Enterprise Spam Mitigation - $200 a year... really?

[IPTV]

Hi Guys...

Very much like you all and what you do. When I read about the new "Enterprise Spam Mitigation", I started to think..."Great, they are again making the product better. Nice Guys!" But then I read it was $100 for 6 months....$200 a year if you will. (Not even sure why you do things in 6 month runs other than to make the price look smaller.)

The added cost for this, and then that, and this other thing is really getting to be a turn off to use your platform. It adds up very quickly. Heck, can't even offer club subscriptions without paying for another module add-on to do it. (Nexus) Even today that add-on still has issues with how it is done with making an invoice that no one asked to be made in the first place foe a renewal. (Thousands of unpaid invoices made for renewals does not make for good accounting.) So many other things that should be right with your software and yet you choose to roll out a Add-On that does not do much and charge that much for it.

All in all, $200 a year just to try to help cut down on spam registrations. Wow. It is already costing me $100 "every 6 months" ($200 a year) just for the services I have. This simple spam registration check would be an additional $200 a year!

It's takes a lot for me to post something like this....So to me, this surely was something that made me go..."Come on guys!"

Thank you for listening and I hope you reconsider your charges.

[AndyF]

You have to bear in mind its additional control and / or 'fine tuning' for those who require it, and as such imo a good idea for those that require it. Its not compulsory. :smile:

Allow me to quote a reply from the comments on the Blog entry itself as Mark has summed it up:

Saiga, et al:-

We don't think spammers should cost communities extra, so the IPS Spam Monitoring Service is completely free to all IPS customers with active product licenses. Back in June we [url=

a number of great enhancements to the service including performance enhancements and integration with useful services like Project Honeypot and Stop Forum Spam. These new features were added completely free of charge to help your community fight the threat of spam more rigorously and more reliably than ever before.

The way the service works is we tie each license key to the calling server (so that one license key cannot be exploited to be used to access the service across multiple sites). While this works great for the majority of our customers, it is not suitable for those on load-balanced environments which need multiple-server access for one license key. This new service is specifically for those communities, and is not designed to appeal to the majority of communities.

Due to the way it works, it allows those that have it to have a little more control over the weighting which is otherwise not possible. This is also not necessary for most communities as the default weighting of the service has been carefully tuned to catch as many spammers as possible, and it works really well, catching over 25 million spammers from registering across IPS communities to date. Though since we can, we decided to throw these options in to this package. We are definitely not removing any features from the software or trying to get you to buy something extra.

The IPS Spam Monitoring Service continues to be free and we will continue to make enhancements as we have done [url=

[url=

[url=

.

I hope that clears things up - sorry the blog entry didn't make all of that completely clear. As always, if you have any further questions, concerns or suggestions, please get in touch.

[IPTV]

Andy...Come on, $200 a year. Their is no way to really justify that amount. It is a piece of code that sets thresholds. It is not like it cost you all any more to use features that the 3rd party providers already have in place. You have totally missed the the point.

One of the complaints I have seen over and over is that the spam protection service, that we pay for mind you as we have to renew to have it, really was poor. So these other services were added into the mix to make it better. Great! (We had it via a plugin anyway.) But now the choice as made to put in code as a slider to set limits and also a whitelist and call it a new add-on product.....for $200. WOW.

Thanks, again for the reply. But all this tells me really is that if I need to run on more than one server...I really then need to spend another $200 a year.

As mentioned, it is just adding up and not right to do when you have products that we pay for that still are not right.

SIDE NOTE...I posted this here vs in the blog post as here others will see it. I for one did not even click to the blog post as I am sure other who read here have not either.

Thanks

[AndyF]

The title is 'Enterprise' so it may be aimed towards higher end clients anyway who require said adjustments. :smile: That's how I read it, and also perhaps client who just need a bit more control.

The Spam service combined with KeyCaptcha and possibly a few QA challenge questions is quite strong in a default install imo.

MP Mods are not staff so I am speaking as a client anyway.

I'm sure a member of Staff or Management will follow up on this topic in the week however.

[MarcusH]

Andy...Come on, $200 a year. Their is no way to really justify that amount. It is a piece of code that sets thresholds. It is not like it cost you all any more to use features that the 3rd party providers already have in place. You have totally missed the the point.

One of the complaints I have seen over and over is that the spam protection service, that we pay for mind you as we have to renew to have it, really was poor. So these other services were added into the mix to make it better. Great! (We had it via a plugin anyway.) But now the choice as made to put in code as a slider to set limits and also a whitelist and call it a new add-on product.....for $200. WOW.

Thanks, again for the reply. But all this tells me really is that if I need to run on more than one server...I really then need to spend another $200 a year.

As mentioned, it is just adding up and not right to do when you have products that we pay for that still are not right.

SIDE NOTE...I posted this here vs in the blog post as here others will see it. I for one did not even click to the blog post as I am sure other who read here have not either.

Thanks

Honestly I don't bother with IPS Spam Service, its ok, but Stop Forum Spam plugin works a lot better. I have used that on my board 12,436 Total Members and only 30 are banned, and only 5 of them were spammers, rest were banned for breaking rules.

Edit: Then again I haven't used the spam service for the last year and a half, could have been improved since then, but I am currently sticking to StopForumSpam.

[Rhett]

As clearly stated above in the post by Mark W. The enterprise spam service is for our enterprise type clients that are running in a clustered setup, it specifically has a main purpose of allowing full function of the spam service with a multiple server setup, this is the primary use for this service. The recent announcement of enhancing this service comes at no upgraded charge to the enterprise spam service.

To be extra clear, we have not changed the spam service that is included with the board, you can continue to use this just as you have been, this is only for the enterprise spam service, if you don't have that package, then this does not effect you in any way.

[IPTV]

Totally understand that we do not HAVE to use it, and that NOTHING ELSE has changed. What you all need to understand is how this all comes off to the readers and users. I do not know the business model for sure, but I am willing to bet that "Enterprise" type clients are not your normal users and make up for a very small percent of your installed base. As such, such the release of such an announcement at such a price, comes off very poorly. And as I have now seen in the blog post, making my above post before I had seen it mind you, I am clearly not wrong.

If I was to use this product, it would actually DOUBLE my cost. That is how poor that price point is and the message sent. It is not like you are buying more connections for and Enterprise client to use the spam service that would make for such a price.

All in all, IMHO, it was a very poor message that was sent. You all should be helping in such areas seeing you develop and sell community software where spam attacks are the most common on the net. That is what makes you more appealing to the users and new potential clients. What you have done here, IMHO, is just sent a message that "We will be starting to nickel and dime you." But in this case...it is MUCH HIGHER. I never even liked the 6 month thing as it just seems to be a way to make the price look lower than it is.

Sure charge extra for some actual services etc as add on's that took you a great deal of time to develop. (Even though in the case of Nexus is just poor when it comes to accounting etc and needs fixing.) However this type of item really does not seem to be something that you should be charging at all for. Using your same thoughts...Doing such work that will affect such a small percent of your clients does not really seem right like the best move. However doing the work to improve the product for most of your installed base surely is. It appears 3 things were done. A slider and lists. (Even the plugin your can add give you settings for how strong you want to check things out....So this is not anything you all made up.)

It was at first a good feeling to see something added even with ver 4 being worked on. But then to see that price just came off as a money grab for something that should be part of such a system.

For your enterprise clients with such special needs, you need a special division and thus can charge for special items etc. Oh wait, you do that and did that.

And yes, I come from a place that used to run 10 servers to run a community. It surely is not that I do not "get it". When you owned, built, and developed sites that seen 4 million unique visitors a month and had over 1 million registrations, you attract a lot of spammer attention. You know what, I never once had to PAY for spammer registration protection.

You want to add deeper spam service protection? Then look into partnering with services that check post content for spam for those spammers that are able to register and post. Even WordPress does that for free. Every new comment posted on a blog entry, from a new poster, is checked for spam before it is posted. But I still would not pay $200 a year for it.

Thanks guys....

David Bott

Founder - AVSForum.com, DBSTalk.com, TiVoCommunity.com, Home Theater Cruise, LLC, DBNet Consulting, LLC

Advisory Board - Prelaunch.com

Personally responsible for helping to connect over 5 million unique enthusiasts a month.

[.Ian]

At the end of the day servers and staff have to be paid.

I guess costs are going up as copyright removal is now $500 and the discounts for multiple licences and for apps purchased along with a licence have all been removed.

I think that if you are the sort of user that requires these additional services then $200 a year is not going to affect the bank balance too much.

As long as this is not the start of increased prices for V4 then I am not too worried.

What is relatively cheap are the renewal costs for support and updates and so therefore everything including the extra service announced in the blog has to be taken into context, which incidentally is not a new service anyway.

It would be nice that, instead for charging $200 per year per licence, if that was $200 a year per account. I can see a much higher take up if such a service could be used by multiple licences that a company or individual might own, and I doubt it would increase the costs to IPS much, whilst at the same time bring in extra revenue.

[DawPi]

I guess costs are going up as copyright removal is now $500

500$ for a copyright removal?! Really?

the discounts for multiple licences and for apps purchased along with a licence have all been removed.

It's sad. Very sad. What's happening here? :cry:

[.Ian]

500$ for a copyright removal?! Really?

It's sad. Very sad. What's happening here? :cry:

That is what my client area said when I looked at a renewal.

However I guess the truth of the matter is that IPS would rather people did not buy it - it is one item that anyone with a pirate copy will remove.

So that price does not worry me.

They have also said that if you are purchasing multiple copies at once to contact sales, so that option is probably there for large purchases but not for adding an extra licence or two.

[Misi]

500$ for a copyright removal?! Really?

It's sad. Very sad. What's happening here? :cry:

V 4 is not for sale yet, takes a long time to develop.

Staff have to be paid from something.

[Lindy]

It's worth noting that the spam service itself is provided as a free value add to active licenses. Perhaps you're not aware that every registration of every active licensed IPS community cross-checks our network for the spam mitigation (provided the admin has it enabled, of course.) Naturally, there's a real cost involved in maintaining such a popular and to many, critical service. We absorb that cost as part of your license fees -- as well as development and operational costs, including support.

We work hard at maintaining fair and competitive pricing and our base renewal of $25 has not changed literally in years, while we have continued to pile on additional value to the fee. There's obviously a limit and we have indeed made a recent shift away from underselling ourselves, while still remaining competitive on a core level. Does this mean we exist for the purpose of "money grabs" and "nickel and diming?" No, the implication is as silly as it is insulting. We are, however, a strong, ever-evolving company with employees, families, operational and development costs, etc. We're also a company that heavily reinvests in its products, services and in turn, our customers.

Items such as the advanced spam mitigation and cloud options are not necessarily intended to target hobbyists; copyright removal is not intended to be attractive and thus they are not priced as such.

I'm sorry you felt shunned by our blog entry. I don't agree with your sentiment, but appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts nonetheless.

[Justin™]

Seems to me IPS has taken the vB approach, screw the non corporate users as much as you can.

[Farcaster II]

Seems to me IPS has taken the vB approach, screw the non corporate users as much as you can.

I disagree.

1. IPS delivers quality products.

2. It seems that IPS doesn't deliver half baked stuff, with more then 1/2 of the features from the previous version missing (like the jump from vB3 to vB4 and then vB4 to vB5)

3. I tend to agree with

Items such as the advanced spam mitigation and cloud options are not necessarily intended to target hobbyists; copyright removal is not intended to be attractive and thus they are not priced as such.

[Hexsplosions]

Seems to me IPS has taken the vB approach, screw the non corporate users as much as you can.

They add a corporate service for corporate customers with a corporate price tag and tell you that your own spam service remains unaffected, but they're screwing you? I want whatever you are taking, it must be potent stuff.

I've been a licence holder for a few years now and the suite is incredibly good value, under the old pricing structure and the current one.

[ADKGamers]

They add a corporate service for corporate customers with a corporate price tag and tell you that your own spam service remains unaffected, but they're screwing you? I want whatever you are taking, it must be potent stuff.

I've been a licence holder for a few years now and the suite is incredibly good value, under the old pricing structure and the current one.

I feel it's the entitlement society that seems to be coming out of the woodwork. I know some people might find that comment offensive but seriously. . it's a NEW SERVICE that is more directed at LARGE ENTERPRISES. So to the people who are complaining, are the folks at IPS not allowed to advertise products for large enterprises and they have to keep all of that stuff hidden?

As multiple people have said your current spam service isn't changing. So why complain? You're more than welcome to purchase the new service they are offering, but if you don't want to pay for the service then don't purchase it. They aren't forcing you to buy it and nothing has changed for you. I'm not certain what there is to complain about here.

Also if I'm not mistaken it did say "Enterprise Spam Mitigation" in the title. . sooooo if you're not in that bracket of things, why even go read it if you're just going to complain? Maybe I should start going around to a bunch of websites that offer "Enterprise Services" and say 'it's too expensive' or that 'I bet that the enterprise type customers aren't their normal user base' since I'd like to use it but it's out of my price range.

[.Ian]

Seems to me IPS has taken the vB approach, screw the non corporate users as much as you can.

That has never been the truth and never will be, I am sure.

[IPTV]

Lindy...

Thank you for taking the time to step into this thread. The issue at hand here is not trying to make money, it is the way the message came off that really got me going. I did not read it an really geared towards the enterprise customer, even though the title have enterprise in it, It came off as "look at the great additions we made to helping you with spam." and then ended up saying, it will cost you $200 a year.

Sure you have server costs. I have looked at you hosting service plans even and I can say that I was even shocked by that cost. (I know that is being reconsidered on how you do that pricing. So that is great.) So to say you needed to charge that amount of money for additional spam "Settings" just seemed out of line to what you do.

Seeing you had to stop into this thread and even the blog post to try to remake the point, clearly the message came out wrong. You have a lot of people that voiced their opinion on this.

Maybe "Nickel and Dime" was the wrong wording, put the point is valid. The price cost for the "add on" product hardly seems to be inline and does seem to clearly send the wrong message and a massage that may have others starting to look away or reconsidering a new purchase.

I continue to back you and Invision of Vb, but when someone I recommend comes to me and says "Dave, you have to pay $200 for spam protection?", it made me wonder what others were thinking. I knew nothing about it until I received that message and that s when I actually looked and had seen the announcement posted. (Not the blog post.)

Looking forward to see what may come out of V4, as that surely is something that can rocket you up or, as we have see, have people looking elsewhere.

Take care, keep safe, and hope you get out on the road.

Personal Side Note...We went full time last July...currently in TX and are awaiting a new TIffin Allegro Bus 45LP that we ordered and will be on site for the build of it in February. No issue working on the road...Even kicking off a new startup at CES... http://Prelaunch.com .

[bfarber]

We should just summarize here. :)

You don't have to pay ANYTHING, at all, for spam protection above and beyond keeping your license active. We through that in as a free value-add, as Lindy mentioned. This is a built in feature which many of our competitors do not have any solution for in-house (you must rely on third party addons to accomplish the same thing).

If you have a load-balanced cluster setup, our regular spam service will not work for you because we tie your license to your IP address (to prevent fraud). In this case, we offer an Enterprise spam service which allows you more IP addresses per license to cover this situation. For these clients with this very specific need, we have an offering. And if you are in this situation and have purchased our Enterprise spam service (which has been available for several months now mind you), we have just *completed* the features we advised would be available back when we first announced the Enterprise spam service. These aren't really new features we're putting out - they're features we promised months ago that have simply just been finalized and put live.

Please see the original announcement, where we mentioned these features and the new service, from June: '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>>

As I said...this blog entry simply was to let those who needed this service and purchased this service know that the features have been made available, which was recently >brought up and asked about.

[ᴡᴅツ]

Enterprise (n):

1. An undertaking, especially one of some scope, complication, and risk.

2. A business organization.

3. Industrious, systematic activity, especially when directed toward profit: Private enterprise is basic to capitalism.

4. Willingness to undertake new ventures; initiative:

The enterprise service amounts to <$17 a month. Is your argument:

(A) This is not an enterprise service?

(B) This is an enterprise service, but is too expensive for an enterprise customer

[C] ...something else?

500$ for a copyright removal?! Really?

It's sad. Very sad. What's happening here? :cry:

I find that disappointing (more so the copyright removal than the discounts, although the discounts option was a smart move -removing it might not be). I believe copyright removal used to be $180, then $275. Now if it is truly hiked up to $500, that's rather....high. $275 was reasonable for the average consumer segment. Might as well charge $999999999 for copyright removal for the ultimate financial deterrance! >_<

[ᴡᴅツ]

I disagree.

1. IPS delivers quality products.

2. It seems that IPS doesn't deliver half baked stuff, with more then 1/2 of the features from the previous version missing (like the jump from vB3 to vB4 and then vB4 to vB5)

3. I tend to agree with

Actually, IP.Nexus was somewhat "half" baked at times when it had, critical (IMO), show stopping bugs (bugs that interferred with the checkout and shopping process).

[Matt]

Thanks for all your comments and concerns. It seems that the message has got somewhat confused.

Here's a quick run down.

• We offer spam mitigation as part of your active license for no extra cost.
• We have always offered enterprise spam mitigation that allows you to use the service in a multiple-server environment.
• The recent blog entry talks about new tools we've added to the enterprise spam mitigation tool.

We are not trying to force you into purchasing something that you do not need.

The software you are using is written by an independent company that is still run by its founders over a decade on. We have a very talented and enthusiastic team who toil daily to make software we are proud of. We charge a very fair price for this software and a very fair price for technical support should you need it. Over the years, we've built up a good reputation and we're used by a lot of larger communities. We offer services tailored towards these customers and we've always done so.

I simply won't entertain comparisons with our down trodden competitors or accusations of greed.

[GreenLinks]

Hello Matt ,

Your intensions may not be bad however when you are a customer and you are sitting on the other side of the table things don't look good.

1. Agree with all others copyright removal is way too expensive. No other script has similar costs just for copyright removal. Allowing customers to define their branding Should not be this expensive.

2. What ever intensions you have with Spam service is out of my concern but IPB is already the most expensive script out there. It costs nearly twice compared to vBulletin and Xenforo.

3. You were suppose to be working on IPB 4 , thats what all customers expect however instead you are putting out a service where no one needs and IPB 4 is delayed , many of IPB 4 information is still unknown et..

Blaming customers is the easiest way , i hope you'll not try to follow the vBulletin route but you need to start listening to how things are seen from other side of the table.

IPB is becoming an expensive script , i personally have no issue with that but many of your customers may. Thats why you guys need to re evaluate your priorities.

[Matt]

Thanks for replying.

I'm a little confused on your thoughts that we're more expensive. A quick look around our competitors shows:

IP.Board: $175 (or free for an active license to upgrade from previous versions)

Ticket support included for 6 months, renews at $25/6 months and comes with spam service and visual skin editor

Running costs: $175 initially, then $50 a year.

vB5: $249 (or $209 to upgrade from vB4)

That comes with forum support. If you want actual ticket support, that's $199 a year extra.

Running costs: $448 ($249 + $199) initially then $199 a year.

Also, upgrading between major versions requires a license re-purchase.

xenForo: $140 (+VAT @ 20% for EU customers which is $168)

This comes with 12 months ticket support renewable at $40/year afterwards (+ VAT @ 20% for EU customers which is $48)

So while xenForo comes out a little cheaper, it does not have the spam mitigation service, visual skin editing and isn't as feature rich or mature as IP.Board. Neither do you have the option of official add-ons such as the blog, gallery, CMS and cart software.

This underlines my point that we charge a fair price for what we offer.

Regarding "you should be working on IPS 4 and not anything else"; I certainly appreciate the business advice, but we allocate developer resources where they're needed and it doesn't impact our work on IPS 4.

[GreenLinks]

When you compare vBulletin price , don't forget that it is a complete package. You don't need to buy/renew CMS , Blog etc as additional options.