IdoSell subscribtion plans - FAQ

The subscription fee has been precisely calculated, is based on the cost of operating the store, and therefore is non-negotiable. Please note that a discount is already included in the price list - it takes the form of a falling cost of each gigabyte of data transferred according to the size of the data transfer growth (CLOUD). The largest stores can choose to subscribe to a plan with a dedicated virtual server (DEDICATED CLOUD) - these subscriptions plans do not have transfer limits.

There is also a discount for increasing the number of shops you own - every additional shop you add to the existing plan costs you only £6,25 / 7,5€ per month.

This is quite a common question directed to us by potential customers who often are not very familiar with such terms as SaaS (Software as a Service), or ASP (Application Service Provider). While avoiding to pay a subscription fee is not possible, it is important to understand the benefits of 'renting' our software.

We should start by explaining what IdoSell really is. It is not just a simple application, as in the case of most off the shelf products, but an entire platform built around various sub-systems, whose only purpose is to make your business very efficient at selling on the internet.

With an IdoSell subscription you receive:

• An always current, automatically updated version of the best e-commerce software, fully equipped to run an on-line store, adapted to rapidly changing conditions
• New functionality introduced by our Development Department - automatically installed on your system at no additional cost
• Advisory services and technical support
• Bug fixing, maintenance, graphic design and custom feature programming services
• Access to shared server resources or a dedicated server plan;
• Access to a big family of software that helps integrate your shop with external accounting, warehouse management systems, data sources, point-of-sale terminals etc.

All these services and more, carried out by experienced professionals, are the biggest cost factor influencing subscription fee amounts in our company. If a business were to offer lifetime upgrades to their software, together with professional technical support and additional services free of charge – let's be honest – it would not stay on the market for too long. To ensure we are able to deliver the highest quality of service to you, for the most attractive price, our fees have been meticulously calculated and split into monthly instalments.

Please note that by signing up for IdoSell, you do not pay for the software, but for individual services. The actual store functionality remains the same, whether you decide to go for the STANDARD implementation package, where the cost is £149 / 169€ net (you do not pay for the shop template) - or the Sophisticated package - where you pay for the professional shop template design and custom functionality programming services. The activation fee covers the costs of installing and preparing the system (and all other activities related to the shop's implementation, not related to the template). An equivalent off the shelf system could cost you hundreds of thousands of euros up front, in addition to monthly technical support and maintenance costs, that could run into thousands. Not to mention that Idosell Shop can be ready to use in a matter of few hours.

For these reasons and more, ability to use the IdoSell software for only a small monthly fee gives you a great advantage. No other solution offers so much for so little.

Of course, for more information, see the DEDICATED CLOUD section on the subscription plans page.

IdoSell stores are, by default, created with a standard CLOUD subscription plan. Upgrade to a dedicated server can be performed via the Administration Panel.

IdoSell can be installed on a dedicated virtual server - through the DEDICATED CLOUD subscription plan. A great advantage of this solution is a 100% guarantee of reliability and performance, and comprehensive technical support. All this at a low, flat cost – we do not charge you for bandwidth, number of products, or sales. It is the most cost effective way of running an online store.

Yes – you can make a downpayment on your account - the balance can be used for subscription fees and our range of services (refer to the pricelist).

You cannot, however, strictly reserve part of, or the entirety of your account balance for specific fees, like subscription. Your account balance will be charged automatically whenever any payments are due.

If you would like to make a downpayment for future fees, contact our Finance Department. You should specify the amount you would like to pre-pay, and we will add it to the next invoice. Then, until your pre-paid balance is depleted, you will not receive additional invoices from us.

All fees will be charged to the pre-paid balance according to the current month's pricelist.

All fees are included in the price list. There are no other charges than those listed. Fees can be divided into following categories:

• Installation – charged only once, when first setting up the store (when the IdoSell Administration Panel is created)
• Subscription - paid in accordance to the subscription plan chosen, it is charged monthly, pro-rata. So if you start using our services in the middle of a calendar month, you will only be charged for the remaining days.
• Additional - calculated in accordance with the price list. They can be divided into three groups:
  • Charged automatically - for exceeding the transfer limit or the number of products, resulting from limitations of the basic subscription plan (CLOUD). These fees are calculated automatically on the date when the limit has been exceeded. These fees will not be charged for subsequent subscription periods, unless the limits are exceeded again. In reality, it usually means that your costs will only be higher when you store produces higher income.
  • Charged once - ad hoc fees for different services, e.g. creation of an unique shop template or programming work
  • Charged on the user's request – in addition to thesubscription fee, or on the date of service activation - these are fees for optional modules or services, calculated separately for each store. For example – fee for an additional e-mail account.

A site visit is a registered connection with the Service, which can include viewing of multiple pages, over a span of one hour, for one IP address. It is calculated based on web server logs. Visits are also calculated for each order placed via marketplaces or Amazon - 1 order = 20 visits.

An API call is a web request sent to our open programming interface. It is normally used by external programs communicating with our service.

We recommend that stores with a large number of site visits, or API calls, consider subscribing to one of the DEDICATED CLOUD plans, which do not impose any limits on those.

Unlike some hosting providers, we only charge for outgoing traffic, i.e. what generates the shop's income. We do not charge for incoming traffic (which is great, if you have thousands of pictures to upload), or traffic generated by other web services (e.g. e-mail).

More importantly, we do not charge for traffic generated by search engine robots, e.g. Google, Yahoo, MSN and thousands of others. This can be as much as 30% of the shop's traffic.

Traffic statistics are generated once per day, based on web server event logs, and are made available to you. In the shop's administration panel you also have access to other statistics, such as number of unique store visits, number of requests, statistics for search engines and many others.

If you are wondering whether the traffic limits available with a subscription plan are sufficient for you, check the statistics of your existing corporate website or on-line store. If you do not have an existing website you can compare to, you can assume that 10 GB is sufficient for handling approximately 20 000 customers per month. This should be entirely sufficient for running a small to medium online store.

30 GB is enough to support an average of 600-900 visits to the shop each day. Such amount of traffic represents a shop that is growing, but not yet overwhelmingly popular. This information is based on web traffic statistics for our 30GB plans, actual indivual transfer statistics depend on many different factors.

If you are currently hosted elsewhere, and are considering moving your services to IdoSell, we suggest that you refer to the statistics from your current hosting company. If they provide stanard WWW traffic statistics, to get an estimate of equivalent traffic on IdoSell, you can divide the amount by about 2.5. If those statistics include e-mail and FTP data transfer, you can divide it by 3.5.

In order to ensure quality and integrity of data and provide the best possible service, we put a limit on the number of migrations we perform each week. In an unlikely scenario where a migration is not completed within 30 days of receiving an instruction and payment, we will return any associated costs and charges to the associated account balance.