Support Plan price increased from $195 to $395?

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   I just noticed that the price for the ProductCart Support & Updates Plan increased from $195 per year to $395 per year.

Are there any new features of the Support Plan? What is the reason for this price increase? Has new value been added to the plan?

We were planning to reactivate our support plan and upgrade to the newest version. However, after seeing the price increase I have to wonder if the cost of running a ProductCart store will continue to increase, and if we'd be better off moving to a different platform at this time.

We are at a point where we need to upgrade our storefront, so either way we're looking at a lot of development work re-integrating our various customizations and implementing the new version. This time could be spent upgrading ProductCart, or moving our store over to a different platform.

I was pretty much set on upgrading ProductCart, but after noticing this price increase, I have to wonder if this is the best course of action.

What new functionality and features have been added to the support plan to justify the price increase? As far as I know, the plan still provides the same features, which include upgrades to the newest version as well as the ability to submit support tickets. What new value has been added to the support plan for this new and higher price?

Why should we pay this higher support fee rather than switching to a different platform? At this point we're looking at many hours of work either way, whether that time is spent upgrading ProductCart or migrating to a different platform.

Of course I'd like to stick with ProductCart, but if the intention of NetSource is to begin increasing the prices for the same services, then I have to wonder if we're only going to see more price increases in the future.

If this price increase is justified by some new functionality or features being added to the support plan, then I could understand, but if we're essentially being charged twice as much for the same plan, then not so much.

The plan has always included updates to the latest version of ProductCart, so "the new version of the cart includes many more features" would not be a sufficient justification for the price increase in my opinion. Historically, new versions of ProductCart have always included new features, so this is nothing new.

Additionally, although ProductCart continues to be updated, the technology on which it is built (ASP) continues to age, so I can't help but feel like we may be better served in switching to a new platform built on modern web technologies.

Why should we pay the increased Support Plan fee? Why should we stick with ProductCart?

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Brett Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 22-April-2008 Location: Phoenix, AZ Status: Offline Points: 89	Post Options Post Reply Quote Brett Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Support Plan price increased from $195 to $395? Posted: 22-April-2014 at 8:19pm
	I just noticed that the price for the ProductCart Support & Updates Plan increased from $195 per year to $395 per year. Are there any new features of the Support Plan? What is the reason for this price increase? Has new value been added to the plan? We were planning to reactivate our support plan and upgrade to the newest version. However, after seeing the price increase I have to wonder if the cost of running a ProductCart store will continue to increase, and if we'd be better off moving to a different platform at this time. We are at a point where we need to upgrade our storefront, so either way we're looking at a lot of development work re-integrating our various customizations and implementing the new version. This time could be spent upgrading ProductCart, or moving our store over to a different platform. I was pretty much set on upgrading ProductCart, but after noticing this price increase, I have to wonder if this is the best course of action. What new functionality and features have been added to the support plan to justify the price increase? As far as I know, the plan still provides the same features, which include upgrades to the newest version as well as the ability to submit support tickets. What new value has been added to the support plan for this new and higher price? Why should we pay this higher support fee rather than switching to a different platform? At this point we're looking at many hours of work either way, whether that time is spent upgrading ProductCart or migrating to a different platform. Of course I'd like to stick with ProductCart, but if the intention of NetSource is to begin increasing the prices for the same services, then I have to wonder if we're only going to see more price increases in the future. If this price increase is justified by some new functionality or features being added to the support plan, then I could understand, but if we're essentially being charged twice as much for the same plan, then not so much. The plan has always included updates to the latest version of ProductCart, so "the new version of the cart includes many more features" would not be a sufficient justification for the price increase in my opinion. Historically, new versions of ProductCart have always included new features, so this is nothing new. Additionally, although ProductCart continues to be updated, the technology on which it is built (ASP) continues to age, so I can't help but feel like we may be better served in switching to a new platform built on modern web technologies. Why should we pay the increased Support Plan fee? Why should we stick with ProductCart?

gpetry Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 12-February-2014 Location: Ocala, FL Status: Offline Points: 8	Post Options Post Reply Quote gpetry Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 22-April-2014 at 9:55pm
	Brett - In March, we changed the price of the annual support and updates plan from $195 to $295 per year if you have a current support and updates plan. If your plan has lapsed, to bring your software back on support and updates is $395 for the first year and $295 for renewals. The reasons for this are two fold. First, the $195 price was no longer sustainable - we are doing more updates and in particular, security and shipping modules are changing very rapidly right now, necessitating more patches and support than ever before. Support and update revenues help us not only support the existing product, but also to move the product forward. As far as the charges to bring a product back on support, we didn't believe that it was fair to the customers who continued to support us year in and year out and who keep their product up to date to pay the same rate as customers who only chose to update when they had to. While you are correct that previous new versions of ProductCart have always included new features, I can tell you that ProductCart 5 is the single largest update of the software since it was created 12 years ago. It includes more upgrades and new features than any other previous release of ProductCart. In the past year, we have rewritten 40-50% of the code, completely changing and modernizing the way ProductCart works. It now supports fully responsive design - Tableless with HTML 5 and CSS3. The mobile module that was previously an add-on is now included. All design elements are now separate from the logic code - This will make it much easier to create beautiful designs that are easy to upgrade in the future - something that has not always been easy to do in ProductCart. There are a host of other new features as well. If you would like to see a PDF of some of the new features of ProductCart 5, you can find it here: http://www.productcart.com/pdf/ProductCart5-Features.pdf While it may seem that it would be just as easy to switch as to upgrade, remember that a switch usually involves losing all of your historical data which is a big deal for most store owners. It is usually far more work than most people can imagine. I can also tell you that having worked with several other storefronts, that we never found one that worked as well overall as ProductCart - one of the reasons that I bought the company a year ago. As far as ASP being an aging technology, while the core has not been changed for some time, it is stable and robust. There is not much that you need to do with a shopping application that you can't do in ASP. In fact, at least one of the major hosted shopping applications is still based on an ASP core (even though they work real hard to hide it) Why? Because it works. We develop in both Classic ASP and ASP.net at NetSource and I can tell you from experience that the vast majority of projects can be done in either environment with very little difference in the outcome. We expect ProductCart 5 to ship in the the first half of May. We have done extended Beta testing and are now doing final Release Candidate testing on several live stores. I believe the wait will be worth it - this is an extremely exciting time for us as we fully believe that ProductCart will once again move to the top of the heap for ecommerce software. And, we already have a full list of features that didn't make it into 5 that will go into 5.1. We'll start development on that later this summer! Greg Petry President NetSource Commerce