Hey WebPros: Stop Selling to My Clients!
If you’re a web hosting provider or sysadmin who offers cPanel accounts to your clients, you may have recently noticed something sneaky:
cPanel is trying to sell products and services directly to your clients—without your permission.
From “Hire a Developer” buttons to “Vulnerability Protection” prompts (aka their WP Guardian upsell), your paying clients are being marketed to inside the very platform you provide and maintain.
As far as we’re concerned? That’s crossing the line.
🧃What’s the Problem?
Inside cPanel’s WordPress Toolkit, your users are seeing:
- 💸 “Hire a Developer” buttons
- 🔒 “Vulnerability Protection” (WP Guardian) upsells
- ⚠️ Prompts to “Protect Site” with services they think are included
- 🔔 Notifications that scare users into thinking their site is at risk—unless they upgrade
This is not just unhelpful, it can:
- Undermine your authority and brand
- Confuse less tech-savvy users
- Make your clients think you’re the one selling them extras
- Drive support tickets for things you don’t even offer
🛠️ How to Remove These Upsells from cPanel’s WP Toolkit
Thankfully, there’s a workaround. While cPanel doesn’t give us a direct “disable upsells” checkbox in WHM, you can suppress these promotions manually with a few tweaks.
✅ 1. Hide the “Hire a Developer” Button
Run this command as root:
wp-toolkit --config -operation set -option-name hireDeveloperFeatureSource -option-value none
This disables the “Hire a Developer” link inside WP Toolkit for all users.
✅ 2. Suppress Vulnerability Notification Emails to Clients
If you’re handling security already (e.g., with Imunify360), you don’t want cPanel spamming your clients.
Run this:
wp-toolkit --config -operation set -option-name cpanelClientVulnerabilityFoundNotificationEnabled -option-value false
No more vulnerability alert emails going out without your knowledge.
✅ 3. Remove the WP Guardian “Vulnerability Protection” UI (Upsell Card)
There’s no official toggle to hide this upsell… so we get creative.
You can inject CSS directly into the WP Toolkit interface to visually remove the upsell box.
Step-by-step:
- Backup the original WP Toolkit CSS file:
cp /usr/local/cpanel/base/frontend/jupiter/wp-toolkit/main.css /usr/local/cpanel/base/frontend/jupiter/wp-toolkit/main.css.bak
- Append the following CSS to the bottom of
main.css:
(This file:/usr/local/cpanel/base/frontend/jupiter/wp-toolkit/main.css)
/* === Patch: Hide WP Guardian Upsell === */
.wp-toolkit-vpatches-upsell-dialog-content,
.wp-toolkit-vpatches-upsell-dialog-sideBannerImage,
.wp-toolkit-vpatches-upsell-dialog-buttons-container,
.wp-toolkit-vpatches-upsell-activation-description,
.wp-toolkit-vpatches-upsell-main-page__feature-description,
.wp-toolkit-vpatches-upsell-waiting-page,
.wp-toolkit-vpatches-upsell-purchasingGuardianPage-description,
.wp-toolkit-vpatches-upsell-dialog-subscribe-button__menu-item-ul,
.wp-toolkit-vpatches-upsell-wptLite-page-description,
.wp-toolkit-vpatches-upsell-wptLite-page li:not(:last-child),
div[class*="upsell"] {
display: none !important;
visibility: hidden !important;
opacity: 0 !important;
}
[data-test-id="vulnerability-protection-widget"] {
display: none !important;
visibility: hidden !important;
opacity: 0 !important;
height: 0 !important;
overflow: hidden !important;
pointer-events: none !important;
}
- Restart the cPanel UI:
/scripts/restartsrv_cpsrvd
✅ Bonus: Full Automation Script
Save yourself the clicks — here’s a script you can run once to do all the above:
curl -o /root/patch-wptoolkit-ui.sh https://goodhost.com.au/scripts/patch-wptoolkit-ui.txt
chmod +x /root/patch-wptoolkit-ui.sh
/root/patch-wptoolkit-ui.sh
This is the script we use to fix the problem, cPanel may change the way they are doing things and we will need to change the script!
💬 Final Thoughts
We understand cPanel and WebPros are trying to create new revenue streams — but doing it by targeting the end users of their customers (aka us) is a terrible move.
If you’re paying for a license, providing the server, and managing the support — you should have full control over what your clients see.
Until cPanel gives us a native way to disable upsells across the board, this method will keep your brand front and centre — and your support inbox a little quieter.
🔌 Another Option – Enhance Panel
There are plenty of cPanel alternatives—like DirectAdmin, Plesk, CyberPanel, and Webmin—but most aren’t quite ready to fully replace it. Some are cheaper or open-source, but they often lack the polish, features, or ease-of-use that cPanel offers. Others, like Plesk, are owned by the same parent company and come with similar upsell frustrations. For most hosting providers, these options still fall short in client experience or day-to-day usability.
One option that is gaining traction is Enhance.com. It’s a modern, multi-server hosting platform built for hosts and agencies. Enhance separates the control panel from the web server, making scaling and management much easier. It’s clean, intuitive, and doesn’t try to upsell your clients behind your back. If you’re looking for a real cPanel alternative built for today’s hosting needs, Enhance is definitely worth a look.
Enhance offers a scalable, per-website pricing model designed to accommodate hosting providers of various sizes. Instead of charging per server, Enhance’s fees are based on the number of websites you host, allowing for flexible and cost-effective scaling.
Pricing Tiers:
- 1 to 5,000 websites: $0.15 per website per month.
- 5,001 to 25,000 websites: $0.10 per website per month.
- 25,001 to 100,000 websites: $0.075 per website per month.
A minimum monthly billing threshold of $5 applies. For example, hosting up to 33 websites would incur this $5 minimum charge. As your platform grows, the per-website cost decreases, making it more economical at scale.
Additional Details:
- Addon, Alias, and Subdomains: These are not counted as billable websites. You can add unlimited domain aliases that map to the same document root or another within that website without incurring additional costs.
- Servers: There are no per-server license costs. You can deploy unlimited servers within your cluster, and the pricing remains based solely on the number of hosted websites.
- Billing: Invoices are issued at the end of each month, calculated based on the number of billable websites hosted during that period.
This transparent pricing structure allows hosting providers to predict costs accurately and scale their services without worrying about escalating license fees.
