Disappointed with CMS Builder

Hi Rui,

Thanks for your feedback.  

I'm guessing your underlying issue is that you're either not charging enough, not making enough margin on your projects, or have some price sensitive clients.  Am I right?

My suggestion would be that you add up "the cost of the software" + "the cost of your time to set it up" and choose/buy software that generates the most revenue for you.  We do have more CMS Builder updates coming, etc but what really matters if how quickly you can build websites with these tools, and how much profit you can make on the job.

There's a famous quote by one of the original developers of the Netscape Navigator browser: "Linux is only free if you don't value your time".  What it means is free or low-cost software isn't really free or low-cost if it takes you a ton of time to make it work.  (For the record, we love Linux). 

Often, when we do custom programming jobs, clients will ask us to use some 3rd party script they've purchased for $10 or downloaded for free to try and "save money", and it seldom happens, we end up spending 4x as much time trying to get a free solution to work.  And we've even lost jobs for major corporations who would rather choose a free solution like Drupal with $40,000 in customizations, then a custom non-free CMSB setup and $10,000 in custom programming.  Free sounds better and people tend to make emotional (not mathematical) decisions.

You might have some clients where a cookie-cutter Wordpress website is all they need, and for those clients, you may save time and make more money offering them that, but when they want to grow and expand our tools are going to allow you to continue to expand and customize their websites with the least cost to you, which means the most revenue.  

We know this because we're playing the same game, we want to build better websites faster, so we can offer our clients more for less, and make good money on it as well.

Anyways, by all means use what works, and if you try some of those other solutions and find they're not as "low-cost" as they seem once you add in your time and all the things they don't let you do, feel free to try more of our solutions.  Most of our best customers are former drupal, wordpress, etc users.

Hope that helps, and thanks again for your feedback.  Do what's best for your clients and your bank account! ;) 

I want to back up what Dave has said here.

I have been working very close with the Interactivetools team for a long time now and we have built some very very large websites and the tools and plugins they have built are amazing. The support and help they have given to get some of these projects over the line are unequaled.

I know it has been a long time between releases but when you know what goes into some of these sites in backend you would understand why it takes time to release new features and functions without any bugs, and as most of you would know there are very little if any bugs in the current release of the CMSB software. I for one will continue to support and build with CMSB just to plain fact that it is much quicker to build a site with CMSB than any other cms system on the market today.

We are able to take a complete custom built template designed from scratch and build a whole website in at least 2 days and that amazes clients, we also took a current standalone html site and converted it over to CMSB in 6 hours where can you do that with any other cms system on the market today. I know the plugins are a little bit in cost but if you charge every single client for the use of them like we do then you make the money back very quickly.

that is my thoughts anyway, keep up the good work Dave and all the staff.

Hi, Rui. 

I have a mix of CMSB client types, and many of them with small budgets, so as much as I like to shop online, I need to consider the plugin price tags, too.

My approach to the plugins is to consider whether I think I can incorporate the functionality of the plugin into future CMSB projects, in addition to the one at hand. If I think I'll be able to use the plugin for more than one project, it has made sense for me to purchase the "Unlimited Use" license. I consider this an investment towards my "web development toolbox" that I can use in future projects.

With an unlimited use license I don't have to charge each new client the full plugin price - just for my time to incorporate it. This option has enabled me to promote features to some of my small-budget clients who wouldn't be able to afford a stand-alone plugin purchase.

I also think that Interactive Tools must have to factor into the plugin price their support and the plugin's forward-compatability with future CMSB releases. I have yet to have an older CMSB installation and plugin fail.

~ Deborah

Absolutely agree with the replies here. Bang for buck CMSB goes way beyond the other platforms I have used. If I find myself needing to buy a add-on which I will also use for other projects, I will buy the unlimited version, offset part of the cost in the bill to my client, and pay for the rest myself knowing I will make money on the added functionality in long run. It's good business practice to invest for future projects. If the client is not willing to pay for a portion of the plugin cost then they are probably not worth dealing with.

That said, you could always invest some time and learn to write plugins for yourself, which is something I have started doing over the last few weeks.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa he is Back Maurice hehehehehe

I have disagreed with Dave a lot on the cmsb application, the strategy for cmsb, the add-ons and many more things but i can't disagree on the fact that you can build a lightning fast simple cms application with CMSB which will save u hours and money compared to other complex cms applications.

but after a few sites and lots of experience with customers u start to run in to trouble with CMSB if you're a designer or a basic programmer. 

u got a great site running and after a week the client wants more social media, multi language, customer login areas, mailing system, support systems, star voting, thumbs up voting, chatting systems, simple payment, simple shopping cart, or something simple like a avatar image upload plugin would be great, or just a image uploads plugin, search plugin without all the programming blog plugin that has all the functions of filtering on date and so on without all the programming,   yes there are plugins but there soooooo basic the time to program around the systems and plugins will cost u more than using a drupal or a wordpress. 

In the total cost  for the application, plugins and men hours it really doesn't make a difference what you use. we have a love and hate affair with cmsb we love it for small sites but when a customer calls and says hi can we have a meeting because we want some new features in our site we start to cry and say shit why did we use CMSB.

Just see the forum where everybody has problems with, multi search, displaying certain results, menu's, navigations, breadcrumbs multilanguage and so on CMSB has the potential to be big especially when it also has a generator for input fields not only output results. it would become a killer app. 

We have a rule if the project budget is below 4K use cmsb if its above use drupal and use nearshoring.

But we did cool things with CMSB, just hope IT will build stuff that we realy  the user not the designer or the programmer.  

Maurice

I have to back Dave up on this along with CMSB.  I own a ad agency in New York where we design for both small and VERY large businesses using CMSB.  Yes the plugins are more than the product at times, but, they are completely worth it.  The man hours you would need to create the plugin comparison to the price is great.  If you have many clients, I recommend purchasing the unlimited license, it pays for itself in the long run.

Regarding CMSB not for large clients, I totally disagree. I guarantee all of you that I have very large clients who have heavy traffic and for those clients CMSB does require additional plugins and hiring support from Interactive Tools... but with some additional development from InteractiveTools the sites run smoothly.  I've learned, If you have large clients, they are willing to pay to get what they want and often I rely on Interactive Tools to develop what my clients need.  My firm has become almost a partner with Interactive Tools on how much we need them to be part of our team to make my clients happy.  When I Interactive Tools they even recognize my voice and know my name. Interactive tools has always come through for me in last minute updates and incredible development projects. 

As for my experience, I have worked on site developments that have gone as far up as $300,000 just to setup a initial design and using other cms and I was not pleased at all.  Always remember your clients want ease-of-use and a way to update their site on the fly without having to figure out how the backend works. CMSB offers that.

If you have an out-of-the-box creative mind and want to have full control of both the cms and how it functions with your website, CMSB is your tool.

Personally, I think we have to step away from "building a website" and more to "delivering a service".  If you ( and your clients) are product focused, you will always be up against price comparison, and competing against a nephew of the finance guy who can build websites.

I could offer a site for $1,000 or the same site for $4,000 - and I would almost bet that I would have more chance of getting the job for $4K.  And I guarantee that the client paying $4K will not be as time consuming as the $1,000.  It's a different mind-set.

I guess my point is to get a better client, and the cost of the add-ons will be negligible.

Hello rui

For me its a great tool and I'll recommend you to take a look at the unlimited license plugins option, with that you can start getting the plugins one by one (or all together if you have the resources) and start using it on all your projects or when the client ask or you offer to them, its worth the money, for sure.

I love this product and will always use it. It rocks and its also an extremely powerful tool.

I'm excited to hear that some updates are coming :)

I have an understanding of programming, but i don't class myself as a programmer, I have a thorough working knowledge of css and html and am first and formost a designer. I have been using cmsb for a long time now and have numerous licences. I have taken on clients who have had wordpress sites built and abandoned and moved them over to cmsb. I was forced to go over to give training for one of my nervous clients on how to input data in the back end, he said he needed a morning off of me. We had a cup of coffee and it took 5 minutes "training" for him to confidently mange his entire website, he was overjoyed. When an overly complex project comes along that I feel out of my depth, I don't look for a different system, I have complete faith in cmsb, if you can imagine it cmsb can handle it, thats when this excellent forum kicks in or you can hire the professionals at cmsb to help you out, its like having a full development team waiting in the wings, who will support and tailor the solution for you, not only that they will help you to understand what is happening in the code so that you will be able to manage it going forward. This company is 5*.  Worth every penny, and more. I will continue to buy licences and continue to delight my customers who use it. Long may this company continue to develop this unique and excellent product and provide us with the FREE and EXCELLENT support via this forum. I am over the moon.