I'm looking to start up web hosting as a reseller, and I've already been burned a couple times. I've been seeing a lot of what looks like a really good deal, in several places lately. These deals are obviously coming from resellers, as the descriptions and TOS rules are identical. They offer "Unlimited Space" etc., etc., and you only pay between $8-25 / yr. Accounts you resell, you only pay $5-15 / yr., and charge your client normal monthly fees.

There are a LOT of these on ebay, and the number of them are growing constantly. My question is, where are these people getting their space to sell so cheaply? There are a LOT of people selling space on what seems to be the SAME service provider's network and equipment.

How do you find the original source? The place where the buck stops ...... I'd like to be able to get in on this deal.

Can ANYBODY help me out with this conundrum? I'd sure appreciate any real help. And thanks for taking the time to read this.:)

To be honest, that's the sort of deal where you'll get burned again.

Reputable hosts (and probably their resellers) do not usually hang out on Ebay and they don't offer anything "Unlimited" (before someone else points this out, there's a site dedicated to that very cause - http://www.unlimband.com/)

If you have a good long read through these forums, you'll pick up ideas pretty quickly about who are the better respected hosts in this community. There's a few that crop up quite often - among them (off the top of my head) http://www.mchost.com, http://www.venturesonline.com and http://www.splashhost.com

They're not 'Everything for a dollar' but if you have customers of your own, you'll soon learn that service and support are the two things that matter a lot more than the bottom line in this industry!

Would you rather be selling unreliable space for pennies, with no support to back you up when your customers come to your doorstep asking why their site's been down for the last week - or would you rather be making a dollar selling from a company who actually know what they're doing?

Anyway thats my two cents worth :D

The only thing I know which is unlimited appears to be the schemes people come up with for deceiving potential customers. Ebay is not the place to buy hosting. You need to carefully weigh your decision. You aren't talking about just buying one account, but starting a business and you must start on solid ground.

There are many reputable firms that can offer you solid support and reasonable pricing. If a price seems too good to be true, it probably is. The only good situation for the long term is one where you and your host make money.

Try to find someone who will mentor you through the process.

If you are just new to this,
then I would not worry about getting in on the deal etc....

My advice would be to just research as much as you can for as long as you can.....and you will learn a lot...............

all great advice...

cheapo hosting is usually done out of someones house on anything from DSL to a T-1.

14.4k modem on an amiga, now thats the real deal for hosting :D

I think a lot of these fly-by-night "unlimited for pennies" type
"hosts" have a similar M.O.:

1. Slap up a crappy web site to collect sign-ups

2. Arrange to resell / oversubscribe someone else's cheap hosting

3. Advertise temptingly low pricing on cheap places like E-Bay

4. Collect 1 year pre-pays via PayPal or some other vehicle that doesn't require a real merchant account

5. Ignore or stall all support requests and complaints about bad performance, downtime, etc.

Once they've collected a good chunk of change from the
1-year pre-pays, they disappear with everyone's money.

When they don't pay their upstream, all the accounts (including
all of yours if you were reselling the "unlimited" service) are terminated.

You're left with pissed off customers and no hope of getting a
refund or other solution.

There are 1000 slimy opportunist skunks for every 1 reputable operator in this business.

The reputable ones make regular investments in plant and personnell, so they can't provide unlimited anything
under the current laws of economics.

you're so right. and yet the crazy thing is they'd probably make a better living out of a 'real' company if they were actually smart enough to give it a go!

... or at least i've heard that you can make a living out of hosting... i havent actually experienced that myself yet haha :D

Originally posted by HostIt
... or at least i've heard that you can make a living out of hosting... i havent actually experienced that myself yet haha :D

Oh you can do it :) It takes a while, and there's a lot of hard work getting the ball rolling, but eventually it starts to move under it's own steam. As mentioned above the best way to start is research. With a solid base in regard to NOC, hardware, and business plan it's a lot easier. There's plenty of money to be made out of hosting, but forget those heady way-back days of 1996-1998 where dreams came with a big fat check :D

Greg Moore