WHMCS vs. ModernBill (Plesk Billing)

I am going to be as dramatic (ha ha, initially I meant democratic) about this comparison as possible and do my best to share experiences with both of these software products. My company, ROCKHOST.COM, finally stepped away from expensive unintuitive third party billing services in 2006. At that time ModernBill was all the rage. I paid a fair price for the perpetual license and a whopping $1600 for installation. At that point I thought it was paradigm to look professional and offer our customer base a client area and instant on-site order activation (automation).

Originally support ticket response time was fairly slow with ModernBill, however I felt like Sarah and Sean would take care of me when it really mattered. In fact, even though the installation fee was outlandish, I did receive a two hour phone consultation and was walked through the software with my hand held. Then, big brother came along, the Parallels acquisition of ModernBill. The support has since disappeared and attempting to do something as simple as retrieve a lost password is terribly difficult as well as completely frustrating. The last shoe finally dropped this summer when my license expired (I own a perpetual lifetime license) and I couldn’t make contact with Plesk Billing support without paying $59.95 for Parallels precious time. :{ No thanks! There are other fish in the sea.

Enter WHMCS (Web Host Manager Complete Solution)…Wow, a company like my own, a business and people who care about their clients! I had looooooooong forgotten what this was like. Support tickets are generally answered the same day, the prices are cheaper, the products more robust and user friendly, and my business is now easier to manage.

Let me go into a more technically detailed review.

1. Customization

WHMCS – Easy money, upload a template(s), go to General Settings, activate…Also the directory tree structure is built for common sense. Oh, and if you don’t got the time? WHMCS offers a top notch Integration Service – $34.95!!! WHAT?! YES!

ModernBill – Ouch, dig dig dig, customization is possible because I’ve done it. Wait, I’ve done it three times. Why? Because when you upgrade your software version your customization is wiped out, overwritten. It was so ugly I finally created a lenghty list of files that I had to modify with each software upgrade. Painful!

2. Automation

WHMCS – Honestly the module list here is very impressive. What’s mind numbing? WHMCS has a better Plesk module than ModernBill (Plesk Billing).

ModernBill – Clients had a tough time in the shopping cart figuring out how to “associate” a domain name with their hosting package and in turn in most cases I had to manually create cPanel or Plesk accounts. Look, I’m a busy guy, I’ve got other things to deal with. I think I bought this software to resolve issues…not make them. UGH!

3. Backup

WHMCS – Sends me an email of the MySQL database back up every morning, not to mention a cron report.

ModernBill – Can anyone even figure out those weird Plesk back up files? What format is that? .trouble?

4. Client Area

WHMCS – Let’s put it this way, once I switched from ModernBill to WHMCS. Our clients actually started using the client area. It is layed out in a much more sensible manner.

ModernBill – You tell me, try the demo. ModernBill uses its software for its clients. It just barely functions properly or understandably. So if I can’t login and use it well how can my less tech savvy clients feel about it? Answer – not good.

5. To-Do List

WHMCS – This is a simple basic to-do list which is helpful as a reminder tool. For instance right now in my WHMCS To-Do List I have a pending domain name transfer.

ModernBill – What a joke! I noticed that my ModernBill admin To-Do List was made public in the client area. HUH!? When I inquired about this issue I was told that ModernBill wasn’t sure what they were going to do with this feature yet. UH, you might want to get on that! I had to cut the code out of the template, yes during every software upgrade.

5. Affiliates

WHMCS – There is a very slick, easy to use interface which essentially runs itself. You can offer bonuses for joining, flat fees or recurring commission, minimum payouts, monthly newsletters/reports, etc.

ModernBill – They got nothin’.

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L@@k, I was going to lay down a list of ten points, but let’s face it, this going to nowhere fast besides a rant and rave session. Luckily though I made the move forward to WHMCS, so I don’t have be hostile or angry.