What is WHMCS?

  • Automates billing, provisioning and support
  • Licensed separately from your hosting
  • Runs on ordinary PHP and MySQL hosting

The software that bills, provisions and supports a hosting business

WHMCS is commercial software that web hosting businesses use to automate the parts of the job that are not hosting: taking the order, raising the invoice, creating the account on the server, registering the domain and answering the ticket. The name comes from Web Host Manager Complete Solution. If you are starting a hosting or reseller business, it is the piece that turns a server into a company.

See managed WHMCS hosting

The four jobs WHMCS actually does

Each one is something a hosting business otherwise does by hand, every time.

What it replaces

Billing and invoicing

Recurring invoices on whatever cycle you sell - monthly, annual, biennial - with tax rules, reminders, overdue suspension and the payment gateway attached. This is the reason most people buy it: chasing renewals by hand stops being possible somewhere around the fiftieth customer.

Provisioning

When an order is paid, WHMCS tells the server to create the account and emails the customer their details. With cPanel, Plesk or DirectAdmin behind it, a hosting order completes with nobody touching it. Without this you are creating accounts manually at whatever hour the order arrives.

Domain registration

Registrar modules let a customer search, register, transfer and renew a domain in the same basket as their hosting, and the renewal invoices follow automatically. The alternative is reselling domains out of a separate registrar account and reconciling two systems.

Support and the client area

One login where a customer sees their invoices, services, domains and tickets, and one queue where your team answers them. The client area is the part your customers think of as "your website", which is why it is usually branded to match.

What it costs you, and when not to use it

The honest half. WHMCS is the default rather than the only answer, and it is not free.

Before you commit to it

The licence is a separate purchase

WHMCS is commercial software, licensed per installation and bought before you install it. That is a running cost on top of hosting, and it is the single thing that surprises people who assumed it came with the server. Check the current price with WHMCS directly - it changes, and any figure quoted on a third-party page is a figure that will be out of date.

It needs a server that is set up for it

The official requirement is an environment with PHP and MySQL, which ordinary hosting provides. In practice the things that break an install are the ones nobody checks first: a cron job that never runs, a PHP extension the installer wants, or a loader the licence check needs. This is most of what "managed WHMCS hosting" means.

Versions reach end of life

WHMCS publishes supported versions with end-of-life dates, and an unsupported install stops getting security fixes while still holding every customer card detail and address you have. Staying current is not optional maintenance here.

It is too much for a handful of clients

If you have five customers you invoice once a year, WHMCS is more machinery than the job needs and the licence is a cost against no saving. It earns its keep when the admin would otherwise take real hours - roughly when renewals stop fitting in your head.

WHMCS: common questions

WHMCS is commercial billing and automation software for web hosting businesses. It takes the order, raises recurring invoices, creates the hosting account on the server, registers and renews domains, and runs the support desk and client area. Hosting companies, resellers and anyone selling a recurring service on servers use it so those steps happen without a person doing them.

The name comes from Web Host Manager Complete Solution - Web Host Manager being WHM, the cPanel server control panel it was originally built to automate. The product is now known simply as WHMCS, and it works with Plesk and DirectAdmin as well as cPanel.

Four things, in practice: recurring billing and invoicing with the payment gateway attached; automatic provisioning, so a paid order creates the account on the server by itself; domain registration, transfer and renewal through registrar modules; and support ticketing with a client area where customers see their invoices, services and domains in one place.

You need a licence, and it is not normally included. WHMCS is licensed per installation and bought before you install it. Some hosts bundle a licence with particular reseller plans, so it is worth asking rather than assuming either way. Prices come from WHMCS and change, so check with them for the current figure.

Blesta, HostBill and Clientexec are the established commercial alternatives, and FOSSBilling is the main open-source option. They differ mainly in licence cost, how many provisioning and registrar modules exist for them, and how much third-party module development there is. WHMCS has the largest module ecosystem, which is usually the deciding factor - if you need an integration, someone has probably already built it for WHMCS.

Usually yes - it needs PHP and MySQL, which standard hosting provides. The practical requirements are the ones that catch people out: a working cron job, the PHP extensions the installer checks for, and whatever the licence check needs. Hosting sold specifically as WHMCS hosting has those configured already, which is the difference you are paying for.

Where to go next

Plans and the practical pages behind the explanation above.

See managed WHMCS hosting