News and announcements

Multi-Vendor product line to be refined and extended with subscriptions in December, 2022

Starting from December 1, you will be able to choose between a cloud-based Multi-Vendor No-Code for a monthly payment or on-premises Multi-Vendor for a yearly payment. An on-premises Multi-Vendor for a one-time payment is also available.

Hello,

We’re making changes to our product line by introducing subscription-based marketplace software. Our subscriptions cover various scenarios and needs. In this post, we’d like to help you get familiar with the new Multi-Vendor products and help you choose the right for your goals.

Multi-Vendor No-Code for a monthly payment. This is a subscription-based Multi-Vendor hosted on our servers and updated. It doesn’t give you access to the source code—only API available on higher plans. This solution frees you from development and hosting headaches. You can seamlessly migrate from Multi-Vendor No-Code to any of our on-premises products.

On-premises Multi-Vendor for a yearly payment. This is the current Multi-Vendor Standard, Plus, and Ultimate but with an annual license, which you’ll need to prolong yearly. This is the good old customizable marketplace software with access to the code and the ability to be run on a hosting of your choice. Updates and technical support included in the yearly subscription.

On-premises Multi-Vendor for a one-time payment. Multi-Vendor Ultimate Unlimited is the most advanced and feature-rich marketplace software in our product line. It has all the advanced features of the annual Ultimate, plus free lifetime updates and free lifetime access to the mobile app source code. Best for larger companies with development teams.

How do these changes affect you?

If you already have CS-Cart Multi-Vendor

Our current customers with purchased lifetime licenses continue using Multi-Vendor as before—without any yearly payment. They will receive new upgrades (through purchased or life-time upgrade subscription), and get help from our Customer Care.

But all the new licenses will be available to them on a new subscription-based model only. Except for Ultimate Unlimited—it’s a one-time payment lifetime license for all.

If you want to buy a new license

If you don’t have CS-Cart Multi-Vendor and about to buy your first license or you’re already our customer and want to get one more license, you basically have two options:

1. To start as affordably as possible2. To go full throttle
For entrepreneurs who want to start carefully and affordably, we are lowering the threshold for entering the marketplace territory. You can start cheap with Multi-Vendor No-Code for a small monthly fee and then seamlessly move to an on-premises Multi-Vendor with annual payments. Or you can start with an on-premises Multi-Vendor with an annual payment and later scale to a lifetime Ultimate Unlimited.For entrepreneurs who want all the features and services right off and forever with no need to pay recurring fees, we recommend a lifetime on-premises Ultimate Unlimited. Or you can start with one of the higher annual products—Plus or Ultimate. You can get it now within our Black Friday for the lowest price possible.

Why are we switching from one-time payment to subscription model?

To widen our audience. We want to lower the threshold for entering the marketplace territory for entrepreneurs. We want to give more entrepreneurs the opportunity to start a marketplace. A SaaS (no-code) solution with a small monthly payment is the best option to achieve this goal—to start fast and affordably. And the ability to seamlessly migrate to on-premises solutions will help entrepreneurs grow relatively easily.

To boost the success rate of marketplaces built on CS-Cart. The subscription model is the basis of a successful collaboration with customers. Subscription will allow us to invest more in products and value-added services like business and technical audits of our customers’ marketplaces. Constantly evolving products, great customer care, and customer support on every stage of their business leads to customer success.

Frequently asked questions

Q: What are the prices for all these new products?
A: Prices for monthly and annual subscriptions, and a one-time payment price for Ultimate Unlimited will be announced on Dec 1, 2022.

Q: Will I be able to upgrade my current lifetime Multi-Vendor Standard to a more advanced lifetime like Plus or Ultimate after these changes?
A: The only option to upgrade your current lifetime license to a more advanced one (for example, from Standard to Plus) is to buy it within our Black Friday sale. After that, you will be able to upgrade your current lifetime license only to Multi-Vendor Ultimate Unlimited or just switch to an annual subscription you like.

Q: Does switching to annual subscription mean that I no longer own the product license and just rent it?
A: No, you 100% own the license. Basically, the lifetime license becomes annual.

Head of Content Marketing at CS-Cart | Website

Yan Anderson is the Head of Content Marketing at CS-Cart with over 10 years of experience in the eCommerce industry. He's passionate about explaining complicated things in simple terms. Yan has expertise in building, running and growing eCommerce marketplaces. He loves to educate people about best practices, new technologies, and trends in the global eCommerce industry.