If you know what being a web hosting reseller is already skip down past the line.
[url=http://thewhir.com/reseller/articles/intro.cfm]If executed properly, reselling Web hosting and related services can be a low-maintenance, high-profit way to online success. Reseller programs allow businesses to lease servers, connections and bandwidth from established hosting firms, but brand the product as their own.
Even some of today’s biggest hosting companies simply resell the products of bigger companies because it cuts down on staffing and equipment expenses in exchange for a reasonable fee. [/url]
That’s a quick summery, click the link for the full article.
Does anyone have any experience with doing this? I’m considering purchasing a reseller hosting plan, not to make money, but because I think it’ll be cheaper for me to do (I’m in the process of buying some new silly domains I want to host). After spending some time looking at different reselling plans I’m beginning to think I could be a “legit” reseller and make a little money.
My current host (phpwebhosting.com) would want me to pay for a new account for every new domain I register (9.95US). They’ve been good to my as a one domain holder, but now I want to move on to multiple domains (separate sites, not just pointers).
I think I could make enough money so I don’t pay anything to host the domains I have by undercutting my friends current hosts . Well… If anyone has anything to say on this topic I’d like to here it.
I haven’t done much research thus far. All I’ve done is look at a couple of sites that allow for unlimited domains with a bunch of web space and bandwidth. Then I think I could set people up with their own domain and limit their space and bandwidth (if I wanted to).
I read a whole book on niche back in my business minded days. First thing that came to mind was helping people do something like I have (once I get better at it). I could help people with setting up their own forum, blog (hosted at their site), email, etc. and give them tips I’ve picked up along the way.
Between the time I posted that and this post I found enough friends to make it pay for itself . Should be fun.
You wouldn’t happen to be looking for a new host, would you?
The hosting business is a commodity business. I don’t see that as a viable long-term business. In the commodity business, in order to differentiate yourself from your competitor, you’re going to have to compete on “services”. If you’re a single person, I’m not sure how one will develop a line of “services” that would be attractive to a potential client.
From the point of the hosting company, it’s a cheap way of putting together a “sales force”. Resellers only make money when you make a sale which they’re happy to pay you. They don’t have to be worried of sales force overhead. Payment models include 1 one time “commission” fee plus recurring % off the monthly charges of your customer.
If you’re going into this, it pays to carefully choose a reliable hoster. The client will likely look to you first to solve their problems. So you need a hoster who has good self-service tools for you to service your clients even though it should really be the hoster who is servicing it. But in this hosting service business, that’s not how it always works unless you can actually pass the after-sales support to a customer service team in charge of hosting services.
All this depends on who you’re going to sell hosting plans to and hosting what kind of applications. For most things that people want, I don’t think it really matters who the hosting company is – hosting is a commodity business.
That’s something different. What I’m doing is buying a chunk of space and bandwidth (lets say 5 gigs space and 50 gigs bandwidth), then splitting it up how ever I see fit and changing what ever I like. So an example would be me taking that 5 gigs and 50 gigs and selling 50 plans (with 100 megs space and 1gig bandwidth).
I’m going to do it more as a hobby until I understand things better and up some of my skill sets, but what I’ll do right now is help people get personal (and maybe some small business) sites up and show them how to keep it updated and do the things they want to do. As my skills increase I’ll look for bigger projects.
I just wanted a reseller plan so I could host multiple domains on one account (I found one that allowed unlimited domains for 9.95 for a limited time). A lot of people don’t need the 1000 megs and 20 gigs bandwidth that a lot plans come with. A lot of people need good customer service. As long as I only work with people in Taiwan (and don’t take on too many people) I could do that.
I also plan on having a list of hosts that get good reviews on the different web hosting pages and directing people to them if they don’t need my added services.
What I’m really going to start doing is charging people I normally would help for free . I also plan on having all the links and tips needed to help people learn for themselves if they wanted to.
I’m writing all of this in a hurry. Here are the 2 sites that have been the most help to me thus far:
I’ve already gotten most of my questions answered between the two links I put up. What YC said is basically correct. There really isn’t any money to be made doing just strictly resell hosting without added service. I’ve found plenty of really good hosts that I’d recommend people check out. I just plan on reselling the extra space I’ll have from an account that’s setup for reselling to people (I know personally) that want to have a site up but don’t know where to start.
Here’s a deal I’ll never (well, never say never) be able to beat.
Now to answer your question honestly. If I did decide it was more trouble than I thought and wanted to stop I could notify my “clients” (friends) about the middle man going away and present them with the option of choosing one of the packages the host provides or having me help them choose and move to a different host.
. Well… If anyone has anything to say on this topic I’d like to here it.
. Should be fun.
. I also plan on having all the links and tips needed to help people learn for themselves if they wanted to.