Some people like to rent their tools. Others like to pay once and never think about it again. Until now DonkeyCMS asked you to pick one of its plans and keep paying. From today, Pro and Business come two ways, and you choose.

The short version:

  • Pay monthly. Pro is €6 a month and Business is €15 a month. Cancel any time.

  • Pay once. Pro is €149 and Business is €249. The license keeps working for good.

  • The Agency plan is gone. Agencies get volume discounts instead, and the white-label version has a new home inside Business.

  • Every blog gets two new reading tools, a Contents list and a Reading mode, including blogs on the Free plan.

All prices include VAT. They are on the pricing page.

Pay monthly: a rental

A monthly plan is simple. You pay each month, and the paid features work while you do. If you stop, the paid features switch off and your blog carries on with the Free plan. Your posts stay online, nothing is deleted, and if you come back later everything returns the way you left it.

It suits a new project, a campaign, or anyone who would rather not commit yet.

Pay once: you keep it

A one-time license is a single payment. It never expires, and every feature of your plan keeps working for good.

It includes one year of updates, counted from the day the license was issued. Updates are the new versions: new features and fixes. After the first year you can buy one more year of updates when you want them. Pro is €49 and Business is €99. If you never do, nothing breaks. Your blog simply stays on the version you have. Renewing is optional and never charged automatically.

The donkey has a rule about this: a license should not turn into a subscription behind your back.

Which one should you pick

  • Choose monthly if you are testing, building something short, or want the lowest starting cost.

  • Choose one-time if the blog is part of a site you plan to run for years. Pro costs less than renting after about two years, Business after about a year and a half.

  • Not sure? Start with the Free plan, or with one month of Pro. A first monthly payment has a 14-day refund.

What each plan includes

Pro is for individuals and small teams. It has the Media Library, full control of fonts and colors, comments, no "Powered by DonkeyCMS" credit, the image tools, the AI and search visitors report, custom head and footer code, and WordPress import. Pro allows five team accounts in total: you plus four.

Business is for businesses and bigger teams. It has everything in Pro, plus unlimited team members, custom roles, editorial workflow, DonkeyBoard, built-in analytics, cloud backups, newsletter integrations and the JSON API.

Each license is for one site.

If you build sites for other people

Agencies and freelancers often run many sites, and clients do not like subscriptions. So there is no Agency plan any more. Instead:

  • Volume discounts on one-time licenses. Buy 5 or more at once and each one costs 5% less. Buy 10 or more and it is 10% less.

  • Business white-label. An order of 5 or more one-time Business licenses comes as Business white-label licenses. The admin panel carries your name and logo, so your clients see your brand and not ours.

  • One license per site, one key per license. When a site goes to its client, we can move that license to the client's email address.

A note we want to be clear about: volume orders are sold for business use, and so they cannot be refunded or withdrawn from. An update renewal is delivered at once and cannot be refunded either. A single license or your first month keeps the 14-day refund. If you want to see DonkeyCMS before ordering several licenses, buy one first.

Also new: a Contents list and a Reading mode

These came with version 1.11, and they are in every plan, Free included.

Contents list. Any post with three or more sections now gets a list of them. On a wide screen it sits next to the text. On a phone or a narrow window it becomes a bar at the top with a section menu and a thin progress line. Readers of long posts can jump straight to the part they came for. You can switch it off in Settings, Features.

Reading mode. Every post has an Aa button. It opens a quiet, full-screen reader with paper, sepia, gray or night colors, a text size and a choice of serif or sans. The choices are remembered in the reader's browser, without cookies. You can also switch it off or move the button in Settings, Features.

Version 1.11 also tidied the Settings page so each setting has its own row, made the color fields open on a HEX code so you can paste your brand color, and changed the posts per page choices to 6, 9 or 12. Version 1.12 fixed two small things: the Contents list now starts below anything your site pins to the top of the screen, such as an announcement bar, and the close button in Reading mode is centered.

How to get it

If you already run DonkeyCMS, open License & Updates in your admin panel and click update. It makes a backup first and takes a few seconds. To pick a plan or compare them, go to the pricing page.

If you have been waiting for a reason to try it, the Free plan is still the place to start.