License Monthly payments

[KeKe]

Hello,

How are you guys? Hope you are having a nice summer.

I was wondering if it was possible to pay the license with monthly payments?

Ie:

3 months
6 months
12 months contract

Would it be doable? I am sure it could be a good thing for sales as a lot of less fortunate people could afford it. Myself i have to wait before getting it because i have to take care of the family and spending 140$ which is a good deal by the way but sadly with 2 kids its a little harder to spend on. I have bigger priority sadly but its really something i would like.

I have a huge project that id like to start and take a risk to see if it could have potential.

I will be waiting for an answer. Meanwhile i wish every one a good summer!

 

[Jeremy]

Only staff can answer that question, it would be best to submit a sales inquiry via the Contact Us form:
http://xenforo.com/contact/

Someone who can properly answer that question will respond to you.

 

[KeKe]

Only staff can answer that question, it would be best to submit a sales inquiry via the Contact Us form:
http://xenforo.com/contact/

Someone who can properly answer that question will respond to you.

Thanks, i will try this. Have a nice day!

 

[Mike Edge]

I'd have at least 10 more forums if a monthly lease option was ever made available.

 

[Lee]

I agree, this is an awesome idea.

I could see it working with a hosted version of the software better than a downloadable version, though.

 

[Shelley]

This is certainly a great idea (it would boost sales dramatically). I personally would purchase my license outright, that's just how I am, but the benefits for other people would be good which I'm sure they would make use of such a pay scheme I bet the owners would see sales for xenforo hit the roof.

 

[CTXMedia]

The flaw, of course, is that XF only gets part-payment for the whole product and if someone later cannot pay the balance XF loses out.

The only way I could see a lease working would be if XF hosted the site the license was associated with - in a similar way to IPS's hosted solution - this way XF can control use of the product based on the lease terms and if payment isn't made, end the lease and associated hosting.

 

[Slavik]

The flaw, of course, is that XF only gets part-payment for the whole product and if someone later cannot pay the balance XF loses out.

This would be the best way indeed, but comes with the associated support / server maintainance costs also.

Having said that, looking at IPB's pricing structure, it may be worth a look. After all a bit of something is better than a lot of nothing.

 

[whynot]

The flaw, of course, is that XF only gets part-payment for the whole product and if someone later cannot pay the balance XF loses out.

Not much to lose.

I would buy it for one month. After one month I wouldn't pay the next month.
I would use it illegally after that time.
The payment for the first month would be in XenForo's pocket.

I would download it from a pirate site and use it illegally.
There would be no money from me in XenForo's pocket.

 

[Robert F Schmitz]

This would be the best way indeed, but comes with the associated support / server maintainance costs also.

Having said that, looking at IPB's pricing structure, it may be worth a look. After all a bit of something is better than a lot of nothing.

Depending on cost to the end user, that may not be prohibitive; afterall, they will need to host their site anyway. In this manner xF maintains better control when one stops paying. Maybe once they have paid off the software, they have the option to take the software and host elsewhere or continue as is.

 

[Naz]

Depending on cost to the end user, that may not be prohibitive; afterall, they will need to host their site anyway. In this manner xF maintains better control when one stops paying. Maybe once they have paid off the software, they have the option to take the software and host elsewhere or continue as is.

Yeah that sounds like a good idea actually, I know quite a few people would do that.

 

[HostDash]

Maybe monthly & owned licenses at most.

If you take into account $140 is the owned license cost paying yearly won't work - lets go with a minimum of $10 (and thats very very low for such a software) every year thats $120 - whilst monthly payments that would work out fine but annual payments you might aswell add $20 more and be done with it.

The flaw, of course, is that XF only gets part-payment for the whole product and if someone later cannot pay the balance XF loses out.

Not at all, its perfectly possible to have a licensing system which would suspend the license for non-payment. This could even be done in stages (suspend the license for non-payment blocking access to the admin area but still allowing for the main forums to run), phase 2 would be to terminate the license for non-payment which would block all use of the software.

 

[EasyTarget]

Well if you bundle the cost of the server with the cost of the forum, $xx a month for X amount of bandwidth seems fair. Especially if the $xx included all of the official software,elastic search and resource manager.

Plus you could move a few key files up out of the user's web directory so it couldn't be downloaded and moved to another server.

 

[Ernest L. Defoe]

Well if you bundle the cost of the server with the cost of the forum, $xx a month for X amount of bandwidth seems fair. Especially if the $xx included all of the official software,elastic search and resource manager.

Plus you could move a few key files up out of the user's web directory so it couldn't be downloaded and moved to another server.

Or just encode the files like IP.Board does with their hosted solution. Then you can't use it anywhere else other than their servers.

 

[Mike Edge]

@Ashley I'd also love to see the ToS revisited allowing the ability to lease our own licenses. We have gotten several requests to include a license with our hosting service. I would love the ability to purchase licenses and offer that service. Setting everything up for them at sign up, leading to no FTP access with all free styles and add-ons included that they can just simply enable/disable in admin. When they cancel, the account is deleted and the next client is updated to my license url. This could lead to a lot of licenses purchased by me and others in the long run

 

[EasyTarget]

Or just encode the files like IP.Board does with their hosted solution. Then you can't use it anywhere else other than their servers.

Ya, I am kind of liking this idea. And the database is available so the customer can always export it and move to their own server if they want.

@Ashley I'd also love to see the ToS revisited allowing the ability to lease our own licenses. We have gotten several requests to include a license with our hosting service. I would love the ability to purchase licenses and offer that service. Setting everything up for them at sign up, leading to no FTP access

Actually there wouldn't be an issue with FTP access if the files are encoded and limited to the one host.

Different revenue stream for the XenForo team. It could be set up to have chain payments. Customer pays service provider, service provider splits payment between hosting company, XenForo and themselves. Most little forums would go for this idea. You can get your feet wet and you know it will work.

 

[Mike Edge]

Actually there wouldn't be an issue with FTP access if the files are encoded and limited to the one host.

I was talking about another option.. If you look what you quoted it says "ToS revisited allowing the ability to lease our own licenses." I own a xF hosting company, as I was saying, I'd love to see the ToS be changed to where I can purchase licenses and lease them by the month to my clients. We get at least 2-3 requests a month about offering it.

 

[EasyTarget]

I was talking about another option.. If you look what you quoted it says "ToS revisited allowing the ability to lease our own licenses." I own a xF hosting company, as I was saying, I'd love to see the ToS be changed to where I can purchase licenses and lease them by the month to my clients. We get at least 2-3 requests a month about offering it.

I get it, and understand it. What you would need to do is buy a leasing license. Which would be more expensive than a (1) forum license. And XenForo team would encode the files so that it couldn't be grabbed from your server. Seems reasonable. ionCube and the other encoders don't add much overhead. Especially if it is a small forum with only a few active members at any given moment.

Also it could dramatically increase their sales staff, because in effect you would become a re-seller for them.

 

[Mike Edge]

I get it, and understand it. What you would need to do is buy a leasing license. Which would be more expensive than a (1) forum license. And XenForo team would encode the files so that it couldn't be grabbed from your server. Seems reasonable. ionCube and the other encoders don't add much overhead. Especially if it is a small forum with only a few active members at any given moment.

Also it could dramatically increase their sales staff, because in effect you would become a re-seller for them.

No, not what I mean at all. Simply the ability to lease our owned licenses.. Nothing more, nothing less. I would have no concern with them "grabbing files" as I already stated client would have no FTP access.

 

[EasyTarget]

No, not what I mean at all. Simply the ability to lease our owned licenses.. Nothing more, nothing less. I would have no concern with them "grabbing files" as I already stated client would have no FTP access.

I do understand what you are saying, but I was trying to change it up a little so that it would be a better business model for everyone.

Let's look at what your are suggestion and see what's wrong with it and how it could be improved.

From a customer perspective if you prevented FTP access, then you are preventing me from customizing the website. All I would get would be the forum. And then I would have to have links to a different website for all my custom stuff? That's not a good idea. And if you don't allow FTP access, how would the customer use add-ons? Would they have to contact you to upload it? That could become very time consuming. And what about add-on version upgrades? You would manage all of the upgrades? And what if the customer wants to have a custom add-on, that they paid for?

Additionally there are bunch of ways to circumvent the lack of FTP access. You could write a custom add-on that is in-effect an FTP client. If you have access to the database you could write a query that pulls all the files into the database and then export the table. etc, etc...

Also from the XenForo side I don't see how they are really generating enough additional income so it would be in their best interest. If you buy 3 or 4 additional licences and then you are renting them out to customers. There would be a small bump in incremental income. However you have to think about the less scrupulous individuals out there. And they would buy only 1 license and rent it out to 100 customers. And not everyone would do the same set up as you and they would allow customers FTP access. It is a slippery slope.

@Mike Edge I get that you are trying to increase your revenue streams. And if you could offer XenForo in a SAS environment that would help, but I was thinking of what would entice the XenForo team to allow it.

Different opinions and different suggestions.