About all the Paysite CMSs we have available today - GoFuckYourself.com

BucksMania · 05-18-2008, 03:13 PM

I spent the last couple of days reading and researching about the different paysite CMSes we have on the market now, those seems to be the most popular ones (feel free to add to the list)

ElevatedX - about $4k
http://elevatedx.com/

MAS - about $4k (not sure)
http://www.mansionproductions.com/mas/

CARMA - $3.5k
http://www.toomuchmedia.com/products/carma/

ThePaysiteCMS - $???
http://thepaysitecms.com/

SiteDepth - $900
http://sitedepth.com/

aWiz 280 euro
http://v5.awizsoft.com/

Because I'm still not quite sure which one to use, I would like everyone who has any experience with any of them to share it and vote for the one he is currently using or think is the best.
We are looking at price range from about $400 to $4000 so keep in mind and the value for money factor.

Thank you

BucksMania · 05-18-2008, 04:50 PM

ok we have few votes now, but no replies :>

TMM_John · 05-18-2008, 05:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BucksMania

ok we have few votes now, but no replies :>

I'm of course a bit biased but I will still give you an honest answer

ThePaysiteCMS while a good product by good people but it is out of your indicated price range.

Sitedepth and awiz are decent products if you want to keep things simple. They will do the basics and are priced lower. If you want to really customize your members area and have total flexibility you need a different product tho.

That leaves CARMA, MAS, and ElevatedX.

I have seen some good feedback about MAS from Mansion clients however the demos I have seen of it do not put it at the level of CARMA and ElevatedX. It is a good solution if you also want to pay a monthly fee for an outsourced employee to build and maintain your members area with the software as Mansion provides this service as far as I am aware.

Now we're down to CARMA and ElevatedX. IMO they are the two products out of the list that sit at the top. I believe CARMA can be a bit more flexible with allowing you to design your members area EXACTLY as you wish however that creates a larger learning curve and more involvement on your part of on the part of the integrator. I think ElevatedX is a bit more polished and carries a few native features which CARMA does not.

We have spent a lot of time the past year plus with NATS v4 and now that is starting to roll out (smoothly!) with the second phase of beta starting this week. Once mass upgrades are started to NATS v4 we are beginning a major rewrite of CARMA to CARMA v2.0. I will make sure as I did with NATS v4 that CARMA v2 is WAY ahead of any other solution. However, CARMA v2 is going to be at least 3-4 months away I would say.

As you are a NATS user now you should also have a cleaner integration with CARMA (v1 and v2).

Both CARMA and ElevatedX are great products and I believe you will be happy with either one.

The bottom line I guess is you will put more work in with CARMA but you have total flexibility as well as the opportunity to participate in the reworking of CARMA v2.

brandonstills · 05-18-2008, 05:11 PM

I've been building custom CMS products for people. Often times an off the shelf CMS forces you structure your site in an artificial way and creates workflows that aren't quite optimal for what you are doing. Let me know what features you need. Hit me up, it might be worth exploring a custom option.

farkedup · 05-18-2008, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brandonstills

I've been building custom CMS products for people. Often times an off the shelf CMS forces you structure your site in an artificial way and creates workflows that aren't quite optimal for what you are doing. Let me know what features you need. Hit me up, it might be worth exploring a custom option.

you're fast LOL I was coming in to post exactly the same thing, if a person knows exactly what they want why not code exactly what they need/want. When you're getting into the $4k range there's quite a few programmers who will do quite a bit for that price range.

Sly · 05-18-2008, 05:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brandonstills

I've been building custom CMS products for people. Often times an off the shelf CMS forces you structure your site in an artificial way and creates workflows that aren't quite optimal for what you are doing. Let me know what features you need. Hit me up, it might be worth exploring a custom option.

I do like custom and have had custom scripts created for several small tasks that I have needed. Never anything on a large scale though. I have heard people say that most custom scripts on any sort of large-scale you end up needing a programmer quite often to fix things and add little extra features while the leased products typically give you support and overtime upgrade with additional features.

Do you have any input regarding that?

TMM_John · 05-18-2008, 05:30 PM

You're going to get less and pay much more in the long run going the custom route.

You have to hope that the person who wrote it doesn't disappear and is available long term to make modifications, fixes, feature additions, and provide general support for the product. The last thing you want to do to a programmer is hand them someone else's code to work on. They hate it

Either way this will get costly after a while.

Also, you have more issues to worry about as security goes with one person using the solution as opposed to many people using the solution.

With CARMA you are not stuck to a certain flow which does happen with some solutions as was indicated above.

Snake Doctor · 05-18-2008, 05:40 PM

Bucksmania, something to remember.

Having a good product out of the box is only half the battle.

The other half is having good support and documentation. Will there be someone there to walk you through the setup so you can learn everything you need to know in one day instead of doing trial and error for weeks?
Will someone be there to fix security exploits, bugs, and help you with tech support issues down the road?

I personally tried to use the two cheaper CMS's on your list...and threw both of them out because of support/documentation issues. It didn't matter how much money I was supposedly saving, I could never get anything accomplished.

I thoroughly researched the more expensive options and I settled on Elevatedx.

I have no regrets about doing so.

farkedup · 05-18-2008, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

You're going to get less and pay much more in the long run going the custom route.

You have to hope that the person who wrote it doesn't disappear and is available long term to make modifications, fixes, feature additions, and provide general support for the product. The last thing you want to do to a programmer is hand them someone else's code to work on. They hate it

Either way this will get costly after a while.

Also, you have more issues to worry about as security goes with one person using the solution as opposed to many people using the solution.

With CARMA you are not stuck to a certain flow which does happen with some solutions as was indicated above.

1) Absolutely in the long run you end up with so many more features but depending on your needs you may find 90% of those are of no use to you.

2) Absolutely true if you hand a codebase to another programmer odds are they'll hate it. I'm just finishing up re-writing a CMS for a guy because some czech idiot did things insanely poorly and the script was using triple the resources that it should have. BUT if you go with a REAL programmer they'll still be around in a couple years when you're ready for upgrades. From what I've read about Brandon he's building up a solid rep.

3) As for security issues as long as the programmer is aware of all the common exploits a custom solution is MORE secure in the exact same way a mac is more secure than windows. If there's only 1 person using it nobody will bother spending the time to exploit it.

What it all comes down to is look over the demo's and if that 3-4k is going to be be exactly what you need out of the box simply go for it! If nothing seems to fit then in that price range you really do have some options for some custom solutions.

Sly · 05-18-2008, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by farkedup

2) Absolutely true if you hand a codebase to another programmer odds are they'll hate it. I'm just finishing up re-writing a CMS for a guy because some czech idiot did things insanely poorly and the script was using triple the resources that it should have. BUT if you go with a REAL programmer they'll still be around in a couple years when you're ready for upgrades. From what I've read about Brandon he's building up a solid rep.

I think longevity is really an issue, both for custom and out-of-the-box. So many people come and go, it's hard to really know who you can "trust". Even the larger "companies". I think knowing that an actual staff and office is sitting behind a particular product is a little bit of a relief to the customer, knowing that this particular company needs to stay in business to feed many families. While a one-man shop... who knows... maybe next week he will get a good job offer or just decide he no longer wants to work with clients. I've seen it happen... I think we all have.

The Promo Guy · 05-18-2008, 07:34 PM

it looks like my waiting has paid off.... I really wanted to go with ThePaysiteCMS but thought the price tag was a bit steep so i held of on going forward with 1 of my projects... i spent many hours reading up on all the popular CMS software solutions and i believe ThepaysiteCMS is by far the best out there and i did not ant to settle with 1 of the others. WELL it looks like they are getting ready to LEASE it now, the pricing page shows leasing options but does not seem to be functioning for me... i will be shooting those guys an email in the morning (GREAT GUYS THERE TOO).

BucksMania, definitely consider ThePaysiteCMS in your search for a CMS

brandonstills · 05-18-2008, 07:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sly

I do like custom and have had custom scripts created for several small tasks that I have needed. Never anything on a large scale though. I have heard people say that most custom scripts on any sort of large-scale you end up needing a programmer quite often to fix things and add little extra features while the leased products typically give you support and overtime upgrade with additional features.

Do you have any input regarding that?

Yes, it is a possibility there may be bugs in the program that are found further down the road. This is true for ALL software. However, it is "generally" less likely to happen in an off the shelf product.

As far as upgrades and adding things you need, you are at the mercy of the company. If you have something that only you will need they most likely will have no interest in adding it. Even if they do add something who knows if it will be exactly what you need or how long it will take or when they get around to it.

brandonstills · 05-18-2008, 08:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

You're going to get less and pay much more in the long run going the custom route.

You have to hope that the person who wrote it doesn't disappear and is available long term to make modifications, fixes, feature additions, and provide general support for the product. The last thing you want to do to a programmer is hand them someone else's code to work on. They hate it

Either way this will get costly after a while.

Also, you have more issues to worry about as security goes with one person using the solution as opposed to many people using the solution.

With CARMA you are not stuck to a certain flow which does happen with some solutions as was indicated above.

When you go custom you have the source code so you can always hire someone else. You have the source code. Omar from Sitedepth will sell the code and is generally very responsive to.

As far as a programmer picking it up and it being a problem, that's why you hire good programmers. A good programmer will use standards and commonly agreed upon conventions. I try to adopt MVC and Ruby on Rails conventions as much as possible, even in my PHP code. The advantage being it is extremely easy for another programmer to understand and pick up. What programmers hate is having tables nested 10 levels deep with malformed HTML with no comments from a coder oversees that has only been programming for a few years. Using descriptive variable names also helps.

Having built numerous CMS solutions I learn from each one and they get better and better with each iteration. The code gets leaner and leaner, and easier and easier to maintain.

With a custom solution you can design your own workflow. I've used products out there where it was such a pain in the ass to use their interface I looked at the database and updated it directly. If it is set up exactly how you need, then you're going to get your job done a lot easier in a lot less time. Time is money. If you have to spend 2x more time maintaining your site, then you're getting paid half as much for your work.

The Ghost · 05-18-2008, 08:36 PM

We use Carma and like it alot, so far isn't anything we haven't been able to do with it. But for any CMS you will need to know your goals on content scheduling and management. If you have those outlined it would be more helpful for a CMS suggestion.

The only negative I've ever found with Carma is the lack of programmers that can integrated it with a site design.

Anthony · 05-18-2008, 08:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

I'm of course a bit biased but I will still give you an honest answer

ThePaysiteCMS while a good product by good people but it is out of your indicated price range.

Sitedepth and awiz are decent products if you want to keep things simple. They will do the basics and are priced lower. If you want to really customize your members area and have total flexibility you need a different product tho.

That leaves CARMA, MAS, and ElevatedX.

I have seen some good feedback about MAS from Mansion clients however the demos I have seen of it do not put it at the level of CARMA and ElevatedX. It is a good solution if you also want to pay a monthly fee for an outsourced employee to build and maintain your members area with the software as Mansion provides this service as far as I am aware.

Now we're down to CARMA and ElevatedX. IMO they are the two products out of the list that sit at the top. I believe CARMA can be a bit more flexible with allowing you to design your members area EXACTLY as you wish however that creates a larger learning curve and more involvement on your part of on the part of the integrator. I think ElevatedX is a bit more polished and carries a few native features which CARMA does not.

We have spent a lot of time the past year plus with NATS v4 and now that is starting to roll out (smoothly!) with the second phase of beta starting this week. Once mass upgrades are started to NATS v4 we are beginning a major rewrite of CARMA to CARMA v2.0. I will make sure as I did with NATS v4 that CARMA v2 is WAY ahead of any other solution. However, CARMA v2 is going to be at least 3-4 months away I would say.

As you are a NATS user now you should also have a cleaner integration with CARMA (v1 and v2).

Both CARMA and ElevatedX are great products and I believe you will be happy with either one.

The bottom line I guess is you will put more work in with CARMA but you have total flexibility as well as the opportunity to participate in the reworking of CARMA v2.

John,

I have a question. Can 1 Carma install be used by two or more seperate servers? Say I have content on Carma box 1, that I want to have on sites that are located on Servers 2 and 3. Is that possible?

BucksMania · 05-21-2008, 05:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

I'm of course a bit biased but I will still give you an honest answer

ThePaysiteCMS while a good product by good people but it is out of your indicated price range.

Sitedepth and awiz are decent products if you want to keep things simple. They will do the basics and are priced lower. If you want to really customize your members area and have total flexibility you need a different product tho.

That leaves CARMA, MAS, and ElevatedX.

I have seen some good feedback about MAS from Mansion clients however the demos I have seen of it do not put it at the level of CARMA and ElevatedX. It is a good solution if you also want to pay a monthly fee for an outsourced employee to build and maintain your members area with the software as Mansion provides this service as far as I am aware.

Now we're down to CARMA and ElevatedX. IMO they are the two products out of the list that sit at the top. I believe CARMA can be a bit more flexible with allowing you to design your members area EXACTLY as you wish however that creates a larger learning curve and more involvement on your part of on the part of the integrator. I think ElevatedX is a bit more polished and carries a few native features which CARMA does not.

We have spent a lot of time the past year plus with NATS v4 and now that is starting to roll out (smoothly!) with the second phase of beta starting this week. Once mass upgrades are started to NATS v4 we are beginning a major rewrite of CARMA to CARMA v2.0. I will make sure as I did with NATS v4 that CARMA v2 is WAY ahead of any other solution. However, CARMA v2 is going to be at least 3-4 months away I would say.

As you are a NATS user now you should also have a cleaner integration with CARMA (v1 and v2).

Both CARMA and ElevatedX are great products and I believe you will be happy with either one.

The bottom line I guess is you will put more work in with CARMA but you have total flexibility as well as the opportunity to participate in the reworking of CARMA v2.

Thanks John. It's very nice when you see such profesionally objective opinion from someone related to one of the products

candyflip · 05-21-2008, 07:04 AM

Calidiapex is the evolution of XTract, which I have been using for the past two years. It's in beta now, and looks great. I'm hoping to upgrade sometime in the near future.

Definitely worth checking out if you're not wanting to spend $5k+ for a paysite CMS.

http://www.calidi.com/

BucksMania · 05-21-2008, 11:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by candyflip

Calidiapex is the evolution of XTract, which I have been using for the past two years. It's in beta now, and looks great. I'm hoping to upgrade sometime in the near future.

Definitely worth checking out if you're not wanting to spend $5k+ for a paysite CMS.

http://www.calidi.com/

how i can take a look at it?

LazyD · 05-21-2008, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BucksMania

how i can take a look at it?

Just send me an email and i will create a beta account for you

support_nospam_@calidi_nospam_.com (without the _nospam_ parts)

Ayrora · 05-21-2008, 11:50 AM

MAS is powerful, flexible and easy to use

The template system lets you easily skin it and you can use as many or as few of its features as you want to give your site its own unique flavor; the support is outstanding and the built-in 2257 system makes it even more worthwhile.

I think that the bigger your operation and the more sites you have, the more useful it is, but for a solo site operator such as myself, it provides an incredibly powerful platform and wide range of options that can set a site apart from its competitors.

MAS is a definite winner

OY · 05-22-2008, 09:07 AM

John, you are right about the demo we have on display for MAS. It definately does not justify the product itself as it is very very old. We have been too busy working and supporting clients to have had the time to launch the new demo out soon. The product itself, however, is quite different now.

In the course of MAS development our focus has always been pointed towards flexibility, reliability and speed (both for MAS admin and the members areas) in a traffic-intense environment, and not towards having a basketful of features with doubtful performance.

The coming week we will be officially announcing MAS version 1.8 (we are not big fans of quick jumps into major version numbers like many software companies do). Along with numerous performance, security and interface improvements, some of the major features in this version, which are not in the demo includes:

Fully integrated support for Cavecreek/Level-3 CDN network
100% compatible and preloaded leased feeds powered by SexEntertain (SexEntertain Content & Plugins, Vivid, Hustler Content, FullonVideo, Cherry Boxxx, Erotic Men, Total Hentai)
Advanced options for automatic content rotation
Batch actions for quick altering of multiple content set properties (categories, templates, find&replace in titles/descriptions and more); Undo of last changes
News & Events for multiple sites
Secured feedback mailing form (with captcha verification)
Alert & prevention system against injection of malicios commands in templates
Periodically flushing/dumping history tables to optimize DB performance
Limited admin privileges
IP restrictions for admin accounts
Passthru of userdefined variables (useful for tours - webmaster tracking codes etc.)
Obscured (hashed) content paths
Manual selection of content to be displayed on certain sections
Creating zip files with gallery contents
Inheriting template classes into multiple sites/sections, or directly including the parsed result of one section into another
Star rating
Subtemplates for finest control over video and content groups pages layout; different subtemplates per category or content type
Visual resize & crop of face images
Improved scanners for new content
Medium-sized/full-sized image support with visual effects
Events & calendar
Different sizes for thumbnails and faceimages, per template

And on top of this we are also near the end of the development of MAS version 2.0, which is a major rewrite of all the underlying code to improve performance even more and speed up the development of new features to come.

Some of the features which will be found in 2.0 are:
- Template repository, for easier reusing (as-is or with modifications) of common templates for various sections in different sites
- Ability to assign a different gallery template per site to each content set which is shared in more sites
- The faceimage size goes with the template, so this also means different faceimage size per site
- Multiple categories per content set
- Members Favorites
- Members comments (with editor's approval)
- Menu builder
- Captions for individual videos/pictures
- Advanced video set editor, allowing easier grouping of encodes per scene, naming and uploading of scene thumb
- Video frames extraction with options to choose the best among many frames and either build a photo gallery out of them, or use them as preview thumbs for the video set
- Cached search results for optimal performance
- User interface for program settings, backup and maintenance
- Improved support for streaming flash video, integrated services for video transcoding and multi-scene flash video player.

Have a nice day!

Jake · 05-22-2008, 09:41 AM

You can't go wrong with MAS! We've been using it for a couple of years and the software itself is incredible and very easy to use. More importantly the support is second to none.

TMM_John · 05-22-2008, 09:44 AM

WOW, MAS shot from 0 to 14 votes pretty quickly. Guess all the MAS users woke up!

Grisey · 05-22-2008, 10:01 AM

I use sitedepth and have for a few years and can't say abad thing about it, alfredo the programmer can do anything for you hes on msn everyday.

A few friends have bought carma and had to delay the opening of sites because its so dam hard to intergrate into a paysite and it takes someone with amazing knowledge of how to do this.

TMM_John · 05-22-2008, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anthony

John,

I have a question. Can 1 Carma install be used by two or more seperate servers? Say I have content on Carma box 1, that I want to have on sites that are located on Servers 2 and 3. Is that possible?

Sorry Anthony, missed this one.

CARMA is license on a per server basis. All servers running the actual CARMA product need to have a license.

There may be a few ways to use other servers for some parts such as storage or members pages, etc. but not the actual CARMA product. Shoot me an ICQ for some details.

Just Mike · 05-22-2008, 11:41 AM

*******MAS has some great new features********

We will be officially announcing this and more in the next week

All the SEXENTERTAIN STUDIO FEEDS are pre-loaded into MAS

VIVID
HUSTLER
CHERRYBOXXX
TOTAL HENTAI
EROTIC MEN
FULL ON VIDEO
SEXENTERTAIN

***Now with one click you can have all the meta data, attributes, graphics and Icons loaded into your MAS system and get your members area loaded with content in seconds.

HOW EASY IS THAT?!

Contact Oy or myself for details

mailman · 05-22-2008, 11:42 AM

We use Carma but ElevatedX is also a great product.

Ice · 05-22-2008, 11:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LazyD

Just send me an email and i will create a beta account for you

support_nospam_@calidi_nospam_.com (without the _nospam_ parts)

Looks pretty good. Thanks for the quick response and the demo

webgurl · 05-22-2008, 12:00 PM

I chose Carma

Major (Tom) · 05-22-2008, 02:07 PM

carma

ds

Easton · 05-22-2008, 02:40 PM

we use a custom CMS for both our programs

AJHall · 05-22-2008, 07:44 PM

I just saw this and figured I'd chime in.

I agree that there are only 3 options when it comes to systems that are robust and proven through use by A-tier cash programs and under heavy traffic and loads.

A CMS is like any other purchase. When looking at a product there will always be pros and cons and when choosing a product like this, I always tell people to evaluate based on their needs, not based on the needs of someone else or what works well for them. I tell people all the time during demo calls to go look at every system, eval all of them and see what's out there and buy the one that makes the most sense to you.

Most of our clients fall into 1 of these categories:
1) People either just starting sites or just starting to expand a cash program
2) People who have large programs and need something that can handle a ton of content and traffic as well as scale quickly and easily

3 out of 4 of our clients have owned another CMS.

The people in between are happy with what they have as it works well for them and their needs fall within the limitations of their current cms and they really have no idea what they're missing or how much better off they could be. In this case ignorance is bliss, and as the saying goes, "if it ain't broke..."

I have dealt with both John and Oystein in the past and both are good guys so I say this without taking anything away from them but part of what separates us from everyone else is that our sole focus is the cms and we're just beginning to expand and hire additional dedicated full time staff to further the development. 110% of our time, energy, thoughts and resources are going into this and this alone and it shows.

At this time we don't have multiple products, different departments or push more than 1 product or service so it's akin to going to a specialist if you have a problem. Sure, if your foot hurts you can go to any doctor but chances are you're better off going to the one who specializes in feet.

I don't want to sell my clients customizations or integrations or designs or web hosting or discounted combo deals, I want to sell them the best content management system possible at an affordable price.

A few tips for anyone who is considering buying a CMS:
-------------------------------------------------------------
1) DO NOT look at features. DO, however, look and see if the system has the features YOU NEED and if not, find out how easily they can be added.
2) Make a list of systems and request demos of each of them
3) Find out if the system will allow you to grow your business and at what cost. Will there be fees for adding new sites, can you add more servers, etc.?
4) Don't be afraid to ask questions about things and find out how the system will help your business in ways other than just automating processes for you.
5) Find out what features are planned or upcoming and whether there will be any additional cost to you to have these added when they're available.
6) Most important - don't be afraid to talk to us. We're not used car salesman, won't pressure you to buy anything and the phone call is free. Same goes for the other guys as well so call them too.

Know what you're getting but more importantly, know what you're not getting.

In regards to the comparisons between the 3 most comparable systems:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To clarify, there is no industry specific system that will provide more control or flexibility than Elevated X. The reason is that our design templates are entirely code-based and none of the templates are encoded, not even the portion of the templates that control the content itself. We purposely chose this in favor of any other method specifically for this reason.

Our system supports the use of multiple servers including remote content and load balanced servers by default and at no additional cost.

We also have multiple levels of caching and utilize both dynamic PHP and static HTML and are able to provide an unmatched level of performance without having to sacrifice the features required in order for a pay site owner to thrive in today's competetive market.

We have in demand features including automated tour management, limited trials, video transcoding and a FHG generator and everything our system does will easily integrate with NATS, MPA3 as well as any biller or custom affiliate software.

Cost:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
There seems to be a lot of mention of cost in these threads. I urge anyone in the market to also consider that we offer a monthly license for just $150 and I know some of the others offer similar plans so the fact that you can't afford to drop $4k in 1 shot is no excuse not to have a high end system running your sites.

My $.02 is just try not to settle. Obviously I always want to make a sale but I don't want an unhappy customer and the most important thing is that whatever you do decide to buy is something that you'll be happy with and that it's a purchase you can feel good about.

Pornwolf · 05-22-2008, 08:39 PM

It's kind of hard to beat The Paysite CMS. That shit is incredible.

candyflip · 05-22-2008, 10:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pornwolf

It's kind of hard to beat The Paysite CMS. That shit is incredible.

It better be, considering it costs $30k.

Abyss_Vee · 05-22-2008, 10:39 PM

We are very happy with elevatedx. Its a very well structured CMS that gives you a lot of control. We actually went through a few cms's before we decided to use Elevatedx. We've been using it for over a year now and they keep making it better every day.

Andre · 05-22-2008, 10:41 PM

I?ve always believed that a good CMS is an important part of my business and needs to be stable, secure, flexible and scalable. People behind the code need to understand client?s business problems and solve them with good code as well as necessary and visionary features.

That said, starting 2003 I?ve made mistakes by buying into products that were *packaged solutions* thus making me work the way they envisioned I should work instead of being flexible enough to adapt to how I wanted to work. I also made the mistake of having custom CMS written only to find myself wasting time on managing the programmers and code. And my biggest mistake was not looking close enough at support. Foreign support just did not work for me due to time zone and language barriers. In other words I?ve spend thousands of dollars wasting my time on *less-expensive* solutions. This was my real experience with *you get what you pay for*.

ElevatedX solved all of the mentioned problems for me in 2007. It?s a robust product with experienced people behind it. I am not able to focus on other aspects of my business and not worry about a huge portion of my infrastructure.

Pornwolf · 05-22-2008, 10:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by candyflip

It better be, considering it costs $30k.

Yeah, well, it's not for the programs that make that yearly. There's other cheaper options for them that will work for them as they don't need something as powerful as The Paysite CMS. It's for the programs that have so much going on that they do 5 figures daily. The options I've seen in that CMS allows those kinds of programs with a shitload of video to multiply it and re purpose it in ways that makes them more money.

It's a CMS that makes you more money which is what really won me over when I saw it. But if a site/program doesn't have a large amount of content it probably doesn't make sense for them.

There's good options for everyone at every level in this thread.

GrouchyAdmin · 05-22-2008, 10:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

WOW, MAS shot from 0 to 14 votes pretty quickly. Guess all the MAS users woke up!

Number 15 here.

Every one of the CMS's available have had their pitfalls and their high points.

From a server administration stance, my experience with Carma in late 2006 / early 2007 was horrible:

It needed a custom old version of ffmpeg with older hard-coded command lines; OS updates and new features would cause it to break.
The installation I inherited would arbitrate the database for every page view instead of making a static page, and lacked the ability to cache well; but that may have been a bug in the support libraries.
Slooow and massive CPU use.

I've gotten out of an awful custom CMS and had most of the functionality required added directly into MAS. Ross has modified a few pre-existing functions for my own specific requirements, which took MONTHS, but it works 100%, and I highly doubt he's going to leave Mansion in the next year or two.

I spent less on my MAS with custom features - and support - than was spent on the old custom CMS that doesn't know it's ass from it's elbow and had absolutely no features but 'search' and 'watch'.

GrouchyAdmin · 05-22-2008, 10:54 PM

...and as somebody who has written different CMS platforms:

Don't go custom unless you plan on eventually hiring your own staff to care and feed it or throwing it out.

AJHall · 05-22-2008, 11:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by candyflip

It better be, considering it costs $30k.

If there's a feature they have that we lack, it can be added to our system for a fraction of the cost.

Pay the $500 down and spend the rest of the $15k or $30k and get all kinds of custom features added just for you. Seems like a no brainer to me

Catalyst · 05-22-2008, 11:12 PM

BucksMania

I just switched CMS. I am a total nerd I spent months looking and comparing them all and doing a ton of research. I am still doing some final tweaks on my CMS as we speak. Some of the people I shoot for offered me their custom CMS and I had a ton of different things to look at.

A couple of tips

How I compared.

a.) Features I need
b.) b-list features - things that would be nice, but I don't need now
c.) who do I know that is using it, this is a biggie for me.

All CMS owners are going to push their own product that is common sense. Who do I know that has a Carma member’s area that can I call? Who do I know who has an Elevated X site that can I call?

I did that first because if a CMS doesn't support their product why should I spend the money on them I will find someone who does.

Also talk to people that do the same thing you do, and that you want to be like. I know this sounds strange, but trust me. For me, I run glamour / teen / solo girl sites. So something that might work for a BBW Multi girl site, might not work for me Yea…Yea… people say content is content, but it is not. My members know who lightspeed, ftv, and others like that are.

From talking to people I limited my choices down to like 2 CMS

Well from that point their feature where similar (one had a bit more) but again it wasn't features I was going to use right away so what did I care.

Then I looked at price

That is what sold me on Elevated X

It is a 150 dollars a month let me REPEAT THAT $150 A MONTH, UNLIMITED SITES, NO BULLSHIT, No games... just $150 a month… that is like 5 or 6 sales. I thought to myself, I will get Elevated-X installed and start testing it. There is NO better test then to get it installed and working (features, spec, and user comments are one thing, but to get it installed and working that is priceless)

Well long story short, I got Elevated X installed, and fell in love with it. I have had it for like 2 months or so and I could not be happier.

Hell, my suggestion is spend the 150 dollars a month test Elevated X out, and see if it is for you. (He charges 500 set up fee again not a big deal 500 dollar set up fee is nothing)

However, I mean for a 150 a month spend a month or two testing it, place a link in your current members’ area, and see what your members think. Worst case you are out 500 dollars, best case you move to a CMS that you love.

Pornwolf · 05-22-2008, 11:15 PM

That's such a general statement AJ. You can pay someone to add modules to Joomla too, but it sure as shit won't give you what they made with their CMS. LOL

AJHall · 05-22-2008, 11:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pornwolf

That's such a general statement AJ. You can pay someone to add modules to Joomla too, but it sure as shit won't give you what they made with their CMS. LOL

Our system powers large sites and is proven so it's in no way general and in fact is very specific and no, paying us to add modules won't give you what they made with their cms, it will give you 10 TIMES MORE at a fraction of the cost.

Pornwolf · 05-22-2008, 11:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AJHall

Our system powers large sites and is proven so it's in no way general and in fact is very specific and no, paying us to add modules won't give you what they made with their cms, it will give you 10 TIMES MORE at a fraction of the cost.

Now you sound like a used car salesmen. There's a reason why the experienced software pros like Oystein and PB John don't snipe other companies products.

AJHall · 05-23-2008, 12:15 AM

Sorry if there was any ambiguity in my last statement, but there was no intention there to trash anyone's product. I was just pointing out that if someone needs specific features, we will be happy to add them and can typically do so at a very reasonable cost, saving our clients time and money in the process.

If nobody is buying a cms today does anyone want to buy a used honda?

AJHall · 05-23-2008, 12:22 AM

BTW here's a pic of the car, maybe if someone buys the cms we can throw in the car as a package deal.

icespirit · 05-23-2008, 06:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pornwolf

There's good options for everyone at every level in this thread.

A very good point, and very relevant to the thread's poll, however the poll in essence is completely useless if used a comparison between the listed CMSs. You might as well have asked a room full of 20-50 year olds which is the best car out of 5 cars. You can not compare the CMSs in question just because they are CMSs.

First of all though I'd like to openly say that anyone who think's a CMS should cost $500 to buy outright should crawl under a rock and die. I can't remember how many times I see people chime in with this kind of crap. When did software development become the 21st century version of Nike child labour?

Let's focus on purchase price for a minute, forget monthly licensing for now. NATS and MPA are wildly seen as the most popular options for Affiliate Software and last time I looked their purchase price ranges from $12,000 to $20,000 depending on a few factors. A fully featured (i.e. not a glorified mail merge application) ADULT CMS is much more complicated than Affiliate Software. I'm sure that any company posting in this thread who has tried to do both will find it hard to disagree with me. So why exactly has ElevatedX (I'm picking out this one just because it was discussed the most) priced its purchase option at nearly a third of the cost of NATS/MPA? I can't really get my head around this and vice versa, I can't understand why anyone is so shocked at the cost of PaysiteCMS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AJHall

At this time we don't have multiple products, different departments or push more than 1 product or service so it's akin to going to a specialist if you have a problem. Sure, if your foot hurts you can go to any doctor but chances are you're better off going to the one who specializes in feet.

I appreciate the underlying sentiment here but unfortunately that's a really crappy example that just confuses the less knowledgeable readers. You're assuming first of all that the same Doctor who treats your piles is also offering to treat your feet - which is just not how it works. I ask everyone to ponder that if you were in a hospital with some illness would you rather be sent by ambulance to 5 different 'specialists' across the city who have no working relationship with each other and no knowledge of the previous person's work or would you rather be treated in one hospital by a team of specialists who work together to treat your mysterious disease which gave you piles and sore feet.
We're not selling an All-in-one printer here where mechanical limitations affect the ability to perform as well as a specialised device. A companies ability to run multiple departments and seamlessly integrate them is limited only by the ability to hire enough good people.

CMS has become such a buzzword that I'm going to make it extra buzzy. PaysiteCMS provides a CMS Solution. Unless I'm mistaken, non of the other products in question do? Your $5k is only gonna get you so far and you're only gonna get a few yards down the road before your support requests or integration help requests eat into the sellers profit margin enough for him to start charging per hour or per ticket. I think similar economics apply to hosting packages that give you a gazillion megabits for the princely sum of 99 cents a year yet the guys selling 5megabits+server for $500 are still finding customers every day.
When you buy PaysiteCMS you are guaranteed that one company will be at your side from birth to graduation. You're guaranteed that every doctor in the hospital has seen the others naked in the shower.

You can market your template as "powerful and easy to use", and your software as "fully documented", we all do it, but look, if you're not an experienced tech who's been on the interweb for a few years or unless you've got in-house staff who you trust, you're gonna find it tough to release a GOOD site that has any chance of competing in today's environment.

More than a few programs have said to me recently that they're realising their forte is "sales and marketing" and they don't want to be a tech company any more. These are the guys who want a solution, the guys who want another flagship site that they can sell up the wahzoo. They don't want to cross their fingers and hope they find 4 companies who will work together to build the various element the site requires - Software, Hardware Infrastructure, Design and Implementation.

For those of you who are able to afford any of the CMSs on the market (and then some), when you're choosing your next CMS please think about things logically. Do you a) go with the companies which sell a cheap of the shelf product but who's super hardcore l33t programmers will code you the extra bits you need for a rate which allows them to break even or b) go with the guys who have the manpower to backup their software with 24 hour support and development?

AJHall · 05-23-2008, 02:42 PM

Just to make sure all the facts are out there about Elevated X to avoid any confusion:

Our CMS is $3995 which is comparably priced to MAS and Carma. We do, however, offer a monthly lease option for $500 down and $150/month that includes free tech support and free product upgrades.

We provide installation and site setup for free so there's no need for our clients to have programming staff or tech staff of their own.

We deliver the system ready to use.

In 2.5 years of operation we've never charged a customer anything extra for help and support unless they wanted customized features.

We work with hosts and designers and many times we communicate directly with our client's hosting company so the process is not complicated at all, even for a non-technical customer.

In regards to specializing, our approach is different, as are our beliefs when it comes to the best setup for our clients. We want our clients to have the very best of everything and to be able to pick and choose what's best for them.

A lot of people already have a host they like, a biller or cash program software, maybe they have strongbox or some other auth system in place. Our system works with all of these things by default so there's no need for our customers to make any changes to their current setup.

I want my clients to pick the best hosting companies, the best affiliate software and the best designers out there in conjunction with using the best CMS on the market which in our opinion is Elevated X.

We want educated buyers as clients, which is why I said in my earlier post that people should evaluate all of their options, talk to each company and demo each CMS and ask questions and then make decisions based on facts, not opinions.

All we're concerned with is helping our clients build the best pay sites possible. Call us simple minded but as you can read in our user's replies here, they seem to be very happy with us on every level, from performance to ease of use to support.

yellowmenace · 05-23-2008, 06:49 PM

We have worked with Carma for about 6 months and Elevated X for over 2 years and both companies, i can say, have a great product for sites that generate decent volume. I have known AJ for two years and he is very honest and straight up. I am pretty straight forward so i truly appreciate the same.

a.

MikeSmoke · 05-23-2008, 11:55 PM

AJ -
I'll be contacting you next month for a demo (I'm totally backed up right now), but two quick questions that you may or may not want to answer here....

1. I assume the lease option is just that - and that it's not lease-to-buy.
2. How much extra is the video transcoder plug-in?

Thanks :-)
mike

View Poll Results: Which one do you use/like the most
ElevatedX	34	27.20%
MAS	21	16.80%
CARMA	31	24.80%
ThePaysiteCMS	8	6.40%
SiteDepth	13	10.40%
aWiz	10	8.00%
Other	8	6.40%
Voters: 125. You may not vote on this poll

05-18-2008, 03:13 PM	#1
BucksMania Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 3,758	About all the Paysite CMSs we have available today I spent the last couple of days reading and researching about the different paysite CMSes we have on the market now, those seems to be the most popular ones (feel free to add to the list) ElevatedX - about $4k http://elevatedx.com/ MAS - about $4k (not sure) http://www.mansionproductions.com/mas/ CARMA - $3.5k http://www.toomuchmedia.com/products/carma/ ThePaysiteCMS - $??? http://thepaysitecms.com/ SiteDepth - $900 http://sitedepth.com/ aWiz 280 euro http://v5.awizsoft.com/ Because I'm still not quite sure which one to use, I would like everyone who has any experience with any of them to share it and vote for the one he is currently using or think is the best. We are looking at price range from about $400 to $4000 so keep in mind and the value for money factor. Thank you

05-18-2008, 05:11 PM	#4
brandonstills Confirmed User Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Chatsworth, CA Posts: 1,964	I've been building custom CMS products for people. Often times an off the shelf CMS forces you structure your site in an artificial way and creates workflows that aren't quite optimal for what you are doing. Let me know what features you need. Hit me up, it might be worth exploring a custom option. __________________ Brandon Stills Industry and programming veteran [email protected] \| skype: brandonstills \| ICQ #495-171-318

05-18-2008, 05:30 PM	#7
TMM_John Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 6,660	You're going to get less and pay much more in the long run going the custom route. You have to hope that the person who wrote it doesn't disappear and is available long term to make modifications, fixes, feature additions, and provide general support for the product. The last thing you want to do to a programmer is hand them someone else's code to work on. They hate it Either way this will get costly after a while. Also, you have more issues to worry about as security goes with one person using the solution as opposed to many people using the solution. With CARMA you are not stuck to a certain flow which does happen with some solutions as was indicated above. __________________ Skype: JohnA1078 Too Much Media - Makers of the Industry's Leading Payite Management Platform, NATS!

05-18-2008, 05:40 PM	#8
Snake Doctor I'm Lenny2 Bitch Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: On top of my soapbox Posts: 13,449	Bucksmania, something to remember. Having a good product out of the box is only half the battle. The other half is having good support and documentation. Will there be someone there to walk you through the setup so you can learn everything you need to know in one day instead of doing trial and error for weeks? Will someone be there to fix security exploits, bugs, and help you with tech support issues down the road? I personally tried to use the two cheaper CMS's on your list...and threw both of them out because of support/documentation issues. It didn't matter how much money I was supposedly saving, I could never get anything accomplished. I thoroughly researched the more expensive options and I settled on Elevatedx. I have no regrets about doing so. __________________ sig too big

05-18-2008, 04:50 PM	#2
BucksMania Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 3,758	ok we have few votes now, but no replies :>

05-18-2008, 07:34 PM	#11
The Promo Guy Confirmed User Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: New York Posts: 109	it looks like my waiting has paid off.... I really wanted to go with ThePaysiteCMS but thought the price tag was a bit steep so i held of on going forward with 1 of my projects... i spent many hours reading up on all the popular CMS software solutions and i believe ThepaysiteCMS is by far the best out there and i did not ant to settle with 1 of the others. WELL it looks like they are getting ready to LEASE it now, the pricing page shows leasing options but does not seem to be functioning for me... i will be shooting those guys an email in the morning (GREAT GUYS THERE TOO). BucksMania, definitely consider ThePaysiteCMS in your search for a CMS __________________ GOT PROMO ITEMS ? Custom Printed Apparel, Trade Show Giveaways, Banners,Pens, Mousepads, Flash Drives, Sanitizer, Lubes & MORE. I can get you anything you want with your name/website on it. Feel free to email me or Instant Message me to discuss how Promo Items can benefit you... CEO: Spencer. Email: Spencer_Stein @ ymail.com

05-18-2008, 08:36 PM	#14
The Ghost IslandDollars.com Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Icq: 176176 Posts: 12,188	We use Carma and like it alot, so far isn't anything we haven't been able to do with it. But for any CMS you will need to know your goals on content scheduling and management. If you have those outlined it would be more helpful for a CMS suggestion. The only negative I've ever found with Carma is the lack of programmers that can integrated it with a site design. __________________ ISLAND DOLLARS 1000's of Exclusive TS scenes / Constant Updates Best TS Network your surfers will ever join

05-21-2008, 07:04 AM	#17
candyflip Carpe Visio Industry Role: Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: New York Posts: 43,064	Calidiapex is the evolution of XTract, which I have been using for the past two years. It's in beta now, and looks great. I'm hoping to upgrade sometime in the near future. Definitely worth checking out if you're not wanting to spend $5k+ for a paysite CMS. http://www.calidi.com/ __________________ Spend you some brain. Email Me

05-21-2008, 11:50 AM	#20
Ayrora Registered User Industry Role: Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: California Posts: 11	MAS for me MAS is powerful, flexible and easy to use The template system lets you easily skin it and you can use as many or as few of its features as you want to give your site its own unique flavor; the support is outstanding and the built-in 2257 system makes it even more worthwhile. I think that the bigger your operation and the more sites you have, the more useful it is, but for a solo site operator such as myself, it provides an incredibly powerful platform and wide range of options that can set a site apart from its competitors. MAS is a definite winner

05-22-2008, 09:07 AM	#21
OY Industry Pioneer Industry Role: Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: USA/EU/ASIA Posts: 5,401	John, you are right about the demo we have on display for MAS. It definately does not justify the product itself as it is very very old. We have been too busy working and supporting clients to have had the time to launch the new demo out soon. The product itself, however, is quite different now. In the course of MAS development our focus has always been pointed towards flexibility, reliability and speed (both for MAS admin and the members areas) in a traffic-intense environment, and not towards having a basketful of features with doubtful performance. The coming week we will be officially announcing MAS version 1.8 (we are not big fans of quick jumps into major version numbers like many software companies do). Along with numerous performance, security and interface improvements, some of the major features in this version, which are not in the demo includes: Fully integrated support for Cavecreek/Level-3 CDN network 100% compatible and preloaded leased feeds powered by SexEntertain (SexEntertain Content & Plugins, Vivid, Hustler Content, FullonVideo, Cherry Boxxx, Erotic Men, Total Hentai) Advanced options for automatic content rotation Batch actions for quick altering of multiple content set properties (categories, templates, find&replace in titles/descriptions and more); Undo of last changes News & Events for multiple sites Secured feedback mailing form (with captcha verification) Alert & prevention system against injection of malicios commands in templates Periodically flushing/dumping history tables to optimize DB performance Limited admin privileges IP restrictions for admin accounts Passthru of userdefined variables (useful for tours - webmaster tracking codes etc.) Obscured (hashed) content paths Manual selection of content to be displayed on certain sections Creating zip files with gallery contents Inheriting template classes into multiple sites/sections, or directly including the parsed result of one section into another Star rating Subtemplates for finest control over video and content groups pages layout; different subtemplates per category or content type Visual resize & crop of face images Improved scanners for new content Medium-sized/full-sized image support with visual effects Events & calendar Different sizes for thumbnails and faceimages, per template And on top of this we are also near the end of the development of MAS version 2.0, which is a major rewrite of all the underlying code to improve performance even more and speed up the development of new features to come. Some of the features which will be found in 2.0 are: - Template repository, for easier reusing (as-is or with modifications) of common templates for various sections in different sites - Ability to assign a different gallery template per site to each content set which is shared in more sites - The faceimage size goes with the template, so this also means different faceimage size per site - Multiple categories per content set - Members Favorites - Members comments (with editor's approval) - Menu builder - Captions for individual videos/pictures - Advanced video set editor, allowing easier grouping of encodes per scene, naming and uploading of scene thumb - Video frames extraction with options to choose the best among many frames and either build a photo gallery out of them, or use them as preview thumbs for the video set - Cached search results for optimal performance - User interface for program settings, backup and maintenance - Improved support for streaming flash video, integrated services for video transcoding and multi-scene flash video player. Have a nice day! __________________ Around since 1997, and the company that introduced "Cascading Billing" in MPA3® Affiliate Management and Tracking Software Outsourcing With A Norwegian Twist - NordBits - Inquire within!

05-22-2008, 09:41 AM	#22
Jake Confirmed User Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: CO, US Posts: 3,056	You can't go wrong with MAS! We've been using it for a couple of years and the software itself is incredible and very easy to use. More importantly the support is second to none. __________________

05-22-2008, 09:44 AM	#23
TMM_John Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 6,660	WOW, MAS shot from 0 to 14 votes pretty quickly. Guess all the MAS users woke up! __________________ Skype: JohnA1078 Too Much Media - Makers of the Industry's Leading Payite Management Platform, NATS!

05-22-2008, 10:01 AM	#24
Grisey Confirmed User Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Uk Posts: 1,805	I use sitedepth and have for a few years and can't say abad thing about it, alfredo the programmer can do anything for you hes on msn everyday. A few friends have bought carma and had to delay the opening of sites because its so dam hard to intergrate into a paysite and it takes someone with amazing knowledge of how to do this. __________________ Segpay Suck Ass Worse Billing Company Allurecash Scammers and don't pay

05-22-2008, 11:41 AM	#26
Just Mike Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: In a land FAR FAR away Posts: 3,726	*****MAS has some great new features**** We will be officially announcing this and more in the next week All the SEXENTERTAIN STUDIO FEEDS are pre-loaded into MAS VIVID HUSTLER CHERRYBOXXX TOTAL HENTAI EROTIC MEN FULL ON VIDEO SEXENTERTAIN Now with one click you can have all the meta data, attributes, graphics and Icons loaded into your MAS system and get your members area loaded with content in seconds. HOW EASY IS THAT?! Contact Oy or myself for details __________________ EMAIL: [email protected] / ICQ: 56205262* AWEMPIRE

05-22-2008, 11:42 AM	#27
mailman Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 6,311	We use Carma but ElevatedX is also a great product.

05-22-2008, 12:00 PM	#29
webgurl Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Clouds with Carebears Posts: 7,954	I chose Carma

05-22-2008, 02:07 PM	#30
Major (Tom) Boomer Woffen Industry Role: Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Null Posts: 30,508	carma ds __________________ My mother said, to get things done You'd better not mess with Major Tom

05-22-2008, 02:40 PM	#31
Easton Too lazy to set a custom title Industry Role: Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 9,825	we use a custom CMS for both our programs __________________ New models booked and shot every week... MILFs, pornstars and teens. Girls for every niche and project. Looking for high-quality affordable exclusive content? Check me out at Easton Content for all the details.

05-22-2008, 07:44 PM	#32
AJHall Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 1,306	I just saw this and figured I'd chime in. I agree that there are only 3 options when it comes to systems that are robust and proven through use by A-tier cash programs and under heavy traffic and loads. A CMS is like any other purchase. When looking at a product there will always be pros and cons and when choosing a product like this, I always tell people to evaluate based on their needs, not based on the needs of someone else or what works well for them. I tell people all the time during demo calls to go look at every system, eval all of them and see what's out there and buy the one that makes the most sense to you. Most of our clients fall into 1 of these categories: 1) People either just starting sites or just starting to expand a cash program 2) People who have large programs and need something that can handle a ton of content and traffic as well as scale quickly and easily 3 out of 4 of our clients have owned another CMS. The people in between are happy with what they have as it works well for them and their needs fall within the limitations of their current cms and they really have no idea what they're missing or how much better off they could be. In this case ignorance is bliss, and as the saying goes, "if it ain't broke..." I have dealt with both John and Oystein in the past and both are good guys so I say this without taking anything away from them but part of what separates us from everyone else is that our sole focus is the cms and we're just beginning to expand and hire additional dedicated full time staff to further the development. 110% of our time, energy, thoughts and resources are going into this and this alone and it shows. At this time we don't have multiple products, different departments or push more than 1 product or service so it's akin to going to a specialist if you have a problem. Sure, if your foot hurts you can go to any doctor but chances are you're better off going to the one who specializes in feet. I don't want to sell my clients customizations or integrations or designs or web hosting or discounted combo deals, I want to sell them the best content management system possible at an affordable price. A few tips for anyone who is considering buying a CMS: ------------------------------------------------------------- 1) DO NOT look at features. DO, however, look and see if the system has the features YOU NEED and if not, find out how easily they can be added. 2) Make a list of systems and request demos of each of them 3) Find out if the system will allow you to grow your business and at what cost. Will there be fees for adding new sites, can you add more servers, etc.? 4) Don't be afraid to ask questions about things and find out how the system will help your business in ways other than just automating processes for you. 5) Find out what features are planned or upcoming and whether there will be any additional cost to you to have these added when they're available. 6) Most important - don't be afraid to talk to us. We're not used car salesman, won't pressure you to buy anything and the phone call is free. Same goes for the other guys as well so call them too. Know what you're getting but more importantly, know what you're not getting. In regards to the comparisons between the 3 most comparable systems: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- To clarify, there is no industry specific system that will provide more control or flexibility than Elevated X. The reason is that our design templates are entirely code-based and none of the templates are encoded, not even the portion of the templates that control the content itself. We purposely chose this in favor of any other method specifically for this reason. Our system supports the use of multiple servers including remote content and load balanced servers by default and at no additional cost. We also have multiple levels of caching and utilize both dynamic PHP and static HTML and are able to provide an unmatched level of performance without having to sacrifice the features required in order for a pay site owner to thrive in today's competetive market. We have in demand features including automated tour management, limited trials, video transcoding and a FHG generator and everything our system does will easily integrate with NATS, MPA3 as well as any biller or custom affiliate software. Cost: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- There seems to be a lot of mention of cost in these threads. I urge anyone in the market to also consider that we offer a monthly license for just $150 and I know some of the others offer similar plans so the fact that you can't afford to drop $4k in 1 shot is no excuse not to have a high end system running your sites. My $.02 is just try not to settle. Obviously I always want to make a sale but I don't want an unhappy customer and the most important thing is that whatever you do decide to buy is something that you'll be happy with and that it's a purchase you can feel good about. __________________ Owner, Elevated X - The 4 Time Award Winning Adult CMS Software Company Used by More Than 2000 Adult Sites.

05-22-2008, 08:39 PM	#33
Pornwolf Drunk and Unruly Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Hollywood Posts: 22,712	It's kind of hard to beat The Paysite CMS. That shit is incredible. __________________ I've trusted my sites to them for over a decade... Webair, bitches.

05-22-2008, 10:39 PM	#35
Abyss_Vee Confirmed User Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 5,208	We are very happy with elevatedx. Its a very well structured CMS that gives you a lot of control. We actually went through a few cms's before we decided to use Elevatedx. We've been using it for over a year now and they keep making it better every day.

05-22-2008, 10:41 PM	#36
Andre Confirmed User Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Inside Your Head Posts: 1,156	I?ve always believed that a good CMS is an important part of my business and needs to be stable, secure, flexible and scalable. People behind the code need to understand client?s business problems and solve them with good code as well as necessary and visionary features. That said, starting 2003 I?ve made mistakes by buying into products that were packaged solutions thus making me work the way they envisioned I should work instead of being flexible enough to adapt to how I wanted to work. I also made the mistake of having custom CMS written only to find myself wasting time on managing the programmers and code. And my biggest mistake was not looking close enough at support. Foreign support just did not work for me due to time zone and language barriers. In other words I?ve spend thousands of dollars wasting my time on less-expensive solutions. This was my real experience with you get what you pay for. ElevatedX solved all of the mentioned problems for me in 2007. It?s a robust product with experienced people behind it. I am not able to focus on other aspects of my business and not worry about a huge portion of my infrastructure.

05-22-2008, 10:54 PM	#39
GrouchyAdmin Now choke yourself! Industry Role: Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 12,085	...and as somebody who has written different CMS platforms: Don't go custom unless you plan on eventually hiring your own staff to care and feed it or throwing it out. __________________ AIM: GrouchyGfy

05-22-2008, 11:12 PM	#41
Catalyst Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Vegas Posts: 3,243	BucksMania I just switched CMS. I am a total nerd I spent months looking and comparing them all and doing a ton of research. I am still doing some final tweaks on my CMS as we speak. Some of the people I shoot for offered me their custom CMS and I had a ton of different things to look at. A couple of tips How I compared. a.) Features I need b.) b-list features - things that would be nice, but I don't need now c.) who do I know that is using it, this is a biggie for me. All CMS owners are going to push their own product that is common sense. Who do I know that has a Carma member’s area that can I call? Who do I know who has an Elevated X site that can I call? I did that first because if a CMS doesn't support their product why should I spend the money on them I will find someone who does. Also talk to people that do the same thing you do, and that you want to be like. I know this sounds strange, but trust me. For me, I run glamour / teen / solo girl sites. So something that might work for a BBW Multi girl site, might not work for me Yea…Yea… people say content is content, but it is not. My members know who lightspeed, ftv, and others like that are. From talking to people I limited my choices down to like 2 CMS Well from that point their feature where similar (one had a bit more) but again it wasn't features I was going to use right away so what did I care. Then I looked at price That is what sold me on Elevated X It is a 150 dollars a month let me REPEAT THAT $150 A MONTH, UNLIMITED SITES, NO BULLSHIT, No games... just $150 a month… that is like 5 or 6 sales. I thought to myself, I will get Elevated-X installed and start testing it. There is NO better test then to get it installed and working (features, spec, and user comments are one thing, but to get it installed and working that is priceless) Well long story short, I got Elevated X installed, and fell in love with it. I have had it for like 2 months or so and I could not be happier. Hell, my suggestion is spend the 150 dollars a month test Elevated X out, and see if it is for you. (He charges 500 set up fee again not a big deal 500 dollar set up fee is nothing) However, I mean for a 150 a month spend a month or two testing it, place a link in your current members’ area, and see what your members think. Worst case you are out 500 dollars, best case you move to a CMS that you love.

05-22-2008, 11:15 PM	#42
Pornwolf Drunk and Unruly Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Hollywood Posts: 22,712	That's such a general statement AJ. You can pay someone to add modules to Joomla too, but it sure as shit won't give you what they made with their CMS. LOL __________________ I've trusted my sites to them for over a decade... Webair, bitches.

05-23-2008, 12:15 AM	#45
AJHall Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 1,306	Sorry if there was any ambiguity in my last statement, but there was no intention there to trash anyone's product. I was just pointing out that if someone needs specific features, we will be happy to add them and can typically do so at a very reasonable cost, saving our clients time and money in the process. If nobody is buying a cms today does anyone want to buy a used honda? __________________ Owner, Elevated X - The 4 Time Award Winning Adult CMS Software Company Used by More Than 2000 Adult Sites.

05-23-2008, 12:22 AM	#46
AJHall Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 1,306	BTW here's a pic of the car, maybe if someone buys the cms we can throw in the car as a package deal. __________________ Owner, Elevated X - The 4 Time Award Winning Adult CMS Software Company Used by More Than 2000 Adult Sites. Last edited by AJHall; 05-23-2008 at 12:23 AM.. Reason: typo

05-23-2008, 02:42 PM	#48
AJHall Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Southern California Posts: 1,306	Just to make sure all the facts are out there about Elevated X to avoid any confusion: Our CMS is $3995 which is comparably priced to MAS and Carma. We do, however, offer a monthly lease option for $500 down and $150/month that includes free tech support and free product upgrades. We provide installation and site setup for free so there's no need for our clients to have programming staff or tech staff of their own. We deliver the system ready to use. In 2.5 years of operation we've never charged a customer anything extra for help and support unless they wanted customized features. We work with hosts and designers and many times we communicate directly with our client's hosting company so the process is not complicated at all, even for a non-technical customer. In regards to specializing, our approach is different, as are our beliefs when it comes to the best setup for our clients. We want our clients to have the very best of everything and to be able to pick and choose what's best for them. A lot of people already have a host they like, a biller or cash program software, maybe they have strongbox or some other auth system in place. Our system works with all of these things by default so there's no need for our customers to make any changes to their current setup. I want my clients to pick the best hosting companies, the best affiliate software and the best designers out there in conjunction with using the best CMS on the market which in our opinion is Elevated X. We want educated buyers as clients, which is why I said in my earlier post that people should evaluate all of their options, talk to each company and demo each CMS and ask questions and then make decisions based on facts, not opinions. All we're concerned with is helping our clients build the best pay sites possible. Call us simple minded but as you can read in our user's replies here, they seem to be very happy with us on every level, from performance to ease of use to support. __________________ Owner, Elevated X - The 4 Time Award Winning Adult CMS Software Company Used by More Than 2000 Adult Sites.

05-23-2008, 06:49 PM	#49
yellowmenace Confirmed User Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 1,141	We have worked with Carma for about 6 months and Elevated X for over 2 years and both companies, i can say, have a great product for sites that generate decent volume. I have known AJ for two years and he is very honest and straight up. I am pretty straight forward so i truly appreciate the same. a. __________________ Yellow Menace icq# 322981173

05-23-2008, 11:55 PM	#50
MikeSmoke Confirmed User Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: SoCal Posts: 3,233	AJ - I'll be contacting you next month for a demo (I'm totally backed up right now), but two quick questions that you may or may not want to answer here.... 1. I assume the lease option is just that - and that it's not lease-to-buy. 2. How much extra is the video transcoder plug-in? Thanks :-) mike __________________ icq: 541-739-92