vBulletin has release one of its most awaited product vBulletin Publishing Suite with new licensing terms which is proving to be very confusing and so here I am with lots of clarification.
First whats the licensing terms and I quote from the official thread
Beginning today, we are introducing new a license structure. vBulletin is changing to a one-time owned license fee for each major point release. That means no more annual renewal fees. Once you purchase a major point version, you’ll receive maintenance, security and minor point releases for the life of 4.x.
You have the option to keep your current active license until it expires (according to the 12 month term and conditions). For the remainder of your active license, you will continue to receive support and have access to forum software updates, including vBulletin 4.0 Forums. Once your license expires you will only be able to access the 4 Series software updates by switching to the new one-time owned license.
Now what does this new licensing terms means.
- If you are new vBulletin Customer you can purchase either vBulletin Forum for $195 or vBulletin Publishing Suite ( which also have a forum as a product ) for $235 ( Discount of $50 for pre-ordering )
- If you are an existing vBulletin customer with an active vBulletin license then your vBulletin Forum upgrade would be free and vBulletin Suite is offered it at 50% discount i.e. $130.
- If you are an existing vBulletin customer with an inactive vBulletin license then your vBulletin Forum upgrade pricing information is still not available but vBulletin Suite is offered at $250 i.e. no discount.
If you are not bothered about vBulletin Suite but is only looking for vBulletin classic forum, then you would get 4.0 classic forum and future upgrades not based on 1 year upgrade terms as it used to be but based on major version series i.e. you would get all the vBulletin 4.x versions but not 5.x when its released and you may need to purchase an upgrade.
- If you have an active license for vBulletin 3.x forum you would get 4.0 when its released without paying for upgrade and then the new licensing terms would take effect.
- If you have an inactive license then you can upgrade when 4.0 is released.
The new pricing as I can sense for the new version of vBulletin publishing suite at $285 $235 is actually quite cheap because it includes forum which is anyway $195 now and also contains blogs and other endless CMS features. vbblog used to be at $60 and so the older pricing of vBulletin forum + vbblog was bundled at $240 which is currently at $235 now but after the pre-order would go up to $285 which is acceptable given the list of endless features.
If you have more queries post them in the comments and I would try to clarify them and in the process understand the terms better.
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