Nuvabill

The free, open-source WHMCS alternative for hosting companies.
Billing, automation and support. Built for phones first.

Website · Live demo · Getting started · Features · Nuvabill vs WHMCS · Docs · Roadmap

Nuvabill is free, open-source billing software for web hosting companies, written from scratch as a modern alternative to WHMCS. It sells your hosting plans and domains, bills clients every month, creates their cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk, Proxmox or Virtualizor accounts the moment they pay, suspends late payers, and handles support tickets. It is licensed under the AGPL: there is no license fee and no per-client pricing, and moving from WHMCS takes one import.

At a glance

• Automation: cPanel & WHM, DirectAdmin, Plesk, Proxmox VE and Virtualizor accounts created on payment, suspended when overdue, unsuspended when paid, plus free CyberPanel, HestiaCP, VirtFusion and SolusVM modules on the Marketplace
• Automations: "when this happens, do that", like late fees, welcome emails, quote follow-ups and VIP tickets first, with 9 templates and a log of every run
• AI help with your own Claude key: ticket reply drafts, two-way ticket translation, summaries and product texts; staff always send, and private details never reach the AI
• Telegram and WhatsApp: invoices, reminders and ticket replies in the chat apps clients already use; clients link by QR code, and chats become tickets
• Admin phone app: install the admin area on your phone from the browser, with a Today screen and push alerts for orders, payments and tickets
• Billing: invoices with PDFs, renewals, reminders, taxes (VAT, GST, sales tax), coupons, product add-ons, quotes, a client wallet and affiliates
• Payments: Stripe, PayPal, bank transfer and Iraqi payments (FIB, FastPay and Wayl), with refunds and exchange rates
• Domains: search, register, transfer and renew at ResellerClub, Namecheap, Enom or OpenSRS
• Support: tickets with departments, priorities and email notifications
• Security: two-factor sign-in, passkeys, CAPTCHA, fraud checks, staff roles, security headers
• 12 languages, with right-to-left Arabic and Kurdish (Sorani)
• Search engines: sitemap, titles and descriptions, prices on Google, language links and link previews, with every theme
• REST API, a marketplace of signed themes and extensions, and signed one-click updates with rollback
• Importers for WHMCS, Blesta, FOSSBilling and Paymenter: clients (with their passwords), products, services, domains, invoices, payments and tickets, with a dry run first

Install it with a single command:

curl -fsSL https://nuvabill.com/install.sh | bash

Status: v0.7.1. New in 0.7: resource sliders (extra CPU, RAM, disk and IPs), a full server panel with a browser console, your own dedicated servers with power control, free Hetzner modules, Connect to marketplace, and Mongolian and Thai: 12 languages with right-to-left pages for Arabic and Kurdish, and billing in 155 currencies. Also the admin phone app, Telegram and WhatsApp, AI help, Automations, taxes, a client wallet, quotes, affiliates, a REST API and passkeys. See the changelog and the roadmap.

Try it: the live demo has sample clients, invoices and tickets. One click signs you in, and the data resets every hour.

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Why Nuvabill instead of WHMCS

	Nuvabill	WHMCS
Cost	Free, no per-client pricing	Paid license; check the vendor's site for current prices
Source code	Open (AGPL-3.0): read it, change it, host it anywhere	Closed; the core needs the ionCube Loader
Moving over	Built-in importers for WHMCS, Blesta, FOSSBilling and Paymenter, with a dry run; run them as often as you like before you switch	—
Updates	Signed releases, one-click update with backup and automatic rollback	See the vendor's documentation
Iraqi payments	FIB, FastPay and Wayl built in; prices in dollars, payment in dinar	Check the vendor's marketplace
Right to left	Arabic and Kurdish (Sorani) client and admin areas	Check the vendor's site

When WHMCS may still be the better choice today. Nuvabill is young (first release: September 2026). Stay with WHMCS, or wait, if you depend on:

• a module or integration Nuvabill does not have yet (WHMCS has a large third-party ecosystem)
• a long track record and a commercial support contract

These gaps are on the roadmap.

Screenshots

More below, and in the live demo.

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Getting started

Step-by-step guides are in the documentation: installation, configuration, control panels, payment gateways, registrars, migrating from WHMCS and the FAQ.

Install with one line

On a fresh Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 or Debian 12/13 server, as root:

curl -fsSL https://nuvabill.com/install.sh | bash

It sets up Nginx, PHP 8.4, MariaDB, a free SSL certificate and the cron job, then asks for your company name and your owner account. Give your address up front with bash -s -- --domain billing.yourhost.com.

On a server that already runs PHP 8.3+ (SSH, or Terminal in cPanel), the same line installs Nuvabill into a nuvabill folder, asks a few questions and adds the cron job. Choose the folder with --dir. Every download is checked against the release signature before anything is unpacked.

Already unpacked Nuvabill yourself? Run php artisan nuvabill:install in its folder to install from the terminal instead of the browser.

Prefer to upload a zip? Follow the steps below.

1. Check your hosting

• PHP 8.3 or newer with pdo, openssl, mbstring, intl, curl, zip, sodium, bcmath, fileinfo
• MySQL 8 or MariaDB 10.6+ (SQLite works for small sites and testing)
• A cron job that runs every minute

Most cPanel, DirectAdmin and Plesk hosting accounts already have all of this.

2. Upload and install

1. Download nuvabill-x.y.z.zip from the latest release.
2. Upload it to your hosting account and unzip it. Point your domain or subdomain (for example billing.yourhost.com) to the public folder.
3. Create an empty MySQL database and user in your hosting panel.
4. Open your domain in a browser. The installer checks your server, connects the database and creates your owner account.

Using Cloudflare? Add NUVABILL_TRUSTED_PROXIES=cloudflare to .env, so sign-in limits and logs see your visitors' real IP addresses.

3. Turn on automation

Add this cron job (cPanel → Cron Jobs). The exact line for your server is shown in Settings → Automation.

* * * * * cd /path/to/nuvabill && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

It creates renewal invoices, sends reminders, suspends overdue services, sends email and installs updates.

4. Connect your business

In the admin area (/admin):

1. Servers → add your cPanel/WHM, DirectAdmin, Plesk, Proxmox or Virtualizor server and press Test connection.
2. Products → create your plans (or edit the example plans) and choose the package or VPS plan for each.
3. Settings → Domains and Registrars → set your domain prices and connect ResellerClub, Namecheap, Enom or OpenSRS.
4. Setup → Extensions → turn on Stripe, PayPal, FIB, FastPay, Wayl or bank transfer.
5. Settings → Sending email → add your SMTP details and send yourself a test email.
6. Settings → Security → choose two-factor rules and CAPTCHA. Then turn on two-factor login on Your profile.

Moving from WHMCS, Blesta, FOSSBilling or Paymenter? Settings → Import first shows a dry run, then copies your clients (with their passwords), products, services, domains, invoices and tickets. You can run it again before you switch; it never makes copies.

That's it. Your store is live at your domain.

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What's in Nuvabill

A store your clients enjoy

Plans with monthly to three-yearly prices, setup fees, a domain field, cart and checkout. Clients register in one step, or with Google, GitHub or Facebook.

• Coupons: percent or fixed, for the first payment, every payment or a number of payments, limited by product, billing cycle, dates, uses and new clients. Share a link like yourhost.com/?coupon=WELCOME20 and it is applied for the client.
• Product add-ons such as backups, a dedicated IP or priority support, billed and renewed with the service.
• Want everything on one page? The Swift order form in the marketplace puts plans, domain search, add-ons, coupons, sign-up and payment on one screen.

A professional client area

Clients see everything at a glance: their services, domains that expire soon, unpaid invoices and support tickets, with shortcuts and their account details on the side. The menu bar and colours follow your brand.

Built for phones first

The whole client area works on a phone: services, invoices, payments, tickets and account details. Light and dark mode follow the device.

Staff can install the admin area as an app on their phone from the browser, no app store needed. It opens on a Today screen with the day's orders, payments and tickets, and sends push alerts for new orders, payments and tickets. See the phone app guide.

Billing that runs itself

• Invoices with PDF download, partial payments, drafts and manual invoices
• Renewal invoices created before the due date, grouped per client
• Overdue reminders, automatic suspension, optional termination
• Paying unsuspends automatically
• Automatic payments: clients save a card or PayPal account and renewals are charged by themselves, wallet first, with retries and notices (guide)
• Taxes: VAT, GST or sales tax by country and state, prices with or without tax, tax-exempt clients, and tax numbers on invoices
• Client wallet: clients add funds and pay invoices with one click; overpayments and refunds land there too

Automations: when this happens, do that

Pick what starts it (an invoice is overdue, a client signs up, a client opens a ticket, a domain expires soon, and nine more), add conditions like "the client does not have the tag VIP", then the steps: email the client or staff, add a late fee, add wallet credit, tag the client, open or assign a ticket, suspend a service, send the details to a web address, wait, and only go on if something is still true. Start from 9 templates, Try it on a real invoice before you switch it on, and see every run in the log. A waiting run stops by itself when the invoice was paid in the meantime. See the automations guide.

Quotes and affiliates

Send a quote for custom work, like a dedicated server or a migration. The client accepts it in their account and the invoice is created for them. The affiliate program gives every client a link: when someone they send pays, they earn a commission that moves to their wallet after the refund window.

Domains

Clients search for a domain, see the price, and order it on its own or with a hosting plan. Nuvabill registers, transfers and renews it at ResellerClub, Namecheap, Enom or OpenSRS, sends expiry reminders, and lets clients change nameservers. Without a registrar, availability comes from free RDAP lookups.

Get paid your way

Stripe Checkout, PayPal Checkout and bank transfer are built in, with refunds from the invoice page. For Iraq: FIB (First Iraqi Bank, with QR code), FastPay and Wayl. Card numbers never touch your server. Show prices in US dollars and charge in Iraqi dinar at the exchange rate you set (Settings → Currencies); the invoice stays in dollars and is marked paid in full. Webhooks are signature-checked, and each payment is recorded exactly once.

Control panel and VPS automation

cPanel & WHM, DirectAdmin and Plesk accounts are created when the first invoice is paid. Suspend, unsuspend, terminate and change package from the admin area. Clients open their control panel with one click, no password needed.

Virtualizor and Proxmox VE virtual servers are managed inside the client area, like in WHMCS: start, stop, restart, live usage, IP addresses and root password, plus hostname, OS reinstall and VNC details on Virtualizor. API keys stay on your server.

Free on the Marketplace: CyberPanel and HestiaCP hosting, and VirtFusion and SolusVM virtual servers with power controls in the client area. Install one with a click and it shows up next to the built-in modules.

Support tickets

Departments, priorities, assign a ticket to a staff member, email notifications for clients and staff, and a clean conversation view.

AI help (with your own Anthropic key): Write a draft gives you a reply from the whole ticket and the client's account, which you make shorter, friendlier or more detailed, and always check and send yourself. Messages in other languages are translated for your team, and your reply can go out in the client's language after you check the translation. There is an AI summary with a suggested department and priority, and Write with AI on product pages. Passwords, card details, email addresses and phone numbers never reach the AI, and a monthly limit keeps spending in check. See the AI help guide.

Telegram and WhatsApp: clients scan a QR code in the client area to get invoices, reminders and ticket replies in their chat app, and can write to support from there; their messages become tickets and your answers go back to the chat. Connect WhatsApp by scanning a QR code with the WhatsApp Business app, and get staff alerts in your team's Telegram group. See the Telegram and WhatsApp guide.

A dashboard that tells you what matters

Revenue for the last 12 months, unpaid invoices, tickets waiting for a reply, and a Needs your attention list: failed setups, pending orders, overdue invoices, and a warning if the cron job stops running.

Clients, staff and security

• Client profiles with services, invoices, payments, tickets and activity in one place
• Staff roles and permissions (Owner, Billing, Support, or your own)
• Passkeys: sign in with a fingerprint, face or phone, which fake sign-in pages cannot steal
• Two-factor sign-in for staff and clients: an authenticator app with recovery codes, or codes by email. Make it optional or required.
• CAPTCHA (Cloudflare Turnstile, reCAPTCHA or hCaptcha) on the forms you choose
• Fraud checks on new orders: throwaway email addresses, too many orders from one IP, and country mismatch
• Sign in with Google, GitHub or Facebook
• Activity log of everything that happens
• Security headers on every page (content security policy, no framing, strict HTTPS) and a safe setup for Cloudflare

Site health: security, database and search engine checks

Every night, and after every update, Nuvabill checks itself and gives the site a score: staff without two-factor sign-in, a .env file other accounts can read, folders anyone can change, backups left in the public folder, private files that strangers can open, debug mode, gateways left in test mode, and much more. A signed list of Nuvabill's own files shows changed files and unknown code where visitors can run it. Many problems have a Fix it button, and staff get an email about new urgent issues.

The database tab checks who can reach the database, whether secrets in it are encrypted and whether tables are healthy, and optimizes tables and cleans up old logs with one click (after a backup). From the terminal: php artisan nuvabill:security-check exits with code 1 while an urgent issue is open.

Renewals are safe to run twice: each billing period can only be invoiced once, enforced by the database.

Found on Google

Every store page gets a title and description for search results, one address, and links to its other language versions. sitemap.xml and robots.txt are made for you, product pages show their price and stock on Google, and links shared on WhatsApp, Facebook and X show a preview with your share image. Products and groups have a Search appearance box with a Google preview; changing a web address forwards the old one. The Search engines tab in Site health checks it all every night. See the search engines guide.

12 languages

The whole client area and admin area speak 12 languages, the most used in the world plus Kurdish, Thai and Mongolian: English, Chinese (Simplified), Spanish, French, Arabic, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, German, Turkish, Kurdish (Sorani), Thai and Mongolian. Arabic and Kurdish pages read right to left. Mongolian is off until you turn it on. Clients and staff pick their language from a searchable menu in the top bar; you choose the default and which languages clients can pick in Settings → General.

REST API

Connect your own tools with the API at /api/v1: clients, services (suspend, unsuspend, terminate), invoices and payments, products, orders and tickets. Staff make keys under Your profile → API keys; a key can do what their role allows, and can be read-only.

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer nb_…" https://billing.yourhost.com/api/v1/invoices?status=unpaid

See the API guide.

Signed one-click updates

Nuvabill checks for new versions every day. Every release is signed: the updater refuses anything with a wrong signature, backs up your files and database first, and rolls back automatically if something fails. Security fixes can install themselves at night.

Backups of the whole site, or of the database only, with php artisan nuvabill:backup (add --password to encrypt them). The free Google Drive backup add-on on the Marketplace runs them on a schedule and keeps the newest copies.

Marketplace: themes, order forms and add-ons

Open Marketplace in the admin area to browse themes, order forms, gateways and add-ons, and install them with one click. Try a theme on your own site first with Live preview, which only you see.

• Every package is reviewed by people and signed. Nuvabill refuses anything that was changed after signing.
• Before you install, you see in plain words what a package can do, for example "Connects to api.telegram.org".
• Paid items come with a license key for one site. Test sites (localhost, *.test, staging.*, dev.*) are always free.
• Updates show on the Marketplace page and install with one click.
• Extensions (under Setup) lists every payment gateway, server module, registrar and add-on you have, whether it is on, how much it is used and whether it still needs settings. Switch them on and off right from the list. It also shows which ones were copied onto the server by hand, and moves unused ones to quarantine with one click.

Free to start: the Paper and Midnight themes, Team chat alerts (orders, payments and tickets in Telegram or Discord) and a Live chat widget (Tawk.to or Crisp). Premium: the Aurora client area and the Swift one-page order form.

Developers can sell their own themes and extensions on my.nuvabill.com. You keep 83% of every sale. See the developer guide.

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License

Nuvabill is free software under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later, with one additional term: the "Powered by Nuvabill" credit in the client area, invoices and emails must stay visible. See NOTICE.

Want only your own brand? A White-label License removes the credit from your client area, invoices and emails, and adds priority support. Enter the key under Settings → License.

Copyright © 2026 RapidNet Ltd. Nuvabill is a product of RapidNet Ltd.

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Roadmap

Version	Focus
v0.1–v0.4	Done: billing, cPanel/DirectAdmin/Plesk/Proxmox/Virtualizor (plus free CyberPanel, HestiaCP, VirtFusion and SolusVM modules), domains, Iraqi payments, importers for WHMCS, Blesta, FOSSBilling and Paymenter with a dry run, marketplace, taxes, wallet, affiliates, REST API, passkeys, languages with right-to-left pages, search engine tools, Site health (changelog)
v0.5.0–v0.5.6	Done: Automations with 9 templates, client tags and ticket assignment; AI help with your own Claude key; Telegram and WhatsApp; the admin phone app with push alerts
v0.6.0–v0.6.12	Done: Automatic payments with saved cards and PayPal accounts; the order of payment methods clients see; a Settings home with grouped cards and search; your own icon with a White-label License; upgrades and downgrades with a fair price for the days left; emails and PDF invoices in each client's language; a knowledge base, announcements and a network status page with server checks; credit notes, CSV exports and privacy tools; add-ons that show your company website; 10 languages
next	The path to 1.0: security audit, more integrations, SMS (ROADMAP.md)
v1.0	Security audit, and more

The full plan, including what we think is still missing before 1.0, is in ROADMAP.md.

Updating

Go to Updates in the admin area and press Update now, or let updates install automatically. From the command line: php artisan nuvabill:update.

For developers

git clone https://github.com/meroxis/nuvabill.git
cd nuvabill
composer install
npm install && npm run build
cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate

Set NUVABILL_INSTALLED=true and APP_ENV=local in .env, then load the demo data and start the server:

php artisan migrate:fresh --seed
php artisan serve

Demo sign-ins: staff admin@nuvabill.test, client client@nuvabill.test, both with password nuvabill-demo.

Run the tests and the code style check with php artisan test and vendor/bin/pint.

Writing an extension

An extension is a folder with an extension.json manifest and PHP classes in src/:

extensions/gateways/mygateway/
├── extension.json
└── src/MyGateway.php

{
    "slug": "mygateway",
    "type": "gateway",
    "name": "My Gateway",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "namespace": "Acme\\MyGateway\\",
    "class": "Acme\\MyGateway\\MyGateway",
    "requires": ">=0.1.0"
}

Payment gateways extend App\Extensions\Gateways\Gateway. Server modules extend App\Extensions\Servers\Module.

Add-ons ("type": "addon", in extensions/addons/) extend App\Extensions\Addons\Addon. In boot() they can listen to events such as OrderPlaced, InvoicePaid and TicketOpened (in App\Events), add admin and public pages, run on a schedule, receive webhooks, add their own database tables, and ship translations for every language. The developer guide lists every hook, with a step-by-step first add-on.

List what your package does in "permissions", for example ["events", "http:api.example.com"]. Staff see it before installing.

Selling on the marketplace

1. Create a client account on my.nuvabill.com and open Developers → Join.
2. Upload your package zip. Automatic checks run first, then our team reviews the code.
3. When it is approved, the store signs it and it appears in every Nuvabill admin area.

You set the price and the yearly update price. You keep 83% of each sale, and we pay out monthly. Read selling on the marketplace and the full developer guide.

Writing a theme

Copy themes/nova to themes/yourtheme, change theme.json, and edit the views. Any view your theme does not include falls back to Nova. Choose the theme in Settings → Look and feel.

Releasing (maintainers)

1. Set the new version in config/nuvabill.php.
2. Add a ## x.y.z section to CHANGELOG.md in plain words. Site owners see it on their Updates page.
3. Commit, then push a tag with the same version: git tag v0.1.1 && git push origin v0.1.1.
4. The release workflow builds the zip, signs it with the NUVABILL_SIGNING_KEY secret and publishes the GitHub release with that section as its notes.
5. For security releases, add [security] to the section so installs can apply them automatically.

The public half of the signing key is in config/nuvabill.php. Never commit the secret half.

Support Nuvabill

Nuvabill is free. If it helps your business, please support its development on GitHub Sponsors. Sponsors keep new features and security updates coming.

Contributing

Bug reports, translations and pull requests are welcome: see CONTRIBUTING.md. By sending a pull request you agree that your contribution may be distributed by RapidNet Ltd under the AGPL-3.0 license and under the Nuvabill commercial White-label License.

Security

Found a security problem? Please report it privately, not in a public issue: use Report a vulnerability on the Security tab or email security@nuvabill.com. See SECURITY.md.