I've been a XenForo customer for a while, have run through a tons of scenarios in my head to find some logical explanation to this now that I'm looking into getting an IPB license but haven't found one yet.

What makes IPB so expensive when it comes to Self Hosting? I can't find any logical explanation for paying $500 for a forum software that seems to be similar in features (Perhaps a few things are more detailed and/or complex) than other forum softwares out there.

I know this question has probably been asked through out the years, but either Invision doesn't want to compete with other software or is just trying to grab as much money as possible (In my honest opinion).

Why not lower the price for a stripped down version of the suite? I personally don't need all the bells and whistles, just something that I can offer to my community to store their posts and communicate in a more organized way. No need for a CMS, Gallery, Calendar, Ecommerce, Blogs or Clubs.

I personally think that giving the price of the competition, if Invision had the amazing idea of lowering their prices drastically, it would certainly open up the doors for customers from other places to look into switching over. I don't personally mind paying anywhere between 200-250 and 75-80 in renewals (Or less in renewals but instead every 6 months due to being a stripped down version of it).

I hope it doesn't come as rough or disrespectful, but I need some clarification to make a decision.

There have been a few different conversations on this, especially, last year when we changed our license terms for moving forward. The summary really comes down to: the current license terms were put together in order to make self-hosting viable for the future for both our clients and us. The self-hosting market has shrunk to a very, very small part of our business (and respectively, the internet as a whole) so if we are going to offer a self-hosted option, we want it to be the best of our software suite and if we're going to sell it, we don't want to abandon our self-hosted customers so it has to be something we can continue to provide support to at a renewal which works.

It's also worth mentioning that you get what you pay for. Our software is ever evolving (check out our Version 5 Blogs). We offer monthly releases, support, Spam Defense, GEOIP, and a lot of other goodies, all for $499 one time price and $199/year afterwards. 

 

There have been a few different conversations on this, especially, last year when we changed our license terms for moving forward. The summary really comes down to: the current license terms were put together in order to make self-hosting viable for the future for both our clients and us. The self-hosting market has shrunk to a very, very small part of our business (and respectively, the internet as a whole) so if we are going to offer a self-hosted option, we want it to be the best of our software suite and if we're going to sell it, we don't want to abandon our self-hosted customers so it has to be something we can continue to provide support to at a renewal which works.

It's also worth mentioning that you get what you pay for. Our software is ever evolving (check out our Version 5 Blogs). We offer monthly releases, support, Spam Defense, GEOIP, and a lot of other goodies, all for $499 one time price and $199/year afterwards. 

I can definitely understand the ever evolving nature of the software and the needs of it, but that doesn't make much sense when it comes to offering a product in such a niche. I'm quite sure that anybody would pick an IPB license if they were told in advanced which features would the new "product tier" offer. 

At this point, there's no in between product that would suffice the less "loyal" customers to pick Invision over other companies out there and that feels like a shortcoming. I understand wanting a certain "quality" when it comes to offering the software, but since the market for self-hosting has shrunk down in the eyes of the company.. you're essentially leaving out the rest of the community which would love to support the company by getting a less feature packed suite for a smaller price while also being aware of such features being cut.

As a potential customer it really puts a bad taste in my mouth to see that there's no lower tier that would put the software closer to what the competition has (Feels like you guys don't want to compete at all). Throughout the years, I've participated in multiple projects (Mainly gaming related) and when possible I have pushed for Invision to be the software of choice regardless of my business relationship with XF, but the same thing has happen multiple times when it comes to showing them that they have to pocket $500 One-Time and $200 per year for renewal (That's if the project doesn't require any of the extra bells and whistles, namely plugins/extensions).

You can see how things start adding up for smaller communities or more casual projects which makes Invision pricing model extremely restrictive to us.

 

I appreciate your insight on the matter and your time.

 

I can definitely understand the ever evolving nature of the software and the needs of it, but that doesn't make much sense when it comes to offering a product in such a niche. I'm quite sure that anybody would pick an IPB license if they were told in advanced which features would the new "product tier" offer. 

At this point, there's no in between product that would suffice the less "loyal" customers to pick Invision over other companies out there and that feels like a shortcoming. I understand wanting a certain "quality" when it comes to offering the software, but since the market for self-hosting has shrunk down in the eyes of the company.. you're essentially leaving out the rest of the community which would love to support the company by getting a less feature packed suite for a smaller price while also being aware of such features being cut.

As a potential customer it really puts a bad taste in my mouth to see that there's no lower tier that would put the software closer to what the competition has (Feels like you guys don't want to compete at all). Throughout the years, I've participated in multiple projects (Mainly gaming related) and when possible I have pushed for Invision to be the software of choice regardless of my business relationship with XF, but the same thing has happen multiple times when it comes to showing them that they have to pocket $500 One-Time and $200 per year for renewal (That's if the project doesn't require any of the extra bells and whistles, namely plugins/extensions).

You can see how things start adding up for smaller communities or more casual projects which makes Invision pricing model extremely restrictive to us.

 

I appreciate your insight on the matter and your time.

To answer a few points there, the reality is the market share of self hosting versus our cloud products is small, to the point something had to be done in order to make it a viable proposition. I know you say there "but since the market for self-hosting has shrunk down in the eyes of the company", but this is not something that is just in our eyes. Its more a mathematical fact. The self-hosted product is a small percentage of our customers. That percentage has been shrinking year on year, and our cloud product has been increasing significantly year on year. So in answer to this, we had 2 options really. One of those was to remove self-hosted completely, and the other was to make the product sustainable from a company perspective. We have chosen the latter to ensure the product is viable for us to provide to our customers.

We understand that our classic self-hosted solution may be too expensive for some, and that's really ok. As you mentioned, there are other solutions out there that people can use that are at a lower price point.

If what you see as the competing products are not an option because they aren't as good and don't do what you need, there is probably good reason why they are cheaper in price. 

Of course, we do indeed offer an alternative to people, and thats cloud 🙂 

Hi AtomiCAST,

I appreciate your question. Value is very subjective, but I can run through a few things in terms of what I think offers a lot of value.

The first thing I want to address is that we do not see XenForo as a competitor. They are a legacy forum-only system that is looking very dated with a slow development process that took over three years to bring a new version to the market that largely catches up to where we were years ago. If you purchase a license with XenForo then you will get a forum system and that is that. You do not get a commerce store, a powerful CMS and database system, nor a gallery or community blogging tool.

We are different. We do not base all our decisions around code and development, but rather our conversations with professional community management teams running large complex communities. We focus on bringing tools to the platform that people need. You only have to look through our news blogs to see our forward thinking with regards to managing communities. 

We have:

• Redefined what a community product should look like with a brand new interface.
• Built a brand new theme editing experience designed to reduce complexity and enable everyone to theme their community.
• Added a way to erase frustration and find answers quickly.
• Added a new way to identify and follow community experts and leaders for a better onboarding experience.
• Added a simple badge builder to empower all community owners to create custom badges and reactions.
• Added a way to assign individual topics to moderators and teams to help organise your forum and provide better service for members.
• A brand new lightweight and fast editor that actually works.
• Rebuilt tagging to bring content from all over the community into one place.
• Added a drag and drop WYSIWYG page builder tool with dozens of pre-built widgets and layouts.

As you can see, these features are not based around technology, but based around people and community. When you look at XenForo's 2.3 feature list, it's things like OAuth, Stripe integration, developer tools, web hooks, etc. These are all much-needed (and we've had them for years) but how do these help you grow a community and help your community get the best from their time on the forum? I believe their next release is 3.0 and will just be a new theme and unlikely to launch in 2024, so when will you get new features? 2025, 2026, 2027? Or you can have an alpha release of Invision Community 5 right now with a full release later this year.

The basic question being asked is "why aren't you as cheap as XenForo" and the question is simply that we do not want to be "cheap", we want to be good. We want to help your community succeed with forward thinking features, regular releases and daily communication. We will not abandon the software for years leaving your communities struggling and stagnating against newer more modern community platforms. We are constantly thinking about how to allow your members to get the most from your forum in the small pockets of time people have. Invision Community 5 being a mobile first product allows your members to check-in (or be pulled back with notifications) while in a line at that the store, or waiting in the car while your kids are at sports clubs. This is how people use your forum now.

So in terms of value, and what we offer for the price is simple:

We offer you a strong future and will work hard to support your community.

If you want a cheap forum, and are happy with the stop-start-stop development of XenForo then that is totally fine too.

 

Or you can have an alpha release of Invision Community 5 right now

Did I miss an announcement?

Can I download a copy of IC5 right now?

The TL;DR version:

We actually provide the service you pay for through constant updates and communication. You don’t see people on our community wondering why we do not communicate or release an update in years.

While there are countless differences in goals and vision, we cost more because we do more.

Ask yourself: do you want ye olde forum script that you see people begging for updates on or a living company behind an evolving product?

 

Did I miss an announcement?

Can I download a copy of IC5 right now?

No, we're running alpha testing via a focused group using our cloud platform while we work on our new build systems.

@AtomiCAST

If this helps you understand why IC is what it has become today, we purchased our license on 01/12/2006, here is my feedback.

At the time the cloud did not exist. The only solution offered was self-hosting. Prices and services developed as technology advanced. The license was already "expensive" in my opinion but I was a high school student and had no income. Then paying a small sum every 6 months to benefit from updates, patches, support (always available, responsive and patient) was not very restrictive. And yet all of this was well within the reach of anyone with a modest income. 

Over time, we even acquired licenses for other products that completed the Suite. 
We tried to offer personalized clothing and t-shirts through the Commerce application and it worked very well. The only "problem" is that once the license for a functionality was acquired, we could no longer escape the renewal of the license concerning it. 

The support service, answers to questions, troubleshooting is not far from the best I have had to deal with. I've been struggling with this for 20 years and believe me the bar is high.

This proximity with their customers gives rise to exchanges of points of view, interesting discussions on technology, user experience, the need to keep, captivate, involve. All of this has allowed IC to shape a tool that best meets the majority of the needs of any community.

The Page tool allows you to deploy a truly robust, efficient, professional, static or dynamic site while being supported by a lung that can be an IC forum.

Clubs are just groups and their use can be adapted to many different scenarios.

You can't grasp the incredible potential that these guys offer through their tool that they have been developing for a number of years, until you have used it and it will probably take you a few years before you succeed. to calibrate it to your community. We have been managing a French-speaking community of football club supporters for almost 20 years, as many years based on a single tool. This one. 

If you are only looking for one forum and only one forum, I can understand the fact that they now offer a single price for all the features is actually a little hard to accept. 

But one thing is certain in any case, it is the best forum/member management tool that exists today.

Edited July 2, 2024Jul 2 by SoloInter

Yes, Invision is more expensive upfront. However, if you factor in the relative cost for each application, it’s actually cheaper. 
 

XenForo costs $335 upfront (if you get every application) and you get forums, media gallery and resource manager. $111 each.

Invision Community costs $499 upfront and you get forums, commerce, pages, downloads, blogs, events, and gallery. $71 each. You also get Clubs too. 
 

Now do you need all those applications? Maybe not, but that’s for you to decide. 

Edited July 2, 2024Jul 2 by Matt C.

 

To answer a few points there, the reality is the market share of self hosting versus our cloud products is small, to the point something had to be done in order to make it a viable proposition. I know you say there "but since the market for self-hosting has shrunk down in the eyes of the company", but this is not something that is just in our eyes. Its more a mathematical fact. The self-hosted product is a small percentage of our customers. That percentage has been shrinking year on year, and our cloud product has been increasing significantly year on year. So in answer to this, we had 2 options really. One of those was to remove self-hosted completely, and the other was to make the product sustainable from a company perspective. We have chosen the latter to ensure the product is viable for us to provide to our customers.

We understand that our classic self-hosted solution may be too expensive for some, and that's really ok. As you mentioned, there are other solutions out there that people can use that are at a lower price point.

If what you see as the competing products are not an option because they aren't as good and don't do what you need, there is probably good reason why they are cheaper in price. 

Of course, we do indeed offer an alternative to people, and thats cloud 🙂 

 

Hi AtomiCAST,

I appreciate your question. Value is very subjective, but I can run through a few things in terms of what I think offers a lot of value.

The first thing I want to address is that we do not see XenForo as a competitor. They are a legacy forum-only system that is looking very dated with a slow development process that took over three years to bring a new version to the market that largely catches up to where we were years ago. If you purchase a license with XenForo then you will get a forum system and that is that. You do not get a commerce store, a powerful CMS and database system, nor a gallery or community blogging tool.

We are different. We do not base all our decisions around code and development, but rather our conversations with professional community management teams running large complex communities. We focus on bringing tools to the platform that people need. You only have to look through our news blogs to see our forward thinking with regards to managing communities. 

We have:

• Redefined what a community product should look like with a brand new interface.
• Built a brand new theme editing experience designed to reduce complexity and enable everyone to theme their community.
• Added a way to erase frustration and find answers quickly.
• Added a new way to identify and follow community experts and leaders for a better onboarding experience.
• Added a simple badge builder to empower all community owners to create custom badges and reactions.
• Added a way to assign individual topics to moderators and teams to help organise your forum and provide better service for members.
• A brand new lightweight and fast editor that actually works.
• Rebuilt tagging to bring content from all over the community into one place.
• Added a drag and drop WYSIWYG page builder tool with dozens of pre-built widgets and layouts.

As you can see, these features are not based around technology, but based around people and community. When you look at XenForo's 2.3 feature list, it's things like OAuth, Stripe integration, developer tools, web hooks, etc. These are all much-needed (and we've had them for years) but how do these help you grow a community and help your community get the best from their time on the forum? I believe their next release is 3.0 and will just be a new theme and unlikely to launch in 2024, so when will you get new features? 2025, 2026, 2027? Or you can have an alpha release of Invision Community 5 right now with a full release later this year.

The basic question being asked is "why aren't you as cheap as XenForo" and the question is simply that we do not want to be "cheap", we want to be good. We want to help your community succeed with forward thinking features, regular releases and daily communication. We will not abandon the software for years leaving your communities struggling and stagnating against newer more modern community platforms. We are constantly thinking about how to allow your members to get the most from your forum in the small pockets of time people have. Invision Community 5 being a mobile first product allows your members to check-in (or be pulled back with notifications) while in a line at that the store, or waiting in the car while your kids are at sports clubs. This is how people use your forum now.

So in terms of value, and what we offer for the price is simple:

We offer you a strong future and will work hard to support your community.

If you want a cheap forum, and are happy with the stop-start-stop development of XenForo then that is totally fine too.

I truly understand the points given here, but it doesn't stop sounding like a canned corporate response as to why you won't allow your product to offer addons instead of shoving the whole package down your throat.

With how long Invision has been in the market, you can't tell me you can't find a way to make a product like IPB more affordable while being transparent about the features that it might not have.  If you can't make an affordable product by cutting down on features that one would opt to get or not on their own accord feels like Invision is saying "Well, we sell this and we don't care if you don't like it". It's like wanting to buy Photoshop and having Adobe tell you "Well.. you can't get only one product. You need to get all the suite because we don't care about options and freedom when it comes to choosing which products you get."

And I want to make something very clear, I'm not asking for a separate software to cover this type of package. I just want the forum part, not all the bells and whistles and I don't use or have a use for.

In short, it's extremely close-minded to offer a product of this kind and not letting potential customers decide if they need the tools or not.

 

Yes, Invision is more expensive upfront. However, if you factor in the relative cost for each application, it’s actually cheaper. 
 

XenForo costs $335 upfront (if you get every application) and you get forums, media gallery and resource manager. $111 each.

Invision Community costs $499 upfront and you get forums, commerce, pages, downloads, blogs, events, and gallery. $71 each. You also get Clubs too. 
 

Now do you need all those applications? Maybe not, but that’s for you to decide. 

As I said, I don't use any of those applications which is why XenForo is more affordable regardless of the upfront for me. I don't want to pocket $500 right away on addons I don't have use for, I want the freedom to choose whether I want to have those features (XenForo allows you to manually pick those and yet they haven't gone bankrupt like Invision thinks they will go).

 

I truly understand the points given here, but it doesn't stop sounding like a canned corporate response as to why you won't allow your product to offer addons instead of shoving the whole package down your throat.

With how long Invision has been in the market, you can't tell me you can't find a way to make a product like IPB more affordable while being transparent about the features that it might not have.  If you can't make an affordable product by cutting down on features that one would opt to get or not on their own accord feels like Invision is saying "Well, we sell this and we don't care if you don't like it". It's like wanting to buy Photoshop and having Adobe tell you "Well.. you can't get only one product. You need to get all the suite because we don't care about options and freedom when it comes to choosing which products you get."

And I want to make something very clear, I'm not asking for a separate software to cover this type of package. I just want the forum part, not all the bells and whistles and I don't use or have a use for.

In short, it's extremely close-minded to offer a product of this kind and not letting potential customers decide if they need the tools or not.

As I said, I don't use any of those applications which is why XenForo is more affordable regardless of the upfront for me. I don't want to pocket $500 right away on addons I don't have use for, I want the freedom to choose whether I want to have those features (XenForo allows you to manually pick those and yet they haven't gone bankrupt like Invision thinks they will go).

We recently changed our pricing from 'pick what you want' to 'everything' for a few reasons.

First, a forum-only community will not survive in 2024. Secondly, we want to strengthen the relationship between apps and that is impossible to do when an app may be missing.

It sounds like XenForo is a great fit for you, so I wish you all the best!

 

"Well, we sell this and we don't care if you don't like it". It's like wanting to buy Photoshop and having Adobe tell you "Well.. you can't get only one product. You need to get all the suite because we don't care about options and freedom when it comes to choosing which products you get."

If you go to McDonald's, you can set up your burger and remove pinkles, onions, tomato.

If you go to starred restaurant, you will not discuss the menu. It's like that. Will you ask to speak to the chief and tell him your Adobe story ?

 

 

I truly understand the points given here, but it doesn't stop sounding like a canned corporate response as to why you won't allow your product to offer addons instead of shoving the whole package down your throat.

They used to do this.  However this prevents them from doing some cool things with the software to make it more seamless and powerful.  IPS is moving in a direction of wanting to create powerful features that literally tie everything together.  That becomes almost impossible when you have to build tons of logic around if you have this module but not that module or you only have 3 of the 4 modules, etc.  

 

 

With how long Invision has been in the market, you can't tell me you can't find a way to make a product like IPB more affordable while being transparent about the features that it might not have. 

Affordable is a relative term.  The initial cost is $499 for the first year.  That's literally $1.37 per day.  Subsequent years are $199 a year.  That means it's $0.55 per day after the first year.   Would you work for less than what you feel you are worth?  IPS assigns a value to their products that allows them to pay a LOT of people that are continually adding new features and capabilities.  Just because the price may not match what you want to pay does not mean it's not fair or affordable.  Would you go up to a Ferrari dealership and tell them they should sell you a Portofino for the cost of a Prius because you don't like the price?  

For me, the new prices are very attractive, however, I kindly request that self-hosting continues to be developed despite the low interest. 🙏

 

For me, the new prices are very attractive, however, I kindly request that self-hosting continues to be developed despite the low interest. 🙏

+1 from part of the smaller group of self hosted folks. 
 

For us, we have a considerable amount of non forum website content and features/apps w/ their own databases (custom) that we merge with the forums to create a full community. We also have a very high end server to manage loads in a way not readily doable at scale for all users (RAID1 U2 NVME drives reaaaaaally make a difference and make page loads and searches nearly instantaneous… 10-20x faster read performance than SSD).  Not sure if these custom hosting requirements would ever be doable on a cloud solution — at scale. 

 

for a forum software that seems to be similar in features (Perhaps a few things are more detailed and/or complex)

Some thoughts as someone who has had a license for 10+ years to both companies:

1.  Exclude all of the other apps like Gallery, Downloads, Clubs, Blogs, Calendar, Pages, Elastic Search, Commerce, etc from both sets of software since those are irrelevant to you.  Evaluate the merits of the IPS forum on its own with features like: Assigning specialists to certain topics, Topic summaries, Community Experts, Helpful answers, Mark as solved, Schedule topics, Trending content, Fluid view of topics, Editor stock replies, Highlight topics by staff members, Solved content, Forum views.  It goes on and on.  

These are features available and specific to IPS Forums.  Do you need these features?  Do you want these features?  Will these features make you and your community more successful? Do you appreciate the ongoing development of these types of features?  Only you can answer this question, to justify the cost differential.  

For the communities that can leverage these features, these features are worth their weight in gold.  IPS has a clear hypothesis about the future of independent community building and user behavior: helping users identify solutions faster; helping new members and visitors digest information easier; helping staff members and community managers navigate, assign, and respond in the limited time that they have.  There's a forward-looking vision behind the company's development of features in an overarching theme of progress that you don't see in legacy developers.  These features are not just more detailed or more complex; there's a real hypothesis by IPS on how these front-end features in the forums can build better communities.  

In short, not all forums are built the same.   If you think they are, then SMF is still available to download.  It's an oldie but a goodie 🙂  

2. Above, I asked you to ignore all of the other apps and only compare the merits of Forums.  With that said, there is value in the suite of IPS. It's extremely challenging to build a standalone site with only forums; modern independent communities usually need a mix-and-match of a site builder and forums.  Even if you don't need Gallery or Downloads or Blogs or Calendar or Clubs, I've always believed that the true power of IPS is in the Pages application, a powerful multi-function application that allows you to build a site anchored by your Forums and supplemented with knowledge bases, directories, databases, articles, and more. 

3. Finally, I leave this parting thought to you and any other client comparing the two. It's a small data point, but one that I think echoes volumes about the future.  

I recently asked the same question in the Xenforo community and the IPS community: "what advice would you give to a new community owner?"  It was the same question, word for word, with the same exact topic and same exact text.  Same question, two different client communities.  

The responses are a small sample size, but the responses could not be more more wildly different.  There is only one community that is positive, enthused, and believes in the future of community building. 

The other has an existential crisis.

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/what-advice-would-you-give-to-a-new-community-owner.222784/

https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/478848-what-advice-would-you-give-to-a-new-community-owner/

 

Not sure if these custom hosting requirements would ever be doable on a cloud solution — at scale. 

Definitely doable. We have many, many clients that get millions of views a month, with thousands online during the day, and with thousands of posts every hour.

 

The other has an existential crisis.

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/what-advice-would-you-give-to-a-new-community-owner.222784/

https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/478848-what-advice-would-you-give-to-a-new-community-owner/

Ouch.

My observation is that XenForo seems to have an aging customer base, most of whom were successful 15 years ago and have seen their communities stagnate and slow to a trickle. They don't seem to attract professionals, or anyone serious about building a modern community.

Wow! What a contrast

That’s a shame that they’re so negative over there. If you look beyond a “forum script” there’s so much a community can be. 

 

We have many, many clients that get millions of views a month, with thousands online during the day, and with thousands of posts every hour.

Anyone with links to these big old communities running IPS can PM me the website links. I want to check them out, as I may learn a thing or two from them.

 

There have been a few different conversations on this, especially, last year when we changed our license terms for moving forward. The summary really comes down to: the current license terms were put together in order to make self-hosting viable for the future for both our clients and us. The self-hosting market has shrunk to a very, very small part of our business (and respectively, the internet as a whole) so if we are going to offer a self-hosted option, we want it to be the best of our software suite and if we're going to sell it, we don't want to abandon our self-hosted customers so it has to be something we can continue to provide support to at a renewal which works. It's also worth mentioning that you get what you pay for. Our software is ever evolving (check out our Version 5 Blogs). We offer monthly releases, support, Spam Defense, GEOIP, and a lot of other goodies, all for $499 one time price and $199/year afterwards. 

 

@AtomiCAST

If this helps you understand why IC is what it has become today, we purchased our license on 01/12/2006, here is my feedback.
<clipped>

 

We recently changed our pricing from 'pick what you want' to 'everything' for a few reasons.

First, a forum-only community will not survive in 2024. Secondly, we want to strengthen the relationship between apps and that is impossible to do when an app may be missing.It sounds like XenForo is a great fit for you, so I wish you all the best!

 

To @AtomiCAST - here is another perspective:

We also purchased our perpetual licenses of the full suites a long time ago. One in 2007 that we have maintained until today, another we purchased in 2011 and maintained until 2018 when we decided that the forum wasn't picking up any traction and we could not justify the maintenance renewal costs. 

I am sure my experience tracks with many others ... I started my current website site back in 1994 with guestbooks and rudimentary discussion pages, and over the years we went through various free forum options including SMF and others as we developed and grew our community. Eventually our site was getting too busy for shared hosting and free software that needed a lot of manual tweaking, so we did a feature comparison of commercial/paid software (IPB3 versus vBulletin3 mainly). We chose IPB and actually converted from SMF directly into IPB in 2007 with barely any hitch. Patches, updates and fixes come along at regular intervals and as can be seen by the V5 blogs, they continue to develop the site features. For me, as a single owner community/hobby site, I want my/our users to have the best experience I can afford and by using Invision, along with a decent VPS host rather than cheap shared hosting, I can just about achieve that. Google Ads help the site to be self-financing and it just ticks over nicely (for me). Never going to get rich with it but shouldn't go broke either! The Venn diagram above is pretty accurate!      

My day job is in software asset management and procurement, and I deal with perpetual, subscription and cloud licenses all day every day from large and small vendors and everything in-between. Invision has always had this standard perpetual licensing with the option to own the software and pay for maintenance, upgrades and support. This is/was very standard for the time. Yes, its pricey, especially for an individual user, but so is paying for development, support and all the other costs.  As someone said, 'You get what you pay for'. 

We have had the full suite since 2007 as we recognized we may need it all and at various stages we have had either all of it enabled or just some. Currently I don't use gallery or downloads as I don't need to but everything else is enabled. With the full suite I can turn on either of these as needed if I need to. All in all, IPB/IPS has been a solid and reliable platform for us to grow our site. Despite the costs, which can be a concern, we have never really looked at moving away to anything else. For us, converting to a classic license for our main site will actually reduce costs from $300 p/yr. to $199 and its pretty much a no-brainer. I do have a couple of questions on how this affects licensing of the currently dormant site/license but that's not really a concern for someone starting out I don't think.  

 

 

There have been a few different conversations on this, especially, last year when we changed our license terms for moving forward.

We offer monthly releases, support, Spam Defense, GEOIP, and a lot of other goodies, all for $499 one time price and $199/year afterwards. 

If I convert my active license to Community Classic, I should be fine. Its active, has been active since 2007 and if it were not to be renewed for 24 months then I have probably shuttered the site for some reason. However, how does this affect my currently inactive perpetual license that I would not (yet) want to convert to community classic?

It was purchased as perpetual but has been dormant since 2018 and although I am constantly looking for inspiration on where or how I can use it elsewhere, that's not happened yet. Currently, even after all this time, I have had the option to reinstate this license by simply paying the 6 monthly fee of $150 to get maintenance going again (and still do according to the button in the client area). However, I do see under the new terms for the new classic edition that "Licenses left expired for more than 24 months will be expired permanently and cannot be renewed, but you may purchase a new license for full price.".  Based on current standard licensing practices, this is not unusual, but does this 24-month clock start ticking once I convert? or are the original terms of the license being revoked and replaced by this agreement that will remove the perpetuity of the original license?   

 

 

However, how does this affect my currently inactive perpetual license that I would not (yet) want to convert to community classic?

There is not yet a process for if/when old, self-hosted licenses will be required or otherwise to be upgraded to "Classic" license terms. As of now, you can keep it dormant if you do not have a reason to renew it. That may change in the future.

 

Based on current standard licensing practices, this is not unusual, but does this 24-month clock start ticking once I convert? or are the original terms of the license being revoked and replaced by this agreement that will remove the perpetuity of the original license?   

Only the monthly license was subject to these terms of license termination after 24 months. As we have removed the monthly Classic term offering, this is no longer the case. Where did you read this line?

 

There have been a few different conversations on this, especially, last year when we changed our license terms for moving forward. The summary really comes down to: the current license terms were put together in order to make self-hosting viable for the future for both our clients and us. The self-hosting market has shrunk to a very, very small part of our business (and respectively, the internet as a whole) so if we are going to offer a self-hosted option, we want it to be the best of our software suite and if we're going to sell it, we don't want to abandon our self-hosted customers so it has to be something we can continue to provide support to at a renewal which works.

It's also worth mentioning that you get what you pay for. Our software is ever evolving (check out our Version 5 Blogs). We offer monthly releases, support, Spam Defense, GEOIP, and a lot of other goodies, all for $499 one time price and $199/year afterwards. 

But you do abandon us by leaving out features that could help our community? Some features such as live threads? The LMS system? Not every business can go and spend the monthly fees you require due to the nature of the business but I’m sure I can speak for a lot of us, we could too also benefit from the features you’re gatekeeping. With marketplace gone it’s harder for us to find new developer resources to enhance our community to at the least get similar features for our own individual communities or even finding updates for the extensions we already have. It’s sad really. Even with the new terms you charge us slightly more for renewal but no added value just removing features some of us need, updating from time to time and gatekeeping useful features.