied the problem, they knew they should solve it. 4 years to solve a problem that is common, in a paid software company, and if you want it solved, you have to have your licence up to date when 4.0 goes out? Other simple ticket i have put which was about the reputation reset i got the following answer: "For assistance in doing that, you'd need to check our forums." I said "ok", because i knew i wouldn't get any help from that, and i was just tired of unsolved support tickets. So i end up saying "ok" because i don't like arguing. You can understand if people are willing to help or are willing that you just walk away, right? If support tells me to go to asking in the foruns, what do i need to pay support for? This is my support feedback. I have already posted my feedback on those situations in the adequate section, not to criticize, but to allow IP to get real feedback and improve support processes. Now, if it will happen, or not, it''s up to IP. Second, some days ago i tested the beta UTF8 converter, and shared my experience in the forum (which was terrible, i have lost about 30 hours working on it, but somehow after lots of work i managed to convert the Database). Someone said "ok, at least you will avoid other people going through the errors". That's true, and that's what a community is - sharing. And my feedback was quite useful for IP staff to develop a new version of the converter (the next day or so, a new version was available, fixing the issues i have found). Somehow, i helped IPS to develop their converter, but when i need help (which i even pay for!) they tell me "go asking in the foruns" or "that's not a problem on our side" or what is quite implicit "your issue will be solved in 4.0, but the prices will rise", so if i want to see it working as it should, i have to pay for it). Sorry, but regarding those issues i feel very frustrated. I had to spend lots of hours trying to fix issues that support should have solved (or at least helped to solve), not me. I didn't ask for custom features, I just wanted things to work as intended. Together with the "price increase" news, well, for me, i had enough. I'll keep around here because i have an IPS community to manage, but i do not intend to further develop my relation with IP. If i have had good support and issues had been solved, i had no problem in renewing or even buying more licenses from IP. I don't mind to pay a little more to get quality support. But i do mind to pay and get no real support. And if the prices increase, as it is the case... i see no reason to continue with IPB. I agree, though, that pricing and market segmentation targeting is something that's entirely up to IP management. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ᴡᴅツ Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 As far as I can tell, the license prices have not changed, at least from August 2012 to now. It still costs $175 to get ip.board. If you adjust for inflation, IP.Board costs $168 (2011 comparison) to $172 (2012 comparison), so the price has technically gone down from that perspective. If all you have is a forum, then the initial cost is $175, plus $50 every year for renewals. To pay for support, all you need is $5 a month in donations from your community. If your yearly support price is $210, then that would mean you bought all of the addons, or some of it with an IP.Chat addon. To be honest, aside from the copyright removal, I think the prices are very fair. They are not overcharging right now, in my opinion, and you have access to future versions as long as your license is active. If your site costs $220 a year to maintain, then it should be generating that amount of income, at a minimum, for it to make sense to maintain. Please keep in mind there are websites that cost thousands of dollars to maintain per month. Price is relative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtech Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 WD. i am customer since 26 August 2013, i don't know prices before. All i know is that: - IPS price is up by 33% and IPS copyright removal is up by 81% since i have bought my licence - this is a fact (i can show my Invoice to prove it if you want), and here i do not criticize pricing options, this is just a fact. - I am not satisfied with support, and i don't feel a valued customer. This is a personal and always subjective point of view. It's up to IP to set their prices, and it's up to customers to buy or not. It is also with IP to manage customer satisfaction as they wish. I recognize that IP produces quality software, and that my personal experience as an IP customer may not be common, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyF Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 I'm sorry you're unhappy with any ticket responses you've had. Please by all means ask for the ticket to be escalated if you are unsatisfied with the replies you've received. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dillon Lawrence Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 I recognize that IP produces quality software, and that my personal experience as an IP customer may not be common, though. I have only had good experiences with IP's support ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
We are Borg Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 While i really want IPB 4 the renewals is something that worries me, the renewal fee for hobby sites read sites that do not earn money its expensive. The stuff i use is 70 dollars per 6 months i do not have IP Nexus, why not make a system where you can renew per year and give a discount for annual renewals like 15% around the 25 dollars if you have IP Content, Blog, Forum, Gallery and Downloads and with Nexus around 30 dollars. You can then take it to the next level for 2 years the beauty of this is that we get discounts and IPS gets cash for a year or longer. This way people can choose long or short discount or no discount. Also why not make renewals based on ratio, like when i renew Forum now and in 2 moths time Blog i need to pay 10 dollars and i will get the same end date as forum. So why not do 10 / 6 = 1,66 dollars a month then 1,66 * 4 = 6 dollars and then same date as forum. That would have been much fairer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mysterioux Posted February 8, 2014 Share Posted February 8, 2014 Also why not make renewals based on ratio, like when i renew Forum now and in 2 moths time Blog i need to pay 10 dollars and i will get the same end date as forum. So why not do 10 / 6 = 1,66 dollars a month then 1,66 * 4 = 6 dollars and then same date as forum. That would have been much fairer. I really like that idea. IPS Please consider something like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhett Posted February 8, 2014 Share Posted February 8, 2014 I really like that idea. IPS Please consider something like this. That was answered above by Lindy, people would abuse the system, leave one cheap app active, like chat.... then with only 1 month left, renew all apps for pennies on the dollar, and have the latest versions for nothing pretty much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CheersnGears Posted February 8, 2014 Share Posted February 8, 2014 I know I wouldn't mind the price so much if the releases and updates were substantially more frequent, concerns that are raised as potential bugs are not automatically dismissed with the need for us to actively pursue (harass even) to get a "oh yea, that might be a bug" only to be told that it won't be fixed until the next major release at some mythical future date that might be next week or next year, and then a lot less attitude of "our software is fine, it's google/facebook/twitter that's broken". I feel like IPS doesn't take us smaller customers seriously. That was answered above by Lindy, people would abuse the system, leave one cheap app active, like chat.... then with only 1 month left, renew all apps for pennies on the dollar, and have the latest versions for nothing pretty much. So make it only applicable to Core. Problem solved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mysterioux Posted February 8, 2014 Share Posted February 8, 2014 That was answered above by Lindy, people would abuse the system, leave one cheap app active, like chat.... then with only 1 month left, renew all apps for pennies on the dollar, and have the latest versions for nothing pretty much. I actually meant make it with the Core Only with IPS 4.0 So if i have 2 months left until renewal for my core. and i'd need to renew my IP.Nexus. Then i only get billed for 2 months. Until all the applications renewal periods are Synced with the Core. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
We are Borg Posted February 8, 2014 Share Posted February 8, 2014 That was answered above by Lindy, people would abuse the system, leave one cheap app active, like chat.... then with only 1 month left, renew all apps for pennies on the dollar, and have the latest versions for nothing pretty much. You cant miss use that system, because you can do it per day. Your solution is at the moment the most expensive way for the customer but the best for IPB. The solution like i said i make the renewal date the same so if you have Blog that end on 01-06-2014 but renews the Forum on 01-03-2014 then the forum renew is set at same date as Blog. The payment then will be as follows 01-03-2014 to 01-06-2014 is 90 days so 25 dollars divided by 182,5 = 0.14 dollars per day, you can then do 0.14 * 90 = 12.60 dollars. So the customer gets billed 12.60 dollars and the renewal date is still 01-06-2014 but now for Blog and Forum. You only need to calculate the day renewal fee for Download, Blogs, Forum, Nexus, Gallery and Content, even if the person renews 1 day before one ends it would not matter. What is better is the other way around same example as above but instead of everything ending on 01-06-2014 by renewing the Forum you'll need to extend the Blog so in that case its 10 dollars divided by 182.5 days = 0.05 dollars per day so that's 90 days * 0.05 = 4,5 dollars. So i renew Forum for 25 dollars and ends on 01-09-2014 but its mandatory to renew Blog to so i pay 25 dollars + 4.5 dollars = 29.50 dollars and everything is renewed till 01-09-2014. You cant miss use this because if you try to you need to renew everything so that it ends on the same date. You can even make the software so that when new versions come that it does not work with older versions so you'll need to renew to run everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Management Lindy Posted February 9, 2014 Management Share Posted February 9, 2014 As mentioned, we are not aiming to be the most inexpensive solution available. We have grown to the point where we cannot please everyone and as the old adage goes: Try to please everyone, you risk pleasing no one. While some services such as enterprise spam mitigation are targeted for larger clients, the lionshare of our business will remain with average sized communities. We have such a wide product line, it's difficult to present, difficult for customers and potential customers to understand and difficult to maintain from a license structure standpoint. This is also complicated by the fact that we still have a few legacy licenses in the mix as well that introduce a whole new level of issues to our system and client experience. What you end up with is a whole bunch of if this, then that but if that, then not that which results in things like the original topic here. Short of artificial intelligence, it's hard to create a perfect system under our current structure. We are actually in the middle of fleshing out various ideas to streamline the product lineup, presentation and licensing / renewal structure. One idea that I am personally fond of is migrating to a simple "editions" platform (think MS Office.) Community: Forum (IP.Board only), Community: Social Suite (IP.Board, IP.Blog, IP.Gallery, IP.Downloads all included) and then Content and Commerce editions as necessary. This would allow for better, more streamlined pricing, infinitely easier presentation, tighter integration, a better support experience (no more mismatching product issues), a better upgrade experience, etc. To be clear though, a decision has not been made and several ideas are floating around. One thing is clear - our current system has a few flaws and we're taking this break between 3.4 and 4.0 to do many behind the scenes improvements to ensure we're ready to hit the ground running with 4.0. In regards to service concerns... you will find us taking IPS to the next level this year. Again, we can't promise the absolute best possible pricing, but we do strive for the absolute best service and it is a goal to continue our improvement in this regard. In the case of xtech, we unfortunately can't support every possible server configuration, especially in Windows environments - but believe in providing alternatives whenever possible. I would like to see us gain a more proactive approach in finding solutions for customers whenever possible and it is something we will work on. If you have any service related concerns -- whether it be a ticket or a bug report, I would welcome you to e-mail me personally or ask that a ticket be escalated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
We are Borg Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Thank you Lindy for answering our questions and concerns. I hope that you can do more for people like me that love to run a website with forum, blog etc etc but are not making money of that website. The idea of "Community: Forum (IP.Board only), Community: Social Suite (IP.Board, IP.Blog, IP.Gallery, IP.Downloads all included) and then Content and Commerce" sounds interesting would mean less to think about as customer and less work for IPB. I hope we hear in the future more about this. IPB service can't comment on it really the few issues that i needed help with was done quickly and solved in not that much time. I think that everyone knows that you can not support all configurations out in this world it would be impossible to do so, the software and hardware combinations alone is far to much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.Ian Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 One quick question. Will apps, core or renewals be increasing in price once V4 is released? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CheersnGears Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 How about a package that is Content/Forum/Gallery... Lots of us don't need Downloads and since ads are being disconnected from Nexus, we won't need that either.. Unless blog is a huge leap ahead, I won't be renewing it. I am heading in the direction of a magazine site with a forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Izaya Orihara Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 I can't complain too much for the price i pay for renewal ($35 a month) my only minor complaint is the domain change fee but other than that, i can't complain though i am looking forward to seeing what is in store price wise for IPS4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmacleo Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 I'm a pretty critical guy, many just simplify and call me an a-hole, but I have been (overall) pleased with the support and pricings. its an impossible balance to obtain but all you can do is try to strike the right balance. I think they have. and many here know I would have no issues saying its bad if I thought so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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