Hi all,

I am planning to start a reselling/web hosting service. I have been lurking around this board a bit and have learnt a lot about reselling !

Still am a bit confused about certain things --

1. Should I start with a reseller plan or a dedicated server ?
I dont want to spend more than say $50 or so /month
for the space atleast to start with (if possible)

In case of dedicated servers too, not sure if I need a managed server or not. Im a programmer and extremely comfortable with Linux/PHP, server installations etc. but have not really done a full fledged sysadmin job so dont know what it would involve.

If I am going for reseller hosting, have read good things about dathorn, vshosting, crediblehost etc. from this forum so might go with one of those.

2. What are other things I need to do ?
What comes to my mind is to get a website registered and developed for selling the webspace, registering with a credit card merchant, and some advertising ?

3. What kind of revenue can I expect ?
The clients I am looking at are all from the internet. i.e dont have any local clients as of now. How easy is it to get clients ?
What are good places to advertise ?
For me to be almost full time on this, revenue should be atleast $500/month. Is this reasonable enough to expect ?

Looking forward to inputs....

Vipul Kapadia

1. You're not going to get a dedicated box with a budget of $50/mo so you should start looking at reseller accounts.

2. Good name and nice website with good content are a must, a good help section could also help you cut down on support requests.

3. You should probably not expect much from Internet sales, if you've gone through these boards at all you'll see all of these $2 hosts that take a lot of business away. And if you were considering being a $2 host then you aren't gonna make too much $ anyway, at least not fora long time... If you are looking for that much revenue you really need to hit up local businesses, it's just not going to happen that fast only offering the service online.

Just my 3 cents

Doug

Server4you.com has dedicated servers at $49.95/mo.

Hi Vipul,

I'll suggest you to start as a choose a reseller plan from some of the very good co's present on the board. Since you are starting up you'll still need someone to take care of the critical issues which might come up in the process...Gradually when you become comfortable you can move on to dedicated server.

2 Get a good domain name...create a website for you..if you don't have good design skill get a template from www.***************.com for your site..get payment processing from www.paysystems.com or www.2checkout.com . If you are looking for a indian payment processor check out www.ccavenue.com ..A good payment processer is must.

3 If you are looking for international clients/online business I would suggest you first to do a little research and make a business model. In order to sell your services online you must carefully plan your pricing stratagy..the prices should be at par with the competition. Remember the customer who'll come to you searching online will also have other options..so they'll naturally try to compare your offers with the competition.

Here a nicely designed site...with proper info on hosting plans will what give you an edge over others.

Lastly..I would suggest you to pay focus more on your local market. When my sales team approaches a local corporate looking for hosting we are able to charge them higher amount with relatively no or very less competition. Best part..on next renewal term they'll be very easy..won't call other quotes and be willing to go with you at same or a little less price ( provided you offer them good service ) & pay annually.

The highest paying clients we get are from our local market in India. They pay close to US$ 100 - 150 Per month for shared hosting plans ;) pay us annually & don't move here & there.

Its easy to get a revenue close to $ 1000 from the local market if you know how to value add your services & knock the right door :)

All the very best :)

Ravish Gupta

3. You should probably not expect much from Internet sales, if you've gone through these boards at all you'll see all of these $2 hosts that take a lot of business away. And if you were considering being a $2 host then you aren't gonna make too much $ anyway, at least not fora long time... If you are looking for that much revenue you really need to hit up local businesses, it's just not going to happen that fast only offering the service online.

That advice is worth much more than $0.03

That is fact!