Jeffrey Roberts

Again, I totally respect your experience with IPS. I actually was a UNIX / Linux / Open Source IT guy for 25 years and managed many dev and operations teams for large media and software development orgs. The forum is my side gig. So, I agree that IPS could do everything. I still don't understand the 4-5 hours since I could do this myself. Free migration is advertised in my Client Area, on the IPS website, etc.. The catch is you have to spend more annually to get that. That's the issue here gentlemen. It's not to minimize the work IPS does or the effort it took to release v5 and continue to be a viable business. You've helped make up my mind. I will stay self hosted and deal with it myself. Not what I hoped for, but so be it. Cheers!

@Randy Calvert I completely respect your experience. It's the "Beginner" cloud offering and not with any additional products. I just can't imagine what could possibly take 4-5 hours for a migration as simple as mine. There's a single database, some folders and a vanilla install and theme. It's the same identical cost for me to self host versus use the cloud except for this migration fee hence why I'm questioning it for those in the "Beginner" category.

Perhaps I wasn't clear. We all paid $250 years ago for an IPS software license which we are all throwing in the garbage because they can't be sold. We also paid roughly $80/yr to maintain that software license and future development, or roughly $1,600 or so for me, for the 20 years. Some of us are paying IPS $588 annually for the cloud infrastructure including IPS software as a service and to support future development. The migration fee has nothing to do with software.

I'm not asking anyone to build a new data center for $250. It's 15-30 minutes to migrate a site to an existing infrastructure. I used to have 4 licenses and migrated/upgraded them, etc.. many many times in 20 years. I'm paying IPS $588 annually for the data center and infrastructure. It seems like the small sites are being penalized with a 30% premium for their first year n the cloud. Is this a tariff thing? 😊

I don't share the same sentiment. Hard to justify a migration fee when I could migrate my site myself in 15-30 minutes. $250 migration fee is $500/hr for an expert. I don't make income like that. If I stay self-hosted, I pay $199 per year for expertise. That's roughly 6.8 cents per hour. There has to be a more affordable option for the small sites even if we account for only 15% of the income that IPS makes.

@Lindy I am ready to move to the cloud and was told with only a "Beginner" plan (that's all I need) there would be a $250 charge to migrate. Since I've self-hosted and looked after all my needs since the dinosaurs were roaming, I'm happy to give you $588 per year for the beginner plan which is considerably more than the $80 I was paying per year; however, paying a one-time $250 charge to migrate, which is something I could do myself, is bit of a deal breaker. Thoughts?