What other options are out there?

We have been a Miva Partner since 1999. This month they decided to try and force their partners to sign a new contract. So the old contract that had pricing as one-time payments for the lease, have changed to where they now want to move ALL Miva accounts to a monthly paid solution. $9/mo/license with discounts for volume. So even after host like us bought the software for our clients, they now wish to shove a monthly fee down our throats. It is all or nothing too. That would add thousands of dollars in fees to us. Worse yet is this is a bad time to do this. My company has catered to small business since '99. Small businesses can not eat more cost to cover this increase and the host should not have to either. So enough with that...

We have spent the last week researching a new solution. Paid software, not open. We have found a few good options that were recommended from some other Miva Host also looking to move. WHT has always been a great resource for finding out what else is out there so I figured it would not hurt to come here too. So what do others offer that is basically 'idiot proof' for a small business owner to manage BUT that has quality support? We are looking for a paid solution so we can get direct support for our clients.

I'm sorry to hear that Miva is doing this - they may improve their profit margin or they may be shooting themselves in the foot.

If it's not greed causing this move (as you mention, saving a sinking ship) then chances are if they didn't do this that there wouldn't be a Miva in the future for you to complain about. If it is greed then I don't know what to say.

I never said it was greed. It is a way for them to try and find profits. The way they are doing it is the BS part in my opinion and out of principal, we will offer something else.

I never said it was greed. It is a way for them to try and find profits. The way they are doing it is the BS part in my opinion and out of principal, we will offer something else.

I didn't say that you said it was greed, I was just saying if it was or was not and the possible reasoning and outcomes of each possibility :)

He didn't say that you said that he said it was greed. :)

What we've done is we've switched everyone to recurring if they want to receive future updates. Essentially end of lifing all of the one time licenses.

We've also priced it in line with all of our competitors and offered credits for recently used one time licenses so as to not "double charge" hosts. While the change was sudden, we've gone out of our way to work with hosts who are willing to work with us.

Miva just sent us this letter. This is how Miva Merchant works with 10 year old partners:

http://www.webintellects.com/company_info/business_partners/MivaLetter.pdf

Notice how they are scaring our clients? Telling them their shopping cart "may stop functioning without warning". Notice how they block even paid support for our clients? Notice how they try to scare our clients to push them on to another host stupid enough to work with a company like Miva? I can not go into more details as we have someone working on a few other things that will be handled in the courts. Once that is done, I will post more details here.

What we've done is we've switched everyone to recurring if they want to receive future updates. Essentially end of lifing all of the one time licenses.

This is a lie. Miva dropped all support and upgrades to product that was sold, under contract, as a one-time fee license. We have emails from them as recent as the end of last year trying to get partners to buy as many licenses as they can and offering discounts. Do you know what happens to those recent licenses that host bought? They are now worthless. (At least until Miva is forced to refund ALL license fees charged to host). Basically they sold one-time licenses. Once host put clients on those licenses, they came around a few months later and try to force monthly fees on top. This is like if you buy Windows Vista outright, use it for a few months, and then find out that it will no longer work unless you now pay a monthly fee on top of the purchase. Remember, these are not old licenses. These are brand new!

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NOTE: If you are a web host that use to sell Miva and you got this same email, please contact me.

Len,

Your last purchase from Miva Merchant was in August of 2008 for 10 licenses at $85 each and prior to that was Octover 2007 for 10 licenses at $99 each, which is long before this business model was even under consideration. So you're suggesting that we're ripping you off on these 20 licenses? 10 of which were bought over 18 months ago?

In addition Len, you never asked for a refund in any of our recent correspondence. Instead you've chosen to go online and defame my company. All you had to do was ask for a refund for the unused licenses and I offered to help you sell your Miva portfolio to a host who was willing to pay for ongoing updates, bug fixes and upgrades.

Instead you've taken the $1,840 you've spent total with my company on licenses in the last 24 months, defamed my company and attempted to make a public show out of a private business matter.

Finally we've been very public about this switch, including doing interviews with both The WHIR and Practical Ecommerce to explain our position and our rationale. This is not greed this is fixing a broken business model.

Rick, don't try and play the victim here and no, this is NOT a "private business matter" when you yourself just said "we've been very public about this switch". What you have been open about is not telling the general public how you are handling those host that have decided to look elsewhere for their clients.

The bottom line is EVRYTHING I have said here is true and can be documented. As I said I have a few other things I can not discuss online right now but you will find out in time on those. I will let people here read your PDF letter and let them decide just how good a company you have when you threaten your old partners, scare their clients, and then try to say you are not responsible for any loss (which you will find out you are) after you panic them to moving to another provider.

By the way, if you are going to use words like "defame", educate yourself on what the definition is. I also highly recommend you go back and research your comments. You are incorrect on a few things you just posted.

This letter is to inform you that as per the price change notification clause in your Miva Merchant Distribution Agreement, our Monthly Software Maintenance fee will increase to $29 per active license per month, effective June 1st, 2012.
Additionally, effective on June 1st, 2012, all customers with less than six licensing accounts will no longer be billed on deposit. Any remaining deposits on file for your account will be credited to your new monthly billing agreement.

These pricing and policy changes are designed to bring our monthly pricing structure in parity with our annual pricing structure, and to streamline our billing processes.