NetSuite, the parent company of LightCMS, is seeking an Operations Engineer to join our growing team. This position will work out of our Oklahoma City office alongside the majority of the LightCMS staff and will manage systems operations for LightCMS and other NetSuite products. We're very excited about this new position. If you or someone you know might be a fit, please check out the full career posting on NetSuite's website where you can get all the details and submit your application online.

We're excited to announce some changes to the LightCMS pricing plans that we know you're going to love. These have been in the works for many months and we're pleased to finally bring them your way. There's a lot to cover here so please take a moment to read all the way through this announcement to discover everything that's new.

No User Limits. No Transaction Fees.

That's right, all of our new LightCMS plans offer unlimited users and no transaction fees! Now you'll be able to set up user accounts for as many people as you wish, even on our lower-tiered plans. Plus, you'll save money when you sell products online with no LightCMS transaction fees. Keep in mind, you'll still be subject to the fees charged by your merchant account providers, but LightCMS will no longer collect any additional transaction fees on products you sell through our store.

Plan Name Changes

As you can see on the image above, we're changing our plan names as well. What were previously known as Basic, Plus, Advanced, Pro, and Premier will now be called Personal, Standard, Premium, Professional, and Unlimited.

The 14 Day Trial with Full Access

We're also moving away from the limited trial accounts we've provided thus far (free up to three pages) to a Free Trial model where new websites get full access to as many resources as they need at no cost for 14 days. After 14 days, websites will need to submit payment at whatever level their website requires based on the pages, storage, and products used.

One big advantage of the Free Trial model is that it will enable us to offer copy website functionality, a very highly-requested feature. Read more about this below.

Copy Any Website with a Click

The ability to create a new LightCMS website by copying an existing one has been a highly-requested feature for years. We're happy to announce that this new feature will be going live alongside these plan changes. The copy website functionality is dependent upon the implementation of a free trial model. Our previous model limited all new websites to only three pages so it was not possible to copy existing websites that had more than three pages. Now any website can be copied in its entirety with a click!

To copy a website, you'll visit Account -> Websites and choose the website you want to copy. Then, from the menu at the upper right, choose "Copy," and give your new site a unique name. That's it! The entire site with all of its content will be copied to create a second, identical website under your LightCMS account. This is great for using one website as a starting point when you're building out a new site.

Other Changes

Outside of what's mentioned above, all of our plans stay the same with two exceptions. Our Professional Plan ($69/month) will now have a limit of 100 pages (previously unlimited) and a limit of 5,000 products (previously 10,000). Our Standard Plan ($29/month) will now get an extra GB of storage for a total of 3GB. Also, resellers should note that the loss of LightCMS Transaction fees also means the loss of transaction fee profit sharing through the LightCMS Rewards program.

Opt In or Stay as You Are: the Choice is Yours

We're very excited about the advantages these plans and features offer to our resellers and customers, but we also know that some of you may prefer to stay with the plans you have now. So, we have built this release in a way to give our existing customers the option of whether to keep the plans they have currently, or to opt into these new plans and features.

As a result, if your LightCMS account exists before this release goes live, nothing will change for you unless you opt into the new plans. If you take no action, you will be able to keep your current line up of plans indefinitely. You'll still be able to add new websites that are free up to three pages, but you won’t be able to utilize the copy website functionality and all websites under your account will retain their existing characteristics including their user limits and transaction fees.

How to Opt In

If you want to take advantage of the new plans and features we're releasing, you will need to manually opt into the new plans. To do this, you'll need to follow these steps once the plans are live:

1. Log in to your account.
2. Choose “Account” from the User Session Menu at the upper right.
3. Click the “Websites” tab.
4. Select any of your websites.
5. Click the “Upgrade” button (you won’t be required to upgrade if you don’t want to).

After following the above steps, you’ll be presented with a page describing the new plans with an option to enable them. Once you enable the plans, you’ll be presented with the new plan change page, showing which of the new plans the selected site is on currently. From there, you can upgrade/downgrade your site, or simply return to editing by clicking any of the buttons on the toolbar.

When you opt into the new plans, all websites under your account will be migrated to the new plans automatically. User limits and transaction fees will disappear from all websites under your account. You'll gain access to the copy website functionality and any new websites you add or copy will enjoy unlimited access to the system during a 14 day trial period.

When you opt in, we’ll also grandfather any existing free websites. You’ll be able to keep them under your account at no cost indefinitely (please note that free websites will retain their existing limit of one user). Also, existing "Pro" plan websites will retain their Unlimited Pages and their 10,000 for as long as they remain on the Professional plan.

Launch: Week of April 15, 2013

We look forward to bringing you these new plans and features. They are scheduled for release during the week of April 15th. Stay tuned to our website, forum, and social media channels for more specific information on when they are live. Again, this update will have no affect on your LightCMS account unless you manually opt in to the new plans. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us any time at support@lightcms.com.

Ever since we introduced our store functionality in 2011, LightCMS has been working hard to simplify the challenge of accepting credit card payments on the web. Today, we're announcing another big step forward with one-step credit card set up through Stripe.

It's no longer necessary to establish a merchant account outside of LightCMS. Now, LightCMS customers can activate a Stripe account and begin accepting credit card payments instantly, right inside the LightCMS store settings. Here's a quick look at how it works.

Log in to your LightCMS website and choose Settings -> Payments from the store toolbar. Right at the top, you'll see information about Stripe. Click the "Activate Stripe Account" button and you'll be taken to the LightCMS Stripe set up page. If you already have a Stripe account, you can choose to use it. If you don't, you'll simply fill out the bit of information requested on this page, then click "Authorize Access to this Account" at the bottom. 

That's it! Your store will be ready to accept credit card payments and income from your sales will be automatically transferred to your bank account. Stripe charges 2.9% + 30 cents per successful transaction and allows you to accept all major credit cards. There are no other fees associated with using Stripe.

One note -- Stripe is currently only available in the US and Canada. If you are outside of these countries, or if you prefer to use one of our other integrated payment processors for any reason, you may still do so by selecting the "use a different gateway" link next to the Stripe account button.

We hope you and your clients enjoy the new one-step set up for accepting credit card payments on the web. This feature is up and running on every LightCMS website. Check it out inside your account today.

We've got some very exciting news to share with you today. LightCMS and Element Fusion have been acquired by NetSuite. NetSuite is a publicly traded company (NYSE: N) and the industry's leading provider of cloud-based business management software suites. We're excited that LightCMS is joining NetSuite's broad suite of applications.

We know that the news of an acquisition can raise a lot of questions, so we want to assure you of a few important things. 

First off, it's important to note that you can continue using LightCMS as usual. The impact of this change in ownership should be transparent. The LightCMS platform continues to operate as normal for customers and resellers. In addition, we want you to know that the LightCMS team is still in place and will continue to service and support the LightCMS product. In fact, we'll still be operating out of our Oklahoma City offices. NetSuite wants to preserve what has made LightCMS a success as well as continuing to improve it for years to come.

Most of you know that Element Fusion, the creator of LightCMS, always maintained a unique approach to business. We bootstrapped our company from the beginning, growing it steadily on solid profits and operating with no debt and no outside investment. An exit plan has never been a part of our strategy as we were always in it for the long haul.

At the same time, we always kept our eyes open for opportunities to expand and grow — opportunities that would bring great new things to our product and our customers. NetSuite presented us with just such an opportunity and, as a result, we are very excited about what the future holds. We can't wait to continue on the journey with you.

Thank you all for your continued support of LightCMS. We look forward to serving you for years to come. If you have any further questions, you may reach us, as always, at support@lightcms.com.

For the fifth consecutive year, LightCMS will be a part of SXSW Interactive, one of the world's largest gatherings of interactive professionals. If you find yourself at SXSW this year, we hope you'll stop by our booth (number 337) in the Austin Convention Center so we can meet you face to face.

This year's SXSW Interactive Conference takes place March 8-12 with the Trade Show firing up on March 10th. Stop by our Trade Show booth and you'll be able to meet some of our team, take a guided tour of our software, and even pick up your very own "Web Designers are Sexy" sticker!

LightCMS team members attending SXSW this year include Marketing Director Tim Wall (that's me), Support Director Chad Jaggers, Creative Director Matthew Sanders, and Software Engineer Matt Grimm. It's going to be great fun this year and we hope to see you there!

Are you going to SXSW 2013? Let us know in the comments below!