What is Blesta? Blesta is billing and client management software for hosting companies and other businesses that sell services on a schedule. It sends invoices, takes payments, sets up hosting accounts automatically and gives your customers a client area where they can pay, order and open support tickets. If you’ve heard of WHMCS, Blesta does the same job, with a different approach to pricing and code. Here’s what it does, who it suits and what it takes to run it.
What Is Blesta Used For?
At its core, Blesta automates the day-to-day work of running a hosting business:
- Billing. Blesta creates invoices before each renewal, sends reminders, records payments and applies late fees if you use them.
- Payments. Payment gateways connect Blesta to processors like PayPal and Stripe so customers can pay online and saved cards can be charged automatically.
- Provisioning. Modules connect Blesta to control panels such as cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin and Virtualmin, so a paid order becomes a working hosting account without you touching it. Unpaid services are suspended and paid ones unsuspended automatically.
- Client area. Customers log in to see their services, pay invoices, update cards, order new services and manage their account.
- Support. The Support Manager plugin adds tickets, departments and a knowledge base.
- Domains. Registrar modules and the Domain Manager plugin handle registrations, transfers and renewals.
Hosting companies are the biggest group of users, but they aren’t the only one. Software developers use Blesta to sell licenses, web designers use it to bill monthly care plans, and IT companies use it for recurring support contracts. If you charge customers on a schedule and want the setup to happen automatically, Blesta fits.
How Blesta Is Put Together
Blesta has a small core and three kinds of extensions, and knowing the difference helps when you go looking for something:
- Modules provision services: a cPanel account, a VPS, a domain registration.
- Gateways take payments.
- Plugins add features: the order system, Support Manager, the Portal/CMS landing page, Import Manager, or third-party plugins like our Blesta forum plugin and Caddie for Blesta.
Many of Blesta’s own extensions ship with it and just need installing from the settings menu. Our guide on how to install a Blesta plugin walks through it.
What Is Blesta Like to Use Day to Day?
Staff work in the admin area, which Blesta 6 rebuilt on a modern Bootstrap 5 design with light and dark modes. The dashboard shows what needs attention: open tickets, overdue invoices and recent orders. From a client’s profile you can see every service, invoice, email and note in one place, and add a service by hand when you need to.
Clients see a cleaner, simpler client area. They log in, see what they’re paying for, pay what’s due and open a ticket if something’s wrong. Once the cron job is running, most of what happens next is automatic: renewals are invoiced, reminders go out, paid orders are set up and unpaid ones are suspended.
What Is Blesta vs WHMCS? The Short Answer
Both are mature billing platforms for hosting. The main differences:
- Pricing. Blesta licenses include unlimited clients, and you can buy an owned license instead of paying monthly. WHMCS is priced by your number of active clients.
- Code. Most of Blesta’s code is readable and can be changed, which developers like. The WHMCS core is encoded.
- Ecosystem. WHMCS has the bigger marketplace. Blesta’s is smaller but covers the common control panels, registrars and gateways.
We go deeper in WHMCS vs Blesta vs FOSSBilling, and if you’re already on WHMCS, see how to migrate from WHMCS to Blesta.
What You Need to Run Blesta
Blesta 6 runs on a normal Linux web server. According to the official installation docs, you’ll need:
- PHP 8.2, 8.3 or 8.4 (8.3 is recommended)
- ionCube Loader v15 or newer
- MySQL 5.7.7+ or MariaDB 10.2.2+
- Common PHP extensions including cURL, OpenSSL, GMP, IMAP, mailparse, SOAP and GD
- A cron job that runs every minute
On cPanel hosting, Blesta is available through Softaculous and Installatron, which handle most of the setup for you. A manual install takes a database, an upload and a short web installer. Once it’s installed, set up the cron job straight away; our Blesta cron job guide shows how.
What Is Blesta’s Pricing Model?
Blesta is sold as a license, either monthly or “owned”. An owned license is a one-time purchase, with optional yearly support and updates. Every license includes unlimited clients, so your software bill doesn’t grow as your business does. There’s also a free trial for testing on a real domain. Prices change, so check Blesta’s pricing page for the current numbers.
Who Blesta Suits Best
- Growing hosts who don’t want their software bill to rise every time they add clients.
- Hosts with a developer who wants to read and extend the code. See our Blesta plugin development guide.
- Businesses selling licenses, VPS or services beyond shared hosting, since modules and plugins cover most setups.
It’s a weaker fit if you rely on a niche integration that only exists for WHMCS. Check that every control panel, registrar and gateway you use is supported before you switch.
What Is Blesta Not?
It helps to be clear about what Blesta doesn’t do. Blesta isn’t a control panel: it tells cPanel or Plesk to create an account, but your sites still run on the server’s own control panel. It isn’t a website builder either; your marketing site usually stays on WordPress, with Blesta handling orders and billing behind it. And it isn’t a full accounting package, so most businesses still export to their accounting software. So what is Blesta in one line? The layer between your customers, your money and your servers.
Your First Week With Blesta
Once you’ve answered “what is Blesta?” for your own business and decided to try it, this is a sensible order to set it up in:
- Set up the cron job and confirm it shows a recent run.
- Turn on two-factor authentication and the other security basics.
- Connect Blesta to cPanel and create your first package.
- Add a payment gateway and place a test order end to end.
- Match the client area to your brand.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Blesta in simple terms?
It’s the software that bills your customers, takes their payments, sets up what they bought and gives them a place to log in and manage it.
Is Blesta free?
No, but there’s a free trial, and licenses include unlimited clients.
Can Blesta run on shared hosting?
Yes, as long as the host meets the PHP, ionCube and database requirements and lets you run a cron job every minute. Our reseller hosting plans meet them.
What is Blesta’s biggest strength?
Predictable cost. Unlimited clients on every license means your billing software doesn’t cost more just because you’re growing.
Can I move from WHMCS to Blesta later?
Yes. Blesta includes an Import Manager for WHMCS data. Our migration guide covers the full plan.
What is Blesta written in?
Blesta is written in PHP and uses a MySQL or MariaDB database. Most of its code is readable, which makes it easier for developers to build plugins and modules for it.
Who makes Blesta?
Blesta is developed by Phillips Data, Inc. in the United States.
Get More Out of Blesta
Now you have the answer to “what is Blesta?”, the next question is how to get more out of it. We build plugins for it, including a free client forum and Caddie, a set of 24 website and monitoring tools that gives your clients a reason to log in every week.
Browse our Blesta plugins and guides, or tell us what you need.
