Reselling Web Hosting

[dantheman420]

Hey I was thinking about doin some web hosting reselling. Never done it before but I am interested.

 

Can anyone provide some pros and cons about it?

Companies who have good reselling programs and prices?

[HeadNemesis]

I can hook you up with a reseller account, just email me at charles@clutchkill.com

[dantheman420]

email sent

[JasonF]

There is nothing wrong with signing up as a reseller to begin with. If you build up enough web clients, you can always upgrade to a web server later. Personally, I would not get a web server until you are experienced enough to deal with the responsibility of operating a server on your own. That or look into good web server management companies.

 

Beware of companies offering a million GB of HDD and bandwidth for their reseller accounts. That tells you they are overselling their boxes and your clients will pay for it with slow page load times and horrible download speeds.

 

Edited - you should also read up on which scripts are insecure. This will potentially help you avoid any of your clients getting a spam bot on their site which could potentially jeopardize your reseller account if it happens frequently.

[SickPuppy]

In today’s web hosting market it is hard for the little guy to compete. Large host are offering packages that a small host can’t match. At one time, we were looking into a reseller program but could not match the offers of companies like ix web hosting and others.

 

Right now you can get hosting packages for as little as $4.95 a month that include unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, a free domain, unlimited sub domains, 100 sql servers, unlimited email accounts. Resellers just can’t match offers like that.

 

Anyway good luck with it.

[studeggle]

In today’s web hosting market it is hard for the little guy to compete. Large host are offering packages that a small host can’t match. At one time, we were looking into a reseller program but could not match the offers of companies like ix web hosting and others.

 

Right now you can get hosting packages for as little as $4.95 a month that include unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, a free domain, unlimited sub domains, 100 sql servers, unlimited email accounts. Resellers just can’t match offers like that.

 

Anyway good luck with it.

 

I would disagree with this can't match. The truth is those unlimited storage and bandwidth are fake all covered by the clause if your website poses undo stress (or similar wording) they can shut you down.

My company does a very strong business (compared to our size) in web hosting. Between customers who have suffered from the web provider shutting them off for that clause and us showing potential customers that clause in others and that we have no such clause. The customer knowing they will get what we promise goes a long way for getting customers.

 

And there is no reason a small hoster can't make the same offer as the big guys if they wish to be as underhanded. Personally I try to minimize any reselling my company does as it takes quality control out of my hands, and it does not matter who is at fault for the poor quality if you sold it your name gets tarnished.

[KingJ]

Right now you can get hosting packages for as little as $4.95 a month that include unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, a free domain, unlimited sub domains, 100 sql servers, unlimited email accounts. Resellers just can’t match offers like that.

 

 

They are working on the assumption that nobody will ever use that, and you can bet there is a fair-use policy or similar which means they can cut you off if starting using the resources so they make a loss on you. Unfortunately, this does bring in customers for them.

 

I doubt you'll have much luck in selling the space, but I have a reseller account anyway as it's good for all the little projects, or for giving away to customers free of charge if they need any webspace.

[SickPuppy]

They are working on the assumption that nobody will ever use that, and you can bet there is a fair-use policy or similar which means they can cut you off if starting using the resources so they make a loss on you. Unfortunately, this does bring in customers for them.

 

I currently have 10 websites on one account using 600 gigs of HD space and over 1000 gigs of bandwidth per month. You can download files from any of our websites at 1 meg per second. I have never been told by ix web that I was using too much space or bandwidth. I am sure ther is a cap but I have not reached it yet.

[SickPuppy]

I would disagree with this can't match. The truth is those unlimited storage and bandwidth are fake all covered by the clause if your website poses undo stress (or similar wording) they can shut you down.

My company does a very strong business (compared to our size) in web hosting. Between customers who have suffered from the web provider shutting them off for that clause and us showing potential customers that clause in others and that we have no such clause. The customer knowing they will get what we promise goes a long way for getting customers.

 

And there is no reason a small hoster can't make the same offer as the big guys if they wish to be as underhanded. Personally I try to minimize any reselling my company does as it takes quality control out of my hands, and it does not matter who is at fault for the poor quality if you sold it your name gets tarnished.

 

 

As I posted above one of my accounts is already at 600 gigs of space and 1000 gigs of transfer. Can you offer that for $4.95 a month?

 

On top of that I get $50 for each customer I send them.

[studeggle]

one of my accounts

You may have posted the key without intending too, what is you average account load to bill, believe me the big guys know when one customer holds/is responsible for several account and they are not going to cut one account off unless all or the average is over what they can do. Hard drive space is dirt cheap so really that is fairly matchable and bandwidth isn't that bad as websites don't require (or even really noticeably benefit) from premium bandwidth. Not saying I can or do provide 600GB storage and a 1000GB BW for $4.95 but as you said that is one account and as stated by others most don't use it.

I have one customer who insisted on (and still does) buying 2TB of bandwidth, there monthly usage so far has never gone over 150GB so I am banking nicely on them, and there are many business consumers out there who are convinced they use hoards of bandwidth and if you show them the clause in the big guys contract they will go elsewhere and pay you the big bucks for what they are not really using.

 

Just be careful especially when you start not to oversell without an escape clause, but really the cheap bandwidth isn't that expensive for large volume and as I said educate the consumer and they will pay up just don’t insist on educating them on there real usage levels.

[Derek]

In today’s web hosting market it is hard for the little guy to compete. Large host are offering packages that a small host can’t match. At one time, we were looking into a reseller program but could not match the offers of companies like ix web hosting and others.

 

Right now you can get hosting packages for as little as $4.95 a month that include unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, a free domain, unlimited sub domains, 100 sql servers, unlimited email accounts. Resellers just can’t match offers like that.

 

Anyway good luck with it.

 

Why are you trying to compete vs the big guys anyways ? Stop trying to compete with unlimited bw/hd space you need to find your own niche and run with it.

[dantheman420]

so the moral of the story is that I should just go for it and not worry about the big guys?

[SickPuppy]

I have two accounts because I need a windows OS server and a Linux OS server. We do not resell Web Hosting the 10 websites belong to our clan. The Linux account is used for file storage and fast redirects only. I agree the big companies are banking on most users never pushing the limits on the unlimited accounts. That holds true for GSPs also, some of them oversell the box banking that not every server will fill up to the max slots rented.

[SickPuppy]

Why are you trying to compete vs the big guys anyways ? Stop trying to compete with unlimited bw/hd space you need to find your own niche and run with it.

 

I have it called being an ix web Affiliate.

 

I do not want to make money by sticking it to the customer. Why would I sell a web-hosting package to a customer and over charge them for something I know they can get cheaper and better from someone else. We started this business, too take care of the customer by offer them a good product for a reasonable price.

 

Have you noticed that the so-called large game server providers have steadily dropped their prices over the years? Well that is because of the small $1.00 a slot companies or as one forum member likes to refer to us “the dollar a slot idiots.”

 

Just look at all of the “sales” and “server specials” being posted in this forum. A great indicator of the decline of a company is the number and frequency of their “sales.”

[Steven Crothers]

I'm just going to pop-in and say my bit on webhosting, since I'm also trying to break into it.

 

The customers, heh, you think the 14 year old kid with moms paypal buying servers is hard to keep satisfied with his 30 mods a day?

 

Webhosting... some people can just be plain jerks. If there code screws up (or html, yes I've seen people blame the host on HTML issues) its YOUR fault.

 

Pfft, if it wasn't so potentially lucrative, I would say the hell with it.

[JasonF]

I do very well with web hosting but I focus on small businesses and local companies. They are steady accounts (unlike GSP or clan websites) they are usually html with no insecure scripts (i.e. php-nuke like clan sites) and they don't want a million GB of HDD and bandwidth, they want a dependable host with fast page load times. We don't oversell our box and my download speeds and page load times prove it.

[Dan M]

There are many websites which are professional, I personally don't count Hostgator as professional.. I used to host with them many of years ago and when I did actually use up my largely allocated space they had to move me servers as they couldn't handle it.. proving that they did actually oversell their services.

 

As most people have said, a small allocation of space and bandwidth with limited databases, subdomains etc would be the more professional sort over somewhere which offers "unmetered space, bandwidth, databases, s-domains" etc.

[JasonF]

Not too mention that a lot of those larger companies will have downtime. My clan got a 1and1 account because they wanted to host redirect files for game servers and I did not want to use up my entire server's bandwidth on 1 account. There have been times where the website is down for 48 hrs while at 1and1.