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Donation Store Cloud Announcement

Announcement

Mark Barrett Dec. 10, 2020, 3:45 p.m.

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Today we are delighted to announce what we have been working on for the last couple of months. Things have been a bit quiet recently and we hope this this announcement puts Donation Store on a different path along with what we currently offer.

For quite a while people have asked about if there is going to be a monthly/subscription version of Donation Store. This may be because the initial high price for self hosted seems high to some (more on that shortly). We analysed the market and realised that there is a segment we aren't in. People who want a low monthly price (low upfront), or those who don't care about Self Hosted and don't want to have to setup their own instances etc.

With this segment we also identified that there still is a demand for Self Hosted and those networks that usually go for it don't mind the slightly higher price.

Self Hosted & Hosted

While the base price of Donation Store Hosted might seem quite high to some, the initial cost is only looked at by customers in regard to the utility/tangible value they get out of the product initially. As it is a Self Hosted product, our Support has been at an Enterprise level for these customers. For the most part, we offer 24x7 live chat support (with some delay on the weekends).

This support is usually focused around getting users setup or getting something working for them. 90% of the time the issue is based around a configuration on the server. I.e. something is blocking something (their Cloudflare account is challenging with a JS challenge and when the plugin tries to parse it, it gets HTML), Nginx isn't correctly setup (a step is missed in the install docs), plugin wasn't activated using HTTP instead of HTTPS (request bodies going missing), customers trying to use the installer to run it on Apache etc. etc., the list goes on.

Most of the time, all of these support requests require me to remote into their machine and give them help over voice/chat etc. and it is taking out a huge chunk of my time. For example, a given customer might require 8-10 hours of live support. At minimum wage in Ireland, that's €80.80 - €101 worth of work. Taking into account that a lot of customers get self hosted for less than €150, it makes it difficult to justify. We don't mind offering this level of support, but at the right price.

So whats the plan?

Well, we are delighted to announce Donation Store Cloud. Donation Store, but setup, scaled, secured managed by us. It's a SaaS platform ready to take customers and set their stores up in less than 30 seconds. Whats more, the pricing isn't tiered based on features. There is no Enterprise plan with all the awesome features, everybody gets everything and it starts at just €11 per month based on transaction limits.

So you get everything that Donation Store self hosted offers, but hosted for you.

Plus you get:

Secure - All data encrypted at rest with LUKS and in transit with TLS 1.3
Free SSL certificate for Custom and Default Domains
Built in Template Editor
Marketplace - Built into Donation Store where you can buy 3rd Party and Official Addons and Themes (in Development, coming later)
No setup required - Everything is done by us, get your webstore setup in 30 seconds
Always updated - The latest version of Donation Store always updated and access to beta features before others

What does this mean?

It means that we will offer a hosted option to that part of the market who don't want/don't have any sort of desire to host it themselves and people who don't want to pay a large initial fee won't have to!

Donation Store Self Hosted will remain a product and it will be alongside Cloud always as an option to those customers who want to run it themselves on premises.

What Next?

Donation Store Cloud is nearly ready however it won't be generally available until January 2021. We want to make sure it's just right for everyone! If you want more information or to register your interest please go to our dedicated page for Cloud:

https://donationstore.net/cloud

By registering your interest you are helping us gauge the demand for the product. We will contact you as soon as it becomes available and keep you posted with updates, plus, if you subscribe to a plan on Donation Store Cloud, you will receive some Donation Store Swag (Laptop stickers etc.)

Other Announcements

We aren't done yet! We have two more announcements we want to let everyone in on. First up, a brand new product/addon that we are releasing soon after Donation Store Cloud that will compliment your store super well. (I'm not going to give too much away because I want to have a nice demo and content to show you it when I do). Theres some hints scattered on the Donation Store site, but think of Voting ;) !

Secondly, we have a huge partnership that we will announce soon that will offer Donation Store in another game mode.

More on that soon! If you have any questions, reach out to me on Discord Mark#1031, on our Discord Server or email me: [email protected]. Thanks, Mark

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