On June 27th, 2019, cPanel made an announcement about a revised pricing model that had a significant impact on how customers are billed. This change led to a substantial increase in prices, reaching up to approximately 2000%.
While the hosting industry was anticipating a price adjustment, nobody anticipated that the actual pricing model would undergo a complete transformation. As a result, cPanel users lost the ability to create unlimited accounts. This alteration has had a widespread impact on the hosting industry, prompting us to provide an explanation of its fundamental aspects and suggests possible courses of action.
Under the new pricing structure, the impact varies depending on the number of accounts hosted on individual servers. Starting from September 1st, 2019, hosting providers are required to pay $0.65 for each account exceeding 100 on each cPanel server they operate.
At present, WebGee has not altered its prices, as there is a possibility that cPanel might partially reverse the price increase due to the significant backlash from the entire hosting industry. Once their decision is made, we will inform our customers about how they will be affected and present alternative options in case they choose not to pay the increased cPanel prices.
As cPanel assesses the feedback received after the announcement, WebGee has temporarily disabled billing cycles longer than one month. We have transitioned all hosting services to monthly billing until further clarification is provided by cPanel.
Shared Hosting and Cloud Hosting
The prices for shared hosting will rise due to a 250% increase in the base cPanel license cost per server, along with an additional $0.65 fee for each account exceeding 100. However, WebGee will try to minimize the impact by absorbing as much of the increase as possible.
Reseller Hosting
Reseller hosting servers accommodate numerous accounts since resellers can create a large number of accounts. Under the new cPanel pricing model, resellers will be required to pay an extra $0.65 for each account they create. We will monitor whether the provider maintains this new model or decides to make adjustments. It is likely that the unlimited reseller hosting plans will be discontinued or come with significantly higher charges.
Cloud Servers
VPS clients will remain unaffected, with their rates staying the same as long as they host up to five cPanel accounts on their virtual server plan. However, if they have more than five accounts but fewer than 30, the price will increase by approximately 40% per cPanel license, resulting in an additional cost of around $5. For those with more than 30 accounts but fewer than 50, there will be a 100% increase in the cPanel licensing fees, equivalent to approximately $15. Finally, if there are more than 50 accounts but fewer than 100, the licensing fees will see a rise of approximately 150%.
| Plan | Accounts | Old price | New Price |
| cPanel Admin | 5 | $15 | $15 |
| cPanel Pro | 30 | $15 | $19.95 |
| cPanel Plus | 50 | $15 | $27.95 |
| cPanel Premier 100 | 100 | $15 | $34.95 |
| cPanel Premier 150 | 150 | $15 | $36.95 |
| cPanel Premier 200 | 200 | $15 | $42.95 |
| cPanel Premier 250 | 250 | $15 | $48.95 |
Are there any cPanel alternatives?
Seeing how cPanel has been constantly increasing its prices over the last few years, it is unsurprising that more and more users are looking for an alternative control panel.
One such cPanel alternative that we at WebGee offer to our customers is DirectAdmin. The software supports all popular Web servers and has integrated support for both MySQL and MariaDB, making it a very viable substitution for cPanel.