Why Keeping WordPress Open Source is Important for Agencies and Clients

Prices for pretty much everything are up this year. Have you seen the price of a cappuccino? How much is that a week? 25 dollars? I noticed my favorite breakfast cereal on sale yesterday — for a higher price than the previous non-sale price – 50% higher! 

Inflation for most of the goods and services we rely on is up about 16% over the last two years. That’s far more than the average 2% rate of inflation. Energy — gas, fuel, power – is up even more. I hate to see the power bills this winter. We are all feeling the pinch, which means we all need to consider ways to save money.

Prices in the USA Have Increased 72% since 2000

There’s a headline for you. It’s true. On average, prices have increased 2.5% annually over the last 20 years. However, the last two years’ 16% increase has been especially hard.

Prices always go up. You used to be able to buy a comic book for a quarter and a fist full of candy for a nickel. That’s probably before our time though.

Prices usually make incremental moves upwards – bit by bit so we don’t really notice. It’s when we get hit by a significant increase that we do. Insurance companies do us the favor of a dynamic rate increase. A small percentage each year instead of a large percentage every five or ten years. It makes sense. 1% each year isn’t going to be noticed. 10% suddenly, will freak us out.

I mentioned cappuccinos before, and that wasn’t just filler. We do spend a lot on things without thinking about it. We might buy fewer coffees each week if we paid 25 bucks once a week rather than 5 dollars a trip.

Repeat after me: if my hosting provider costs less than 5% of my phone bill, I shouldn’t expect out-of-this-world service. Don’t be that person who pays $100 per month for good coverage for a single cell phone but blows a fuse when their $4/month hosting goes down for 30 minutes.

The Webflow Price Increase

Webflow recently announced a 44% price increase on some of their plans. (Webflow Pricing Plan Update) and many people freaked out.

They said they were “increasing Site plan prices for the first time since 2016,” and many people have appreciated this price stability over the last six years. Now they probably wish Webflow  had increased prices by 5% annually. Hindsight is 20/20. People may have not stuck with them, but had they done so people wouldn’t be paying 44% more today.

Why is this price increase so important? SImple. We can absorb small increases, but anything like 10, 20, or even 40% will need to be passed along to our clients. Just before Christmas, too. Ho Ho Ho. You may even be looking to renegotiate your annual contracts. Fourth-quarter announcements are a pain.

What Does a 44% Increase Look Like in Dollars?

“One agency already spends 25, thousand dollars or pounds on Webflow seats a month… “

Reddit

This is possibly the high end of the spectrum. A 44% price increase here would mean a monthly increase of 11,000 dollars, or pounds.

If you are like some agencies, you’re managing the sites of probably 20 unique clients. If you are doing this on Webflow, and using the CMS Package (Best for a blog or other content-driven site), a 44% increase from 16 to 23 dollars a month (for the annual plan) will only mean billing each client another 84 dollars annually. 

The monthly hosting does not include Workspaces, which may be integral to your project. Workspaces run, individually, from 19 to 49 dollars each – monthly.

“A Workspace is a shared space where you can invite teammates and clients to work on sites together. A site is a website or prototype that you build in Webflow.”

Webflow

Now let’s telescope that out a bit for some of the other agencies — like the ones managing 400 sites. A 44% increase is now looking a bit scarier for CMS Package users. Some clients will have multiple websites. The Business Plan is starting to look more attractive, with an increase of just 10%, from 36 to 39 dollars a month paid annually..

“For existing customers (those with a Webflow account before today), you can still purchase or upgrade Site plans at legacy rates until December 31, 2022. These sites will keep legacy pricing until their first renewal on or after January 1st, 2023.”

Webflow

What Can You Still Get That’s Free?

They say you get what you pay for, and if it costs nothing then it can’t be that good. Honestly, it doesn’t cost us a cent to take a brisk walk down by the river or around town but it’s a safe bet that it’s good for us.

Saying thanks. Saying please. Smiling (carefully, not like a crazy person). There are a lot of things we can do for free that are pretty good.

Coding our websites ourselves is free. Jumping onto social media and promoting ourselves, and other people are free. Taking a photo and using it on our website is free. Making something and selling it is free. Amazon Kindle Publication lets you produce books and sell them for free. Google Certification is free. We remember when both of these services cost money.

WordPress is free.

The WordPress core software is open source, and “will always be free.” WordPress is free to download and free to use in any way you want. You can customize it, add to it, and take the stuff away. 

“WordPress is licensed under the General Public License which provides four core freedoms:

• Free to run the program for any purpose.
• Free to study how the program works and change it to make it do what you wish.
• Free to redistribute.
• Free to distribute copies of your modified versions to others.”

Free, but Not for Nothing. Why Open Source is Usually the Better Choice for Your Websites.

One of the biggest decisions you or your clients will make when embarking on a website project is which content management system to opt for. The crucial decision is whether you choose an open-source CMS or a proprietary solution.

Drupal, Joomla, Typo3, WordPress, and others are all open source CMS.

The use of open source software is pretty much standard in larger companies and for larger website projects. If you’re new to the term, open source means that the source code of software — the readable programming code of a program — can be viewed openly. It can be changed, reused, and passed on. Development takes place by users worldwide, who inspire each other, but also control each other. This dynamic results in constant innovation of the software.

Even Open Source Websites Need a Hosting Provider

As the old saying goes, you can have it free, fast, or good, but not all three. So what do you choose? Obviously, you have “free” covered with your WordPress websites — now you want them to be fast and good!

Our Managed WordPress hosting is simple, fast, and secure! It’s good too! It’s just not free. 

How do we compare with other hosted CMS providers? We asked ourselves the same question.

Add together infrastructure, staffing, and utility costs, your monthly fee might not look so bad were you to host all that yourself. And, don’t you have better things to do with your time?

How do you choose the best web hosting service? High-standard hosting comes at a price and isn’t always easy to find. We’re here to guide you through the asteroid field that is the web hosting market to help you find hosting that fits your website and has your back.

Rocket.net

How Much Does a Hosted CMS Cost?

That’s a difficult question. How much does a car cost? How much does dinner cost? The answer depends on a few factors.

• What do you need your hosting to do — What solutions should it provide?
• How many websites are you hosting — and how many people have access?
• How long should this hosting be available?
• Is eCommerce in your future?

Hosting is a tool. Ask yourself what the tool should provide, and then look at what this costs across various providers.

We Looked at the Costs of Various Hosted CMS Providers

We looked at some of the various services and checked out their monthly prices. As you can see the monthly prices and packages are a mixed bag. In comparison, Webflow’s prices are not completely out of line.

Webflow: Basic $18/month CMS $29/month Business $49/month

HubSpot: CMS package $41/month 

Duda: Website Builder starts at $14/month (Agency $44/month) 

Bubble: $29/month for “personal use” 

Pantheon: Basic $41/month for “low traffic sites and blogs”

Framer: $25/month “for commercial sites”  

Contentful: a “Community” package is free, but “Team” is $489/month. 

Wix: is “free” but $22/month “for freelancers” 

Vev: $59/month for a “Professional” package

WordPress.com: $25/month for “Business” and $45/month for “eCommerce” packages
For sake of comparison, you can check out our pricing.

What is the Price to Host My Website for a Month?

It seems that a hosted CMS is going to run you on average 25-35 dollars a month. Sometimes less, sometimes more. Again, you don’t want to save 5 bucks a month if it means a slower server — unless that isn’t important to you.

What’s really important is to know what you need before you sign up. Don’t think about today — think a year or three down the road. Your business will grow, and so will your needs.

“Where do you want to spend your time: server management or client management?”

Rocket.net

WordPress Benefits Everyone – Let’s Keep it Open Source

Everything is getting more expensive. Prices are increasing. There are some things that we can keep free of charge.

There’s always going to be something we need to pay for. If we want to talk about the democracy of the internet, then code shouldn’t be one of those things. A free, community-driven, and exciting open source CMS like WordPress enables all of us. 

Let’s keep it that way.

Open Source Benefit: Security through Transparency and Numbers

In principle, anyone can view the source code of open source software and make changes. However, any danger is relativized by the control function of your team.

On a global level, users, programmers, and testers around the world are constantly monitoring and checking open source software and its further development. 

Open source software benefits agencies and the website community as a whole in this regard: the synergy of development benefits us all.

Open Source Benefit: Flexibility and Independence

Can open source projects be professional if there is no large company behind them? Well, think of us, your coding and online marketing community, as that large company!

Unlike proprietary software, open source software is vendor-independent, which has four major advantages:

• Users are independent of a single manufacturer, its pricing, and product policies.
• The connections to other systems are either already available or easy to establish.
• Data protection. The open source community would cry out if systems send data to places that have not been disclosed or even violate user rights.

Anyone can simply continue working with a fork and operate the software independently. ClassicPress is a fork of WordPress which does not include the Gutenburg Editor.

Open Source Benefit: Cost Savings — Free but Not for Nothing

There shouldn’t be any licensing costs for open source software. You may pay money for special themes and plugin upgrades, but not the software itself.

The operation of open source software is still not completely free of charge: setup and operating costs, like hosting, need to be considered.

Nevertheless, open source software is probably a better choice than proprietary software, which is developed, priced, and marketed by a manufacturer according to its specifications. It’s also a lot more difficult to change the code for your project specifications.

Talk Is Cheap. Let Rocket Show You What The Fastest WordPress Hosting REALLY Means!

Our team of experts is standing by to talk with you about your WordPress hosting needs. Most website owners have switched hosting providers multiple times over the history of their site. We’re confident that you won’t look back once you make the switch to Rocket.net.

The best customer support 24/7, super fast speed, ease of use, and access to top tools and industry-leading resources should always come standard. We’re revolutionizing the way your WordPress site gets served up to the world, and we look forward to partnering with you in growing your business.