What I think a good company that provides reselling abilities to it's resellers would provide the following;

(a) Provide support under the reseller's company name. (email only ofcourse)

(b) Provide the credit card processing under a non company but service desciptive name (ie. 'hosting services' would apper as the company name on the client's credit card bill). Since they accept credit cards themselves why not do it for the reseller who is basically a salesperson for the company. Naturally the providing company would charge all normal credit card charges and a little extra (1% - 3%) for their service. This saves the reseller from having to set up credit card abilities.

(c) Provide the normal server, domain name, etc. service and maintiance.

(d) Allow for the reseller of the service to set own price levels for packages that can be set by the reseller or just reselling already existing packages.

So basically a cross between a reseller and referral program. A referral program that can be marketed in a reseller fashion so that the reseller customers do not know that they are dealing with a reseller. Are there any companies out there that do this type of thing? If so I would like to hear from you.

The reasoning why is that I would not mind entering the business but do not have the skills to run the tech end of things. The reason that I wish to enter the this field among others is not to make a great big pile of money but instead to supplement my existing income a little and I wish to donate some of the money to a local charity that assists familys that require out of town medical care of small children.

So as I have stated above, if you are a company that can provide this service drop me a line.

The main reason why resellers get a large discount (up to 50%) is because they are handling one of the two main cost factors: support. And if the host is also handling credit cards the customer will know the host.
Not impossible, but difficult.

There are currently 2 types of 'resellers'. Referral programs and actual reseller programs.

In the referral program, you only refer the clients to the host an the host takes care of support, maintenance, etc. which is exactly what you described in your post.

In the actual reseller program, the host usually provides you with support for your and your clients' questions/problems, but you will need to be the representative for your clients.

I don't think there's any host that offers support to your clients without a very high ($200+/month) fee.

I have not found a company that allows for a person to do a referral program that is marketed as a reseller program and to be honest I do not expect to find one that would do it as I have explained above. None the less I do believe that there is a market out there for what I have described as I find it hard to believe that I am the only one that has been looking at this format.

Maybe one day a company will take the time to develope a hybred of the referral and reseller programs.

I think what you're asking for would be too expensive to be very profitable for either party.
It seems like a really sweet deal for the "reseller." There's really not much for him to do.
Wait for customers and collect money. Sounds like a great job.

that's what I would call "lazy reseller", which just expect everybody to do all for him while he is just providing some simple form for people to sign up! This is not a reseller! This is a referral! Too bad, no easy money ...

cheers,
:beer:

My concept is not properly being understood by comments so I am going to let it die until I can word it differently and more clearly the best that I can decribe it as a mix of referral and reseller. What I was trying to explain can be done, infact from a quick search and some reading (less than an hour) of some websites I discovered that all the aspects of running a hosting company and maintaining the server(s) can be done for USD$6.95 per month cost per account based on 100 accounts on one server with 1 Gig Ram, Dual Pentium III, 40 Gig (Raid-1) with bandwidth usage of 5,000 MB per month per account. This is before outsourced support (a per issue charge) which if each account had 2 support issues each month, every month the cost of the email/live chat support would be less than $4.00 per account per month.

So even with the 2 support issues every month the basic cost per account is under $11.00 per month and with 1 support issue per month the per account cost is lower than $9.00. This is based on the cost of the server being spread out over the 100 accounts and recovering the cost of the server in 12 months. So after that the priced drops even more if you do not replace the server every 12 months.

I do not think that it is a 'laze reseller' I think it as of instead of oursouring all the funcions (except makting, etc.) to other companys, would need (i) server provider, (ii) co-location provider, (iii) credit card processing provider, (iv) outsourced support. Why not get all the services from one single provider.

I hope this better explains what I am trying to say.

I think people are thinking of this as 'lazy reselling' because they question what your function is in the whole process. Maybe less what your function is, but rather how much you expect to actually make from this when the host is doing the majority of the work and responsible for the majority of the services.

If they:
(a) Provide support for your clients.
(b) Provide the credit card processing.
(c) Provide the normal server, domain name, etc. service and maintiance.
(d) Allow you to set own price levels and packages (or existing packages)

Your function is merely a non-paid salesman, and as such, there will be very little the host will be able to offer you in terms of payment, unless you can mark up the packages enough to make something out of it.

Now it isn't unreasonable, I understand where you are coming form, and I don't think it is an insane idea or anything, and I wondered if something like this existed when I was looking for reseller accounts. I realized however, that the income from something like this would barely be worth it, and if you actually want to make more than $1-$2 per account, you'd have to undertake some of the major responsibilities.

If you are willing to buy accounts at the published regular prices on the host's site, then I think this is a possibility. I would not expect a discount of any kind however, or if so, a very small discount. Basically, for every service the host provides, your cost goes up (as there are hidden costs associated with accepting payment, running the server, support, etc.).

Originally posted by Selushen
... I discovered that all the aspects of running a hosting company and maintaining the server(s) can be done for USD$6.95 per month cost per account ... with bandwidth usage of 5,000 MB per month per account ...
Not true. The average cost per quality GB of bandwidth is between $3-5. If all customers use up their bandwidth (they might, they might not) you'll end up paying at least $15 for a plan that you charge $6.95 for. This is called playing the resources game. It works for some companies, it doesn't for others. Most of them end up increasing the fee, lowering the bandwidth or closing down.

Thanks for your responses and I understand what you are saying and I do understand the profit in my idea is less than $1.00 per month but this was not ment as a solid job, just a means to raise a little money for me and a local charity.

It does not seem that such a hands off approch would work. I would be responsible for designing, maintaining site along with not tech questions and contract out the remainder of the services and server maintiance.

As for all aspects of the buniess for $6.95, this was a bad choice of words as all aspects can not be done for that prices but it is in the ballpark based on some variables that are always changing. Inregards to the price of bandwidth per GB you can get it for $1.50 to $2.00 on the amount of volume that I have talked about. The down side is the quality of the bandwidth, sure the provider offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee but what is the quality of the network.

To be honest the quality of the network is not top of the line it is one the same level as your average telephone company service, in otherwords what the average non commercial user is use to.

Overall I still think that my concept is a good one that can be developed into something, after all I did not spend more than an hour getting figures and doing calculations. But look at it this way I have seen reseller discounts are normally in the range of 40% - 50% off of the webhosting providers regular prices and with me (the reseller) being responsible for three things (i) the setting up accounts - which can be basically automated with the software outthere today, (ii) credit card payment and (iii) front line support.

Sure the provider is doing the work of maintaining but if under that providers services that can function and remain profitable with there own accounts and let us say that they make $3.00 profit per account on a $35.00 per month fee, why not have the extra accounts from a second company, in exchange you have to give up half of the profit so the company gets $1.50 and I get $1.50. That is an extra $1.50 that the providing company would not have earned as profit as the account is through another company.

Oh well I think that this subject and my restating the same thing over and over agian has reached it's end. Thanks for the comments. (I may even let it die this time even though I know that is what I stated in my last response)

I just reread a little of a comment I am not suggesting that I charge $6.95 I am saying that is what I would pay for the service based on some variables and then markup that $6.95 for profit, marketing, my pay, etc.

Another issue for the ISP is that if he gets a client with whom he can talk directly then he is able to

1. Kick him out by ISPs commercial/technical decision
2. Offer him extra services, change in account, bundle services etc
3. Have a commercial relationship with the customer

While with your plan there is not such a thing. For example, the company I work for now has moved 2500 domains to a new datacenter in 4 hours (btw our clients had a mere 5 minutes downtime at most :-)) and none of them understood a thing.

What would happen if there was a reseller/refferer as a middle man? We would have to talk to some of his "difficult person" customers, tell them about possible downtime, blah blah and the list goes on. You wouldn't want us to do this on your behalf, would you?

Also, each ISP/hoster/reseller has his own commercial policy. For example we are letting go our customers who are "a pain in the you know where" just like the bandwidth hungry guys. You complain/ask/annoy us a lot WITH NO REASON cause you're an annoying person by nature? It simply costs us more in virtual web hosting services to keep you as a customer some times. So we let go of them by putting them on low priority. So they leave - IF they decide to leave cause most of them are "I know it all and your links are down - ooooops, it was my modem disconnected, hehe" and stick with us when we PROVE them they are plain stupid.

Also some customers are interested in $1 cheaper web hosting - we let them go as well if they don't like our pricing plans for example.

How could we do that on your customers? We could only if they were OUR customers and we had FULL access on them.

We are not talking about putting value added services on your webhost's services. We are talking about relabeling the same package with more money for your customer. You have to put something extra for your money, I think. Apart from bringing the customer and you should be paid for that, what else you do? I don't care if my reseller earns 100% more than my street price, but it's not the best to offer his customer anonymous technical support...

In a scenario where the web host's prices were higher than what you got from your customer and you received a good discount, yes. But also with the web host in total control and the customer know who he is.

And why should someone be totally anonymous to your clients and support them on your behalf? What if you decide to become a farmer tomorrow morning - we have no access to a clientelle which was (practically) ours and stayed with us not because of you but because of our great support, our great bandwidth, our great services. Not to mention what happens if you find a host which is $0.5 cheaper for your 200 domains :-)

It's not the same but I remember of iServer with Vservers, or Colossus with Alabanza... Which is not the same but the outcome is the same for the webhost.

Not that I am implying that you would think so but there are a lot people who judge by the cover or by some non-commercial factors. Unfortunately web hosting business is open to everyone, from someone with $10 as starting capital to someone with millions for his investment.

It's a jungle out there - I remember the times where domains took 15 days to be registered (and without paying the $100 fee :-)). Internet (and web hosting business) has evolved a lot since...

Nick

Hello:

I too, wanted something like this when I was researching different options. I think it would be great if a hosting company could offer this without any problems...

Back to the discussion, I think that most companies out there are not interested in venturing into something like this because they are already well established and have a large customer base. If you were to find a company that was very new (like mine) then you might be able to work something out with them. However, I do not think that any company would advertise a service like this... From my experiences, if you want anything abnormal, you are not going to find it advertised. Maybe something like this will become normal some day, as somebody was saying, web hosting has evolved a great deal, and I am sure it will continue to do so.

I hope I am able to provide some insight on the situation. :)

-Mike.