• Welcome to the Chevereto user community!

    Here users from all over the world gather around to learn the latest about Chevereto and contribute with ideas to improve the software.

    Please keep in mind:

    • 😌 This community is user driven. Be polite with other users.
    • 👉 Is required to purchase a Chevereto license to participate in this community (doesn't apply to Pre-sales).
    • 💸 Purchase a Pro Subscription to get access to active software support and faster ticket response times.

Add an extra support layer?

Which kind of extra support service will you willing to pay for?

  • Premium support subscription (pay for n issues, time based)

    Votes: 6 50.0%
  • Support per incident (pay for 1 issue)

    Votes: 3 25.0%
  • None

    Votes: 3 25.0%

  • Total voters
    12

Rodolfo

⭐ Chevereto Godlike
Chevereto Staff
Administrator
Hey there,

As you may know, I avoid at most to deal with server issues as it is a very expensive task that is exhausting and time demanding.

One of my goals with V4 is to make support easier and less frustrating for everybody. The problem is that during the time it takes to replace V3 there will be indeed many users absolutely abandoned to their luck if I don't start providing an extra layer of support.

What I want to know is which kind of market exists (if any) around extra supporting services. Please share your vote/opinion so I can know better your needs, don't be shy telling me how much money you will be willing to pay and what you want in return.

If there's a market for this I will be consider to provide an extra support layer. Feel free to share your thoughts.
 
$5 per incident
or
$30 per month
or
Forget server issues and put all your time in to v4, most people use shared hosting which is supported, I use open source control panels, which are also supported and have their own forums.
 
Forget server issues and put all your time in to v4
I want to know if there's a market, in which case I could consider to train/hire people for an extra support layer. The collaboration thing isn't happening, so I want to try out offering this job for other community members.
 
If it is server issues, then the cost should be per issue.

I am interested in this model and could bid on issues and make some extra money.
 
I am interested in this model and could bid on issues and make some extra money.
That's exactly my idea, that others provide support and earn money out of it.

Thing is that regardless how support is handled, everybody has a fixed capacity on how much issues can be handled and V4 will introduce a lot of supporting needs as it will drop support for shared servers (sorry @HenrysCat).
 
That's exactly my idea, that others provide support and earn money out of it.

Thing is that regardless how support is handled, everybody has a fixed capacity on how much issues can be handled and V4 will introduce a lot of supporting needs as it will drop support for shared servers (sorry @HenrysCat).

That would mean a much smaller market for Chevereto? But this would bring up the possibility of a managed Chevereto solution for those less tech-savvy people wanting to run an image hosting platform.
 
That would mean a much smaller market for Chevereto?
The market is smaller as about 30% installations are running on non-dedicated machines. V3 will keep filling that market for a lot of years while V4 eats its own share. If you look around Chevereto is unmatched, there's nothing close to it so V3 lifetime will be memorable.

V4 is way different software, a giant leap ahead and we shouldn't even consider it a succesor but a complete different beast. It aims for a modern market and I will provision the entire server model, which will allow to dockerize all the things, to spawn specialized management services, k8s, etc.

this would bring up the possibility of a managed Chevereto solution
I will love to focus my work on the software, it's documentation, training and certification. I'm totally in for spawning a market around third-party managed Chevereto instances, support, everything.
 
V4 is way different software, a giant leap ahead and we shouldn't even consider it a succesor but a complete different beast. It aims for a modern market and I will provision the entire server model, which will allow to dockerize all the things, to spawn specialized management services, k8s, etc.
Now that you mention it. I am very excited about K8s support.
I already run my current chevereto based websites on one of my DO managed k8s cluster.
v4 is exciting. Hope it helps us solve monetization issue. I think you're already working on it, as I saw your thread on this topic.

About support, I think people will require some kind of support for server related stuff, or at least to set it up or troubleshoot issues if they didn't set it up themselves. Optimization and scalability comes to my mind as well.
I personally would not require support, however, there should be market for it, and I agree with others, it can be per incident based solution, or there can be support plans in place that covers monthly reported incidents. In case of monthly plans, there can be multiple plans based on level of support required.
I recently used Scaleway, and they have similar approach.
Free tier for usual email/ticket support that has undefined response time.
2.99/month plan where response time is less than 12 hours.
49/month plan where you can get in touch on phone and email with addition to tickets.
499/month plan where a dedicated representative will be made available for you who responds within 30 minutes during business hours.
 

Attachments

  • 105_29j6VJLqJK.png
    105_29j6VJLqJK.png
    55.3 KB · Views: 14
I want to know if there's a market, in which case I could consider to train/hire people for an extra support layer.

There is a market for it. But you would need to charge high prices to make it worth your time. Which most people will not pay and expect free support.

tl;dr server-side issues should not be your focus unless it's caused by a bug in chevereto.

most people use shared hosting which is supported

It's not. Tried this with buyshared as a test platform and got a white page. Shoved it on my dedicated server instead which worked fine.
 
There is a market for it. But to make it cost efficient you would have to charge high prices. Which most people will not pay and expect free support.
It gets costly if I provide the service directly, but it doesn't get that expensive if I focus in train people that could provide support at their own fees/time. I don't have any intention of making a business for me around support, is just about enable the software to have more people with the knowledge to support others.

In that direction stuff like the documentation is making everything easier, for everybody. Problem that we have is that the more users, more support needs. I'm not unlimited, so the only way to get more support is by allowing others to provide that kind of service. For me it will be great because I can push more efforts in the actual software, and others will make an extra income.
 
It gets costly if I provide the service directly, but it doesn't get that expensive if I focus in train people that could provide support at their own fees/time. I don't have any intention of making a business for me around support, is just about enable the software to have more people with the knowledge to support others.

I think it's great that you want to provide this kind of support. But you open yourself up to liability. Say someone gives you ssh access and you accidentally delete their installation. Now you're on the hook for damages.

The price does need to be high because you'd need people who know how to manage servers.

Perhaps you could do something in the middle ground where you just work on their issues like a regular ticket and don't actually do any of the changes yourself, but that's tiresome and a single ticket can grow to several pages if the user doesn't know anything about linux/windows and how to manage their own servers.

Just my two cents :)
 
But you open yourself up to liability. Say someone gives you ssh access and you accidentally delete their installation. Now you're on the hook for damages.
I was thinking in companies like Phillips, who in some territories outsource their support to certified providers. Taking your words, if a provider screws up, I simply ban the certified status and their business is over.

In this model my responsibility is just to certify others, and on top of it I could spin a tech support documentation layer, and a place where other support providers can gather an exchange knowledge. So my cost is just document, explain, and answer to people with plenty knowledge about systems.

The price does need to be high because you'd need people who know how to manage servers.
It depends on who provides the actual support service, as money doesn't have the same value in each territory. The beauty of this is that each provider could have an unique offering, pricing, etc. It doesn't need to be a flat offering imo, is better if it is a wide offering as we have a wide audience already.

For me it will be way more efficient to provide direct communication on support only for certified people, who at the same time have another layer where they handle the users not into tech knowledge. That way, if I give a simple one liner someone certified will make way more out of it than a customer who is not into that and just want to get the system working.
 
I would more prefer if there would be a level system for licensed users in the Panel with own stats:
  1. by helping others u can collect points (credibility)
  2. by writing new Chevereto based tutorials and improving Cheveretos DOCS
  3. by giving chat support on discord and forums
and so on, and for example, u can "convert" all the points u have collected in period of 6 months for a new feature or something else.. <- example
I think that is gonna be hard to find people with alot/huge knowledge for such type of Support, especially when it comes to bigger Chevereto sites, and its gonna be even harder to find people who are able to afford such Support then, i think the best solution would be to keep it community-based support between "verified" users and so we can fill the DOCS constantly with new stuff, and learn from each others, just my opinion..
 
Last edited:
Yeah there are many nifty give back that I can arrange, and not only support related but also access to premium plugins and whatnot.

Great idea @konj
 
You can do what the software giants do.

v4 will provide 6 months of free updates and low-priority tier support.

Premium support is extra, depending on the amount of time it takes you and is more of an hourly charge.

Many software giants will do development of requested features/addons for the said person for $80+ an hour.
 
Back
Top