PHP Pro Bid costs £399 once, £63/month on annual Cloud billing, or £159/month on annual Managed VPS billing—and takes 0% of your sales. Compare those fixed costs with any subscription and per-sale fee over one, three, or five years.
Software and hosting are compared like for like. Third-party payment processing is shown separately and does not inflate the savings figure.
| Option | Software + hosting | Processing | Estimated total | Vs alternative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PHP Pro Bid License | £399 | £0 | £399 | Save £4,601 |
| PHP Pro Bid Cloud | £756 | £0 | £756 | Save £4,244 |
| PHP Pro Bid Managed VPS | £1,908 | £0 | £1,908 | Save £3,092 |
| Your alternative | £5,000 | £0 | £5,000 | Baseline |
“Processing” is a shared third-party gateway cost. It appears in every total but is excluded from “vs alternative.” Figures exclude VAT.
The calculator handles cost. Your plan choice should also reflect who manages the server, how quickly you want to launch, and whether you need source-code access.
Choose Cloud when you want to launch quickly and leave hosting, security, and updates with us. It is the lowest-friction route for most new auction platforms.
Trade-off: no source-code access and no dedicated server.
Choose VPS when you want your own managed server, your own domain, source code, managed updates and backups, and priority support.
Trade-off: higher fixed monthly cost than Cloud.
Choose the License when you already have technical capacity and want permanent ownership, source-code access, and complete control over the server.
Trade-off: you handle hosting, installation, updates, and technical maintenance; future major versions are optional paid upgrades.
Total cost of ownership means counting the software price, hosting, per-sale platform fees, and payment processing separately. Mixing them together makes a cheap headline price look cheaper than it is.
We add the quoted subscription to the percentage taken from annual sales.
(monthly subscription × 12 × years) + (annual sales × platform fee % × years)
License includes the one-time price plus the hosting you enter. Cloud and VPS use annual-billing monthly prices.
License: £399 + hosting × 12 × years
Cloud: £63 × 12 × years
VPS: £159 × 12 × years
This is calculated once and shown against every option because it is normally payable whichever software you choose.
(annual sales × processor %) + (annual transactions × fixed fee), then × years
Savings compare software and hosting only. Shared processing charges do not make one platform appear cheaper.
alternative platform cost − PHP Pro Bid software and hosting cost
No. PHP Pro Bid charges zero transaction fees on the License, Cloud, and Managed VPS plans. Your software cost stays fixed as your auction sales grow.
They are shown separately. Stripe, PayPal, and other gateways charge their own processing fees, which do not go to PHP Pro Bid. Because you would normally pay a processor whichever auction platform you use, the calculator excludes that shared cost from the savings figure while still showing it in total cost.
The License calculation includes the £399 one-time software price plus whatever monthly hosting cost you enter. It does not guess at optional installation, customization, add-ons, or future major-version upgrades.
No. All figures are shown before VAT because the tax treatment depends on your location and business status. Use the result as a like-for-like software-cost comparison, then apply the tax rules relevant to you.
It is the alternative platform's subscription and per-sale fees minus the PHP Pro Bid software and hosting cost over the selected period. Payment-processing costs are left out of savings because they are entered once and applied equally to every option.
Cost is one part of the decision. Compare hosting, source-code access, support, and setup alongside the numbers.