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cPanel price hike number four—now what?

Reviews by bravomartha 19 replies 1.9K views
bravomartha

Member OP

8 #1

So I logged into my cPanel this morning after having coffee which was cold because the microwave broke last tuesday and my cat Mr whiskers kept jumping on the keyboard anyway I saw the email about price hike number four and I almost spilled the coffee that was already cold on my laptop which is a Dell from 2019 and the screen has a crack from when I dropped it at the library in March when it was raining and the weather was terrible that day I remember because I was wearing the wrong shoes and got a blister but back to cPanel they want $59.99 now for what used to be $15 and I have 47 client sites hosted with various providers but mostly on Hetzner which uses cPanel and I projected my costs for next year and it will be $3,287 more than 2024 and I cant pass that to my clients because most of them are small bakeries and dog walkers and one lady who sells crocheted hats for cats and Mr whiskers wont eat his breakfast when im stressed which makes me more stressed and I need alternatives now not later when will this greed stop

Craig

Member

scheduled pessimist

#2

The hike itself—predictable since 2019—what worries me now—DirectAdmin pricing—also creeping up—last I checked—$29 became—wait no—was it $39—anyway—migration cost is the real killer—time I don't have—clients who don't understand—

priya

Member

🇮🇳 netops ninja

1 #3

Dear sir/madam,

Kindly note that cPanel pricing itself is not cheap only. The value proposition has degraded itself. We are evaluating alternatives with due diligence.

1. DirectAdmin for shared hosting clients
2. HestiaCP for VPS customers
3. Custom panel for enterprise tier

The migration effort is substantial only. Kindly advise if automated tools exist.

Thank you very much,
Priya

liam_funky

Member

Vancouver

#4

1. CPanel hike #4 confirmed
2. My cost projection:
2. A) 2024: $892/year
2. B) 2025: $1,340/year
2. C) 2026: $2,100/year (estimated)
3. Alternatives evaluated:
3. I) DirectAdmin: $72/year
3. Ii) HestiaCP: $0
3. Iii) pay cPanel: dignity $0
4. Decision: migrate by Q3
5. Current host: Hetzner (cpanel)
6. Target host: undecided

rustyrack_grag

Member

8 #5
liam_funky said:
Target host: undecided

If you're on Hetzner already, why leave? Their cloud VPS starts at EUR 4.60. Install HestiaCP, migrate the cPanel backups with their import script. I did 12 accounts last weekend from a reseller plan. Took six hours including DNS propagation.

The catch: Hestia does not have FleetSSL or Softaculous built in. You install them after. Not hard, just extra steps.

if it ain't broke, rust it
liam_funky

Member

Vancouver

#6
rustyrack_grag said:
Hestia does not have FleetSSL or Softaculous built in

Noted. Added to spreadsheet:

7. HestiaCP gaps:
7. A) FleetSSL: Let's Encrypt CLI works instead — https://letsencrypt.org
7. B) Softaculous: Installatron or manual WP
7. C) Backup to S3: rclone cron job

EUR 4.60 = ~CAD 6.80. My cPanel slice at Hetzner is EUR 39.99 before license. New math: server + zero license = 83% savings.

Still need to test Hestia restore with client who has 47 WP sites. That is bravomartha's situation, not mine.

bravomartha

Member OP

#7

I tested the Hestia import on a Hetzner CPX21 last night. Mr Whiskers supervised. 8 of my 47 sites restored clean. 3 had database charset issues because the cPanel backup was from an older MariaDB. Fixed with a find-replace in the SQL dump.

The other 36 are waiting for Saturday. I am documenting every step because my clients think "server" is a person at the restaurant.

lee_mcr

Member

#8
bravomartha said:
My clients think "server" is a person at the restaurant

Same in Manchester. I moved three clients to DirectAdmin last month. Two asked why their email looked different. One said "the internet is broken" because the login page was blue instead of orange.

The actual migration time: 4 hours. The explaining time: 14 hours across three weeks.

DirectAdmin at EUR 29/year is real, by the way. Not $39. Craig was close.

Honey badger don't care... about downtime
Craig

Member

scheduled pessimist

#9
lee_mcr said:
DirectAdmin at EUR 29/year is real

Confirmed. I checked this morning. Personal Plus, 10 accounts, EUR 29. If you need 50 accounts it jumps to EUR 59. Still a fraction of cPanel.

My Dublin hosting company is VAT registered so we reclaim. Net cost lower. But the time cost lee_mcr mentions is what keeps me awake. Irish clients are patient until they are not.

AD

Member

#10

London perspective: we moved 200 accounts to DirectAdmin in January. Bulk import tool from JetApps exists but costs $45/year. Without it you are doing CSV and prayer.

The prayer is mostly about email passwords. cPanel backups do not include them in plain text. Users must reset. Prepare your support queue.

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