FSRevolution (FSR) Review – Incentive/GPT Website Script
Posted on 21. Sep, 2009 by $haz in General
I noticed that I never really gave FSRevolution a review, even though I have used it for a long time on some of my other incentive websites. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on it, but I’ll just cover the main points of the script.
On the FSRevolution website it states these features for it:
Admin Side
- ADMIN HOME
View a quick “to do” list: flagged items, pending support tickets, credit requests, account verifications, orders, spam reports, and credit exceptions.- STATISTICS
View some stats about how your site is doing. View commission earned for offers, amount of orders shippied, and profit for each site you’re running. See the top ten earning users on your site (in terms of both orders and offer commission). Also see which of your affiliates has the most offer credits and is earning you the most money. You can also see the top ten most credited offers on your site (in terms of number of credits and commission)!- ADMIN CONTROL
Manage admins and what they can access as well as what they’re notified of: support ticket replies, order approvals, credit requests, etc.- MANAGE SITES
Manage all of your sites from one central location! Create a referral, points-based, cashback site or even import an existing site from another script: IRS, RAFS, or FSRS. You can then define properties such as the site’s title bar, header image, offer requirements, percentage of points received from referrals, and number of orders allowed. Also define what countries your site is open to and what prizes are going to be offered on it.- MANAGE USERS
Search for a user a variety of ways: by e-mail, IP, user ID, address, offer completed, and many more!- CROSSCHECK SYSTEM
Crosscheck users on your sites with any other site that uses FSR – make sure you’re not being frauded!- MASS E-MAIL
E-mail all of your users at once with important messages.- QUICK USER ACCESS
A toolbar at the top of every page allows quick access to any user by their ID, e-mail, zip code, or admin notes.- VIEW/EDIT USER
Shows global user info, users with matching passwords, last login, IP log (users with matching IP’s), offers completed, notes (left by admin), total amount of prizes received, W9 status, ban from support tickets, and details for each site the user is registered on: status (place on hold, remove from hold), change prize, verification report, referred by, completed offers, offer clicks, issue manual credit, credit requests, referral information, registration IP, logged IP’s, open/closed support tickets, and admin messages. Place a user on You can also manually credit offers or reduce the prize requirements (issuing a credited referral). Also send messages to the users that will appear on their status page. You may also change a user’s referrer, change a user’s prize on an order, or assign a prize offset to reduce the amount of referrals or points a user needs to receive to place an order.- VERIFICATION REPORT
Check for fraud when a users submits an order for approval. The user’s password, IP, and address are all matched against existing users to check for duplicates. If there are any matches, that user’s information is displayed as well as what offers they completed. A log of the user’s profile changes is also shown and that information is also checked against all existing users to check for matches.- MANAGE ORDERS
Manage any orders for users whose account has been approved – view details of order and change status from here.- MANAGE AFFILIATES
Add and Edit affiliates you use for offers. From here you can enter CSV information as well as postback information (instant crediting) so the fields are automatically recognized when offer credits come through. Also offered is the ability to mass add offers through Mass SQL lines (if your affiliate offers it).- MANAGE OFFERS
Add and Edit offers for your sites. A grid of checkboxes allow you to add/remove an offer to/from all sites with a single click. You can also edit offer details, including switching to a different affiliate. If this affiliate has been used for the offer previously, the old data for that affiliate will automatically be reloaded for that offer. You can also specify a range for credit time, as well is if there is a money-back guarantee. Also sort and filter offers through a variety of methods: by affiliate, payout, or site.- OFFER CATEGORIES
Create categories for your offers to organize them further. Users will be able to display and sort offers by their category on the user side as well. This is useful if you have offers that are only open to certain countries or if you have a couple offers of a certain type (gambling/casino offers, free trial offers, etc.).- OFFER CREDITING
List offer credits on your site and export the data you’d like to a CSV file. Manage pending credit requests and process CSV record. Processing a CSV record allows you to choose an affiliate and a CSV file to upload (or a textarea to paste the information into). If the commission from the offer has changed from what it originally was, an admin will be notified so that credit values can be adjusted if desired.- CREDIT EXCEPTIONS
If something goes wrong during an offer crediting (through postback or CSV) such as a bad user ID, offer ID, or invalid IP attempt, the attempt is logged and shown. Also, if the commission for an offer is higher or lower than what was expected, this is logged as a credit exception and an admin is notified.- SUPPORT TICKETS
View and Reply to support tickets – display filters include all tickets in date range: all, today, yesterday, last 7 days, month to date, last month, year to date, and last year. You can also display only open or closed support tickets, as well as if the last post is by a user or an admin. We also offer canned reponses so you can quickly respond to questions that pop up frequently.- ORDER RELATED MESSAGES
Mark support tickets or admin messages as being relevant to an order so that when it comes time to verify a user, this relevant information will be displayed as well.- GENERAL OPTIONS
Configure the name of your network, the default terms of service, default privacy policy, support e-mail address, support AIM screenname, support MSN screenname, referral link variable, how long the user’s cookie should last, whether or not to hide completed offers, as well as a maintenance mode for your site.- STATUS MESSAGES
Edit the specific messages that are associated with the statuses of orders, credit requests, and hold reasons or even add new customized ones.- CUSTOMIZABLE E-MAIL MESSAGES
Customize the e-mail notifications that are sent to both users and admins.User Side
- GLOBAL REGISTRATION
Each user has a single login for all of your sites which can easily be extended to any other site in a few clicks. International registrations are also supported!- PUBLIC OFFERS PAGE
Before a users register, they may now view a list of offers without having to log in!- STATUS PAGE
All of the information you’ll need all in one place: referral status, credited offers, order status, credit requests, messages from the admin, and a scratchpad to save notes about ongoing trades.- STATUS BAR
A bar at the top of every page which lets you quickly see your status from all pages: referral status, offer credits, and any new support ticket replies or admin messages you may have.- PROFILE
Change your profile information and account preferences here which include auto-notification of: support ticket reply, admin messages, offer credit, referral signup, referral status change, account status change, and order status change.- OFFERS
Easily sort and view offers all on one page: display instant, one-day, or all credit times, partial, 1 credit or more, or all credit values (as well as point value), free, money back, or all offer costs. Also sort by offer name, credit time, cost, or date added. Or only view offers in certain categories (Casino Offers, Free Trials, etc.)- ORDER
View the status of existing orders or place one if you’ve met the requirements. If you have enough referrals for a prize with lower requirements those prizes will be displayed and you can easily switch to that prize with a single click. If one of your referral’s is placed on hold or has an offer credit removed, your order status will temporarily be set to Denied. If you obtain another referral or the user’s hold is removed, your order will automatically be re-submitted for approval. You may also place multiple orders if the site allows it.- SUPPORT
Create support tickets, credit requests and view their status all from one page. You can even close your own ticket if you find you’ve answered your own question.- CREDIT REQUESTS
If a credit request’s status is changed to “More Information Needed” the user will be able to edit the same credit request to add more information and resubmit it without having to create another credit request.- CONSTANT STATUS UPDATES
All support tickets, credit requests, and orders have status updates that occur at each stage. Find out when an admin has read your support ticket, or your credit request has been sent to the affiliate, or when your order was shipped.- REFERRAL INFORMATION
Now you can tell how many offers your referral has completed, not just if they’re green! You will also be able to see if a referral is on hold and for what reason.- REPORT SPAM
If a user is annoyingly spamming their referral link, report them to the site and let the admin deal with them.
Yeah all that good stuff makes FSRevolution seem like he god of incentive scripts right? Well lets see what you think about it after I give you by review about it. Let’s start with the Good Features of FSRevolution.
The Good:
- Very Easy to Use - honestly, after you’ve installed the script and all that good stuff, the script is pretty much self explanatory. You get alerts for support tickets, orders, etc in your dashboard. Once an order has come up it shows you all the information pertaining to the user who ordered and their referrals. FSRevolution has really made it easy for even a hobo to open up an incentive network.
- Automated Postback – Basically everything is almost automated. Once you add the correct affiliate settings and offers you don’t need to manually credit anyone. It just happens on its own which is a BIG relief. Some might think it’s a little difficult for adding offers and affiliates, but I have made that a little easy for you guys by posting FSR Direct Track Postback Setup.
- Fraud Alerts – FSRevolution does a great job implementing all the tools you need to check fraud. It records every IP and also checks for multiple IPs of users throughout the network, multiple credits, multiple information matches, etc.
- Central Admin Panel – If you are a person who likes to create a bunch of websites, well FSRevolution lets you do that and have all the websites under one central admin panel. That means that you don’t need to check into 10 admin panels to get all the tickets and information, it can all be under one.
Those good features give FSRevolution a competitive edge over their competitors. But with all that good, I still want to sometimes strangle FSRevolution and do away with it.
The Bad:
- Slow As Hell – If you have about 500 users, FSRevolution is perfect for you. Now if you have anything over 1000+ users, you’re screwed. FSRevolution cannot take anything more than 500 users, it slows down immensely. Sometimes I had to sit there and press refresh about 10 times for about 30 minutes just to get into a users account information so I can check their account and pay them out. One time I had to have one of my users make another account because I could not get into for days. FSRevolution is @#$%ing SLOW!
- Not very customizable – Look at all the FSRevolution websites, do you notice a similarity? They all look the same. It is very hard to distinguish yourself from your other FSRevolution competition. Not only that, the whole script is encoded so you can’t add any features or make any changes. This is for security purposes so FSRevolution isn’t nulled (basically cracked), but that hasn’t stopped hackers from nulling FSRevolution.
- FSRevolution Support Is GREEDY – Yeah, you heard me. They are greedy. For every little thing they will charge you. You want to add telesign to control fraud? Cough up some money. You want support after one year? Cough up some money. You want users to have signature images? Cough up money. There’s a story behind this for me, which I will tell you in a little.
- Support Sucks – Honestly, support sucks @$$. Support is so slow, there have been times where it’s screwed up on me for no reason and I’ve had to wait a whole day just to get a response. And then the response isn’t even all that helpful, so that’s more time I have to wait. Hey Chris (FSRevolution owner), in case you didn’t know, time = $$. K? Thanks. About 75% of the time I’ve had to ask close friends for help who have fixed the problem for me, not FSRevolution Support.
As you can see the bad honestly outweighs the good. And as for the story I mentioned about FSRevolution being greedy and sucky. Here it is:
Well a couple weeks ago I had a problem with FSRevolution that I asked support to help me out with. They told me to update my FSRevolution, but I know that there was a simple way to fix this without updating it because the same thing happened to a good buddy of mine. Plus, if I wanted to update it, I would have to renew my support package and I didn’t want to pay money for shit support.
So my buddy tells me that Chris from FSRevolution actually told him how to fix this problem by going into the cpanel and fixing something. Well I asked Chris about this, and of course he said he didn’t know what my friend was talking about and that there is no simple fix, the only way to fix it is to update FSRevolution. Oh really Chris? Is that it? Or is it that you saw my support package was expired and you just wanted more money from me to give me the simple fix. On top of that, he told me that if I wanted to continue getting support I’ll have to renew the support package, otherwise he can’t help me out.
Here are his exact words:
Since your updates are expired, that means your support is as well, so even if I did have a database fix for this (which there isn’t – the template files HAVE to be updated as well), I still wouldn’t be able to do it since you don’t actually have a valid support package with us right now. You’re going to need to renew that either way.
–
Regards,
Chris Ham
FSRevolution
I was about to rip his asshole for lying to my face and being so greedy, but instead my buddy helped me out and fixed the problem for me. This buddy has the full support package that he does not have to renew, so that’s the reason Chris was helping him.
So as of right now FSRevolution isn’t on my good side because of the slow script and horrible support. If you have any comments and reviews about FSRevolution, please do comment below and let everyone know!
Popularity: 5% [?]
Dustin
22. Sep, 2009
I think its time for someone to have a new affordable one if you ask me. I was going to get FSR but damn, all those issues, I’ll pass.
Chris
23. Sep, 2009
Shaz,
First of all, thanks for taking the time to review the script and the compliments you’ve paid us.
However, I’d like to respond to the “bad” items you’ve posted about:
“Slow As Hell” – yes, FSR does have some scalability issues, but most can be avoided by simply having a decent (not shared) server hosting the website. There are plenty of sites out there running with well over 10,000 users without any speed issues.
“Not very customizable” – yes, it’s true that FSR’s PHP code is all encrypted, HOWEVER, all of the template files are unencoded which allows anyone to change how the script looks, so as to avoid the “cookie cutter” problem. Any other customizations can be done by us.
“FSRevolution Support is GREEDY” – first of all, charging for these additional products has nothing to do with support. Secondly, I’d like to point out that a huge number of features that are already included in the script will actually cost you to add on if you purchase from another competitor (stock features like postback crediting, multiple offer values, country support, etc.). We’ve tried to limit the number of addons as much as possible – we only have two (the phone verification and dynamic signatures you mentioned) – whereas we provide an overwhelming amount of features already included in the cost of the script.
“Support Sucks” – I’ve heard the contrary from many, but you’re certainly entitled to your opinion. I can provide you with a few facts, though. We ALWAYS reply within 1 business day of your ticket. If for some reason we don’t, something is most likely seriously wrong, it’s the weekend, or we’re otherwise incapacitated. As for your specific situation, your support and updates HAD expired – we’re not being greedy, we’re simply running a business. We do charge an extra premium for support AFTER you’ve had the script for 1 or 2 years (depending on you having a Base or Unlimited license). You will find this is the case many places. As for the “fix” that you received, I’m guessing they simply changed a value in the database as opposing to actually making the fix inside the script itself, which is what I needed to do to solve the issue and why you needed to renew.
Here are the response times for your ticket, just for clarity:
Submitted: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 14:21:10
1st Response: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:30:03
(9 Minutes)
1st Reply: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 14:40:14
2nd Response: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:18:37
(38 Minutes)
2nd Reply: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 15:35:29
3rd Response: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:06:10
(overnight – 18 hours, 31 minutes)
3rd Reply: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 10:59:43
4th Response: Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:06:59
(2 hours, 7 minutes)
All well within 1 business day, if not a few hours.
If you have any other, legitimate concerns, I’ll be happy to respond to them.
Regards,
Chris
$haz
23. Sep, 2009
Hey Chris,
Thanks for replying. I gotta make this quick so excuse any mistakes I have.
1) I have had a dedicated server for 2 years and it’s still mighty slow. You’ve always blamed the server but after you told me once to switch to a dedicated server (2 years ago) I did immediately. Yet I was still having the same problems. And yes my server is huge and handles my custom script very well, so it’s not the server. Others who have FSR will agree here also.
2) Customization done by you guys is costly, getting an outsourced worker is cheaper. But I’m not too upset with this, I know you gotta maintain the security and avoid the nulled FSrevolution scripts.
3 and 4) Greedy because you told me in order for you to help me with a SMALL problem (took my buddy 2 minutes to fix) you wanted me to renew my support.
As for the database fix, yes it was, and I asked you not to do it for me just tell me what to do. Which is what you told my friend who helped me, I don’t think you did it for him. When I asked you about the database fix, you denied it saying there is none and that there is no other way. So that ticked me off very much and seemed very greedy and unhelpful of you because obviously there is another way. And I do have proof for that I believe.
Anyways, thanks for being professional and prompt. Major props on that.
Chris
23. Sep, 2009
1) Fair enough – as I mentioned, FSR does have some scalability issues, I’m not denying that, and we’re certainly working on improving that in the next version.
2) No argument here, either, I just want to get across that sites looking the same is no fault of the script – the ability to make your site look different from the competition is there, you just actually have to customize the templates.
3 and 4) I still maintain that what you’ve done is not a “fix” – I could have certainly told you what fields to change in the database, but that’s not a solution to the problem, merely a temporary remedy. The problem actually could have been avoided by keeping up to date with all of the patches and database updates, which you can’t download unless you have a valid support and updates package. I really don’t think we’re being too greedy in providing these enhancements, updates, and support to you at no charge for the first year or two of your license and then charging a premium for that. It’s $100 for 1 year, which works out to just a little over $8/month. Is that your idea of greed? I realize your issue was small with a simple stopgap solution, but in order for the issue to actually be fixed, you would need those support and updates. I wasn’t trying to be greedy, merely provide you with the solution within the structure and rules we have set forth, because in the end, we *are* a business.
Thanks for promoting discussion on these issues – in the end, it will only serve to make FSR a better product and experience, so thank you for that.
Regards,
- Chris
$haz
23. Sep, 2009
No problem, let me know once the new version is out. I’ll do an updated review on it, just one thing, make it faster. Much faster. Where I can get into an account that has 128390812390128 referrals and logged IPs.
Thanks!
Dustin
25. Sep, 2009
I’m no customer yet but I do personally, from my perspective, think its unfair to pay $200.00 for a script that is encrypted entirely. I mean, damn, encrypt the configuration file and then encrypt it again. Do the same with the “callback home” addon. That should be security enough.
A script doesn’t need to be entirely encrypted to be secure. Just my .02 cents.
The other thing that irritates me about the encryption is the fact that we can’t use our in-house coders to code anything new. Hence, FSR is the only ones who can do it, and they charge an arm and a leg. If that’s not greedy, IDK what is!
So my question is, what am I paying $200 for exactly? That’s what I want to know… just to ditch more money out over time for more support, customizations, etc.
Just my personal opinion, I think someone should develop a new script unless FSR can somehow compromise. And this is coming from a POTENTIAL interested customer.
Chris
25. Sep, 2009
Dustin,
You’re right that the entire script does not have to be encoded, that’s something we’ve realized since initially starting FSR. We simply wanted to be as secure as possible starting out. We will be looking into changing this in future versions.
However, I do think our prices and rates are more than fair. The base price of MyEasyScripts Projekt-IRS (which is only referral-based, and does not have multiple site types) is $200… and then come the addons:
http://www.myeasyscripts.com/en/products/projekt-irs/addons.php
In order to get even somewhat close to the functionality of FSR you’d have to purchase EVERY one of those addons, which adds up to about $450 more, for a total of $650 for a piece of software that still doesn’t have all of FSR’s features and lacks decent support.
So you’re paying $200 for a well-established script with a huge array of features and fast support. If you can’t afford the $200 to invest in the script alone for your new business, you probably shouldn’t be starting the business in the first place.
Another note on customizations – you have to realize that your “in-house coders” do not know the FSR software nearly as well as we (the people who built it) do, which means it would probably take them awhile just to learn how everything works. And even then, they probably still don’t really know how every detail fits together, so they may change something that would inadvertently affect/harm another part of the system. This all leads to more time spent on the customization, which always translates into higher costs.
Alternatively, you can let us handle the customization, turn it around to you in a timely manner and implement it in the most effective manner, all at a much more reasonable rate than you’re most likely going to find with any coder worth his/her salt.
If you have any other specific concerns we can address for you, don’t hesitate to e-mail us: support AT fsrevolution DOT COM.
Regards,
- Chris
Armando
25. Sep, 2009
Hey Shaz.. It’s great to finally see FSRevolution review.
I have to agree, there are some downsides with this script, but I think it’s fair if I describe my experiences with support and the script itself so far.
To me Chris was VERY helpful and responsive. Every single time my tickets got answered in just a few hours.
I can understand you had a different experience but in the last 2 months I’ve exchanged more than 100 emails with Chris because I was asking him about every little issue I had and I always got a really speedy and helpful responses.
Just today he even manually fixed some issues I had with my database because I was doing constant cpanel backup reinstallations (I had tons of server issues – fsrevolution unrelated).
I am very satisfied with what I got for my moneys worth.
I even requested a small modification to the script and it was done in a single day and for a good price too.
For me the only big downside of fsrevolution is lack of proper manual for people that are using it for the first time. Fortunately Chris can explain everything through emails but I think it would be easier for clients and for Chris if there was a detailed, in depth manual on how to use fsrevolution.
Aside from that, it’s a really one of a kind piece of software. It’s FULLY customizable because it uses Smarty templates – which means we can make it look however we want. I hired a designer and a coder to do the job and now it’s almost hard to notice it’s working on fsrevolution because I customized literally everything.
To sum it up, the whole incentive business can be very confusing and I’m really happy there are guys like Chris and Shaz involved with it because you both provide a lot of value to newcomers.
Keep up the good work!
Armando
Dustin
25. Sep, 2009
I never really said (I don’t think) that FSR isn’t worth the $200 – I said specifically what am I paying $200 for if the entire script is encoded. If you were to in the future change this and only encode the core files that help the script run (functions file, config, callback, etc.) It would be a different story and would be worth the $200
Now, the rates you charge are a bit high. The last I heard, someone said $30 an hour!!! I mean, seriously…
Take my suggestions into consideration and you may have a future customer who wouldn’t have a problem paying such a price tag.
DJ
06. Jan, 2010
I think FSR is fantastic, and would reccomend (and do reccomend) it to anyone looking for an incentive script.
As for the “slowness”, I’m sorry but that’s utter rubbish. If you had the site on a decent server, you would not need to refresh it 10 times to load. Granted, there ARE issues with speed, which I certainly will not deny. Once over 20K users, the speed does make a considerable bump down. But not quite to the extent you were referring to.
I’ve always found Chris’s support VERY helpful, and the speed was also fantastic. So no issues for me there.
Regarding the customizations, in a way I do feel that it’s in some way greedy, but I guess as stated – they know the script inside out. I think you’d find it extremely hard to find a coder available that would instantly produce an addon or fix that would compliment the rest of the system. (Unless they are an experienced FSR coder, in which they’d need one of the nulled versions lying about).
However, if you run a “Successful” incentive site, then paying $100 a year for support and updates is peanuts. If you find that hard on the wallet, then you either need to start promoting, or get a day job.
It seems the negative views on this script come from a personal vendetta against Chris (which, I admit, we all do from time to time), but honestly, it’s by far the best script available on the net.
$haz
06. Jan, 2010
Yes I agree FSR is the best way to go for already made script. Shiftcode is up there also for points websites.
Mind my rubbish, but I pay a good amount of money for my servers so blaming the server isn’t the issue. After a while FSR gets slow once the users pile up, that’s just a well known fact from every owner that has been the least bit successful.
The negative views are from having an FSR website for over 3 years now, before I developed my own custom script. In either case, I have had arguments with Chris before, but recently he has been very helpful. I’m looking forward to the new version of the script which I am sure he will address most of the problems. No vendetta here, FSR is the best pre-made script for referral websites, period.
Preben
07. Jan, 2010
@Chris – I’m going to create a viral incentive website, and was planning to buy fsrevolution, but the fact that speed gets bad when the user base builds up could really be killing the “viralness” of the site.
I would say improving speed should be your top priority for the nest update.
So my question is… When can I expect it to be faster? I want to get going with this as quickly as possible, but although FsRevolution seems to definitely be the best ready-made script on the market, speed is still essential.
Thanks,
– Preben