Thread: vBulletin 4 is here and significant changes to their licencing structure

Got the message below from vBulletin today, looks like there will be no need to renew a vB license once you buy it but the price is going up significantly.


We hope your community is enjoying the flexibility and power of vBulletin™. As always, our goal is to offer a great product at a great price, and we are dedicated to helping you build and grow successful online communities.

Over the last 12 months, we have been building vBulletin 4.0 to be the most powerful forum and social publishing software. Today, we are proud to introduce the new vBulletin 4.0 Publishing Suite product that includes the power of the vBulletin 4.0 Forums with a seamlessly integrated content management system (CMS) and blogging platform.

nah..all crap
nothing is changed what else they can add?
I dont think there are many changes..
just to attract customers thats all

I think its disgusting to be honest, for some one that has 7 active licences 2 of which expire before the release and then already 6 expired licences which i was planning on renewing soon to spend that much money on new upgrades just isnt good business.

I think once the current versions of vbulletin stop being supported i will be moving to IPB , I have one site running on IPB 3 and from what ive seen in terms of customisation and user friendliness its already ahead of vb 3.8 and would imagine its on par with vb 4.0 already.

Plus the price is alot better , for new product and only $25 to renew when its expired.

I can honesly see this as the down fall of vb getting to greedy.

Its another case of not looking after their current customers and royally shafting them with fee's like that just for renewing a licence.

But they are giving existing customers some discount, don't you think that is fair? The new licensing is also one off with no need for renewals?
I have about 7 licenses too like you don't have plants to upgrade, perhaps because I have a software myself I can sort of see the business sense for what vB has just done.

I can see the "business sence" in it and no, i dont think the discount is quite fare enough .

Personally i think they should keep the renewals at $60 or just put it up a alittle for example $80 - $90 , id be happy to pay that however from what ive heard they are charging double that which is one hell of a profit margin imo , i cant see that being the cost for future development and maintenance can you ?

Just a little common sense in trying to maintain their current client base rather as well as looking for new clients.

I fell your pain Adam, but if I read it correctly, once you pay that fee, that is it, you do not need to pay again (please correct me if I am wrong) I sort of prefer that to paying annually, come to thing of it, I usually do not renew my license annually unless there is the need to do that even when it was very cheap.

Absolutely temi i agree that its better than paying annually however haven't they stated that the one time fee is for vb4 , there are some people that have been heard saying that vb5 could be out with in 12 - 18 months which means that you would have to pay again ?

As vBulletin havent actually commented on the statement "when will vb5 be released" its going to be hard to argue their corner for an annual fee ? I mean imo i would say that if vb4 lasted for 3 years that wouldnt be too bad and for the sake of progression you would have to think about upgrading.

To be honest i was thinking of down sizing my sites but its just annoyed me that ive paid for all these licences a year ago now they are expiring i have no choice but to not use them or pay the fee. If i had known about this 6 months ago i would have sold and transfered all the licences and not used vb on my smaller sites lol

Like you I was caught unaware as well :( I think you should really merge Qoudos and triPHP, have a larger forum and save on 1 license and promoting two sites in the same niche.

I have been consolidating my sites too, been flogging off a few, this is my only webmaster forum at presents, if I get the right offer will not think twice before flogging it, give me some cash and one vB license less to worry about

:D i actually got an extremely good offer for qdoos and that was sold again :) it was too good to turn down especially since i hadnt started promoting it yet.

Triphp is my only webmaster forum now, im selling off most of my sites to focus on a selected few, they are slowly selling so everything is good at the moment.

f I get the right offer will not think twice before flogging it, give me some cash and one vB license less to worry about

Out of interest temi , what would the range be that you would accept ? I would love to merge this place with Triphp . If you could PM me the Guide price, revenue and traffic stats that would be great.

Ill see if i can budget for it