Do you want to launch your web hosting company? Are you looking for a billing system offering free licenses? It is understandable since it takes time to build a customer base.
WHMCS is the most popular billing solution. But the company has now tiered pricing packages. It is no longer affordable for new hosting providers.
So what are some free WHMCS alternatives to sell digital goods or offer hosting services? BoxBilling is the best free alternative to WHMCS. Yet, we have prepared a list of 7 such options.
But first, let’s have an overview of WHMCS in our next section:
What is WHMCS?
WHMCS expands to Web Host Manager Complete Solution. It is a web-based billing and hosting management solution. The tool helps in automating your business processes.
It handles provisioning, billing, and domain reselling.
WHMCS dominates the web hosting industry. It has many useful integrations and features. These help you manage your hosting business well.
7 Free WHMCS alternatives
No other software can compete with WHMCS. The number of third-party add-ons available with WHMCS makes it better than others.
But when you are looking for free WHMCS alternatives, here are your best options:
HostBill App
HostBill is an all-in-one solution to automate all your business tasks. It helps with client management, hosting automation, and domain management. The tool also handles help desk systems and automated billing.
HostBill is super-flexible. It supports SaaS, cloud, and web-based deployment. It is a perfect free alternative to WHMCS for large web hosting companies and SSL resellers.
- The software automates billing, supports many currencies, and handles invoicing.
- It takes care of taxation and one-time/recurring payments.
- The tool also helps with inventory management and eCommerce integration.
- It handles client support and hosting automation too.
HostBill has hundreds of integration with domain registrars, payment gateways, and hosting providers. It is compatible with DigitalOcean, VMware, Vultr, and Linode. It supports cPanel, DirectAdmin, Rackspace, and Plesk.
You can also use LiteSpeed, FreeRadius, ResellerClub, and NameSilo. It allows adding PayPal, Skrill, Razorpay, and Stripe as well.
HostBill offers one-time payment plans instead of recurring monthly charges. The entry-level plan is available for $599. The company offers a 30-day money-back guarantee which allows you to try it risk free for a month.
ClientExec
ClientExec is an all-in-one billing system to automate your hosting business processes. It enables you to track account management, configuration, and billing. It is a powerful solution with a lot of features to streamline your hosting operations.
ClientExec is perfectly suitable for you when you are planning to launch your reseller hosting business.
- The tool provides you with useful reports. These relate to your revenue growth, customer satisfaction, and client growth.
- ClientExec is capable of managing domain registration and account setup. It can also handle invoicing and billing on your behalf.
- The platform offers an excellent support experience for your customers. It allows you to offer a ticketing system, email support, knowledgebase, and live chat as your business communication channels.
ClientExec is compatible with many popular platforms. The built-in integrations include cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk, PayPal, Stripe, BitPay, Razorpay, NameCheap, NameSilo, and ResellerClub among others.
ClientExec offers both recurring and one-time payment plans for its license. The pricing starts at $11.95 per month. The company also offers a 30-day free trial per domain name.
So you can try ClientExec for your business before purchasing a license.
Also, there are some ways to get a free ClientExec license. ScalaHosting provides free ClientExec software with its cPanel reseller hosting plans, Scala3 and Scala4. Additionally, GreenGeeks also includes it free with its reseller hosting plans.
Blesta
Blesta is another great alternative to WHMCS. It is a web-based system for automating your billing, customer management, and technical support processes.
- The platform has a responsive design that works well on any screen. It is also easy to customize your Blesta dashboard, client profile, and billing overview, and do much more with the software.
- Blesta takes care of order management and supports different currencies.
- It is super-secure and offers multi-company support as well.
- The software is capable of approving and suspending accounts automatically based on payments and overdue.
Blesta has many popular plugins and integrations. It supports cPanel, Plesk, CyberPanel, DirectAdmin, DigitalOcean, Namecheap, NameSilo, Stripe, Authorize.Net, Razorpay, Twilio, and more.
Blesta has both monthly and lifetime license purchase plans. One-time plans begin at $250 while monthly ones start from $12.95 per month.
The company offers a 30-day free trial without you having to create an account.
It is possible to get a free Blesta license with A2Hosting’s reseller hosting packages. BuyVM also provides it for free with all its services.
BillingServ
BillingServ is a cloud-based system for billing and order management. It is a great alternative to WHMCS because of the features it offers. The platform is for all levels of hosting businesses, from small to large.
It helps automate payments for digital products. So it is also suitable for you when offering plugins, themes, and courses online. Using BillingServ leads to seamless automation and higher stability for your business.
- BillingServ comes with a 100% uptime guarantee.
- The platform offers a flexible billing system to receive recurring and one-time payments from your customers.
- It also provides useful data insights to track the growth of your business. So you can look into your customers’ behaviors and adjust your selling & pricing strategies.
BillingServ is compatible with the major payment gateways, domain/SSL providers, and control panels. It has built-in integrations for cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin, GoGetSSL, Stripe, PayPal, Virtualizor, and BunnyCDN among others.
BillingServ offers monthly and yearly license plans. Its starter plan is available for £12 per month (currently $14.50). You will save a few bucks by signing up for a yearly plan which is available for £9 per month (currently $10.87).
The company offers a 14-day free trial without asking for your credit card details. BillingServ allows you to pay only for the features you truly need.
BILLmanager
BILLmanager is a SaaS-based platform from ISPsystem. It automates the provisioning of SSL, domains, hosting services, and IaaS solutions. This multi-functional platform is suitable for web hosting businesses of all sizes.
- BILLmanager is capable of creating invoices and setting up live chat & ticketing systems for your customers.
- It allows you to run multiple projects from the same portal.
- The software also helps you manage promotions and track the results.
BILLmanager offers 30+ payment gateways and dozens of other integrations with domain registrars, hosting services, and SSL providers. It supports WHM, Plesk, VMware, Namecheap, ResellerClub, MS Azure, and many more popular apps.
This WHMCS alternative has monthly and yearly plans. The starter plan is available for €17.50 per month ($18.78) or €193.50 per year ($207.64).
The company also allows you to try a fully-functional version of BILLmanager for 30 days. It helps you decide whether this software is the right choice for your business or not.
WISECP
WISECP is another great WHMCS alternative. It is an automation tool for digital solutions and hosting providers. The tool automates billing, customer support services, and client management.
- WISECP takes care of hosting account creation, suspension, and management.
- It is a developer-friendly tool that allows the creation of modules as per your needs.
- The platform has an easy-to-use website interface.
- It has high-level security with bot protection, two-factor authentication, database access protection, client blacklist management, spam protection, and more such security features.
WISECP has many integrations with popular control panels, virtual servers, and payment gateways. It is compatible with cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin, Virtualizor, NameSilo, ResellerClub, Namecheap, Skrill, Stripe, PayPal, BulkSMS, and MaxMind among others.
The company offers licenses both on a recurring and lifetime basis. The monthly plans start from $13 per month while the lifetime licenses are available from $295 onwards.
WISECP also has a 30-day free trial period. This trial version is fully-featured and comes with official support.
BoxBilling
BoxBilling is the best alternative to WHMCS among all the ones mentioned in this list. It is an open-source solution for client and billing management.
BoxBilling offers a user-friendly platform. It helps handle all your business processes from a single place. It allows you to sell web hosting services and downloadable products. You can also offer servers, software licenses, and custom products.
- The tool automates invoicing, billing, taxation, and product provisioning tasks.
- It creates hosting accounts for your customers and suspends the overdue ones.
- Additionally, the tool allows you to accept many currencies and one-time/recurring payments.
BoxBilling supports all major control panels, domain registrars, and payment gateways. It integrates cPanel, Plesk, and DirectAdmin. The tool also supports PayPal and Stripe. You can also use Authorize.Net, ResellerClub, and many other useful apps.
Since BoxBilling is an open-source solution, it is free for everyone. The company also used to offer a premium version with a price tag of $5.95 per month earlier.
But the software is no longer actively maintained, so the company has done away with the paid plan.
Though BoxBilling is a powerful business management solution, you must proceed with it carefully. The current state of the software contains many bugs and vulnerabilities.
BoxBilling is presently looking for maintainers to solve these issues.
Features to look for in a Billing Management Software
Billing management software is a must when you are running a web hosting business. It is also useful for freelancers and other business owners. Let’s find out the features to look for in a billing management system here:
- Payments and Billing: Automatically generates one-time & recurring bills/invoices.
- Client Portal: Lets your clients log in to their accounts and manage them on will.
- Services: Allows offering web design and hosting services.
- Quotes: Automatically generates quotes from your system.
- Payment Gateways: Has integrations with major payment gateways.
- Customer accounts: Allows new customers to purchase hosting and automatically create an account for them. Ability to terminate overdue accounts.
- Marketing: Enables you to offer customer discounts and generate coupon codes.
- Customer Support: Helps you offer support via multiple channels, including a ticketing system, email, knowledgebase, and live chat.
- Language support: Offers multiple languages for your clients.
- Currency support: Availability of multiple currencies for flexible payments.
- Reports: Analyzes your data and generates performance reports.
Why You Should Start Looking For WHMCS Alternatives?
WHMCS is a paid billing software that is continuously increasing its prices.
It is an all-in-one solution but there are better-priced platforms out there, offering similar features. So people are looking for cheaper or free WHMCS alternatives.
Conclusion
WHMCS is a favorite among website developers and plugin authors. So you can always expect it to remain up-to-date, feature-rich, and supported by professionals.
Honestly, if you cannot afford $18.95 for 250 clients and are seeking free WHMCS alternatives, you shouldn’t enter the web hosting market.
WHMCS is a fully-featured, well-priced, and reliable billing system. It is a must for the success of any hosting company.
Still, if you’d like to go for a free WHMCS alternative, choose BoxBilling. It is a completely free business management tool. When compared with WHMCS, BoxBilling has a more flexible invoicing system.
You can also consider reseller hosting providers offering free/discounted billing software. It will allow you to use their hosting services and get unlimited WHMCS licenses at low rates.
FAQ (frequently asked questions)
Is there any free Demo version of WHMCS?
No, WHMCS does not offer a free demo version. But a 3rd-party developer has created a demo version of WHMCS which is available here.
Also, it is possible to get a free WHMCS license. HostGator provides it free with its reseller and dedicated hosting plans.