I am looking to begin reselling - on a small scale at first, but I want to start someplace that I could grow with. Since I am looking to learn as much as I can about hosting, I do want a rich, flexible feature set. Reliability and support are, of course, also very important.

I know there are many highly recommeded hosts out there, but I'd like to start with a company that is already past its initial growth spurt in order to avoid the inevitable troubled period that goes along with it. I know that Ventures Online certainly is. And I believe that Voxtreme is, but I'm not really so sure where they are in their evolution. I don't get the impression that other ggod companies like SplashHost, Cyberwings, MCHost are past ths yet.

What I'm hoping to get comments on is what the specific pros/cons of these two companies may be. What features do you find particularly strong or weak, or lacking altogether? How easy is it to perform your reseller duties? How easy is it for your clients to do what they need to do? How customizable is the control panel? SSL setup? Setting up a shopping cart? Other ecommerce concerns? Etc...

I'm aware of the buy-in-bulk vs. one-account-at-a-time fundamental diference, and I do prefer the buy-in-bulk approach, but not enough to base my decision on it.

If you have any other hosting suggestions, I'd be happy to hear about them.

Thanks in advance.

- Doug

First a good luck is for you.

Second ... you're starting a small scale (SMALL ;)) this mean you'll need a company with highly friendly support and a great forum.

You don't need the big ones or the old ones. I suggest you consider Splashhost because they have on of the most accesible entry level package at 30$.

For a beginner as i am i considering a better choice the SH, MCH ...

Support is great from Alan and his friend and also the uptime seems excellent.

You'll find sometimes that growing with a company makes you feel better and give your clients better services.

Of course you might find yourself in a day that your hosting company is gone but same could happen with a big one. Just be cautios and always have a backup choice on your hand.

The control panel is fully customizable and installing and configuring clients is easy.

Keep us informed of your choices.:)

decebal - I edited my first post slightly to explain why I'm hesitant to use a very young host. Thanks for the recommendation, and while I'm not dead-set against it (there is honor in supporting a small, growing, well-run company), I'm still leaning away from it.

Besides, while support may be great, and you and many others are happy with them (as well as the others I mentioned), I'd still like to know more about how people feel about the speicifc features, etc. of the hosts. As with anything else in life, the "I love it"/"I hate it" reviews don't really give me a good feel as to whether or not I'd love it or hate it. Obviously I want to stick with companies that everyone loves, but beyond that, I need details.

- Doug

Hi Doug,

I read this thread with interest, and it's nice to see positive feedback (a little reward is always nice after all that hard work ;) ).

Anway, to clarify, we are still a young host - this is our third month of business, we only officially launched on the 1st of January 2002 (although business has been great since then!). This means we are younger than both SplashHost and VenturesOnline. You may think it a little strange that I've posted, in a sense that it could lose us business, but I believe it's far better to be honest about ourselves.
If you still feel we may be suitable - please don't hesitate to contact us, we can set you up with a free trial if you wish to test our services.
If you decide we are unsuitable, good luck with your search for a host - and I can say that both SplashHost and VenturesOnline would provide a great home for you :)

Regards
Matt

I am with Ventures Online, and they are very good. Very good support and uptime. Very good communication as well. Easy account setup and good pricing and packages.

With being a reseller for VenturesOnline, you only have to buy what you need. So instead of spending around $40 a month with those "You buy and divide plans", you only have to buy what you need. For a new reseller, this is a major advantage, as it can be hard finding customers the first few months. Remember, if you expand you can always switch to a different provider.

VenturesOnline has been around for a while and has great support. As a new reseller, that support is priceless.

But thats just my biased two cents :)

My posting experience may not be great here, nor I doubt will I have your respect, but I'm here to post what I think about Voxtreme and their service. :)

I've been following Voxtreme since they started up and began advertising, only lately did I join up with one of their reseller packages. I'm normally very cautious with new companies and Voxtreme was no exception.
I got in contact with some customers and asked them about various aspects of the Voxtreme service and how pleased or displeased they were. Overall most were very pleased and the issues they did have with Voxtreme were fixed immediately.
One issue during the early days were problems with VDI, but VDI seem to be picking up the pieces again. I believe Voxtreme now have some servers at NAC which on face value seems to have strengthened their service but I cannot be totally sure about this, but my experience with them concerning uptime has been great.

Voxtreme have extremely good customer support, if they had one strong selling point, this would be it.
Any problems are seen to almost immediately and when I've had issues they fixed them or helped me find a solution quickly, if you need something installed on their servers, this is done without question. I've found the staff polite, very quick to respond, good natured people.

Performing my "reseller duties" has been easy and its been a pleasure doing business with Voxtreme.

From what I can tell, Voxtreme is past its initial growth spurt, although its still growing very quickly judging from the new members on the community board.

I've had some experience with other hosts but were never as pleasurable as with Voxtreme.. I haven't sampled VenturesOnline so I have no idea in a 1v1 comparision but from my experience with Voxtreme, I would recommend them who wants to resell.

I have to say my post may be biased somewhat. :D

Peter

Okay, for my biased opinion, I'm very happy with Voxtreme for my reselling purposes.

The people there are technically very good, and their people skills are getting better every day.


Lats...

I just started with venturesonline and I'm really happy with my decision. Their support team has been great. I also got a lot of help from their forum section. I'm not taking anything from voxtreme, I have seen a lot of positive threads about both venturesonline and voxtreme. Just my 2 cents...

;)

From Matt:we are still a young host - this is our third month of business, ... This means we are younger than both SplashHost ... LOL! Why did I think you had been around longer than that? Matt - I really appreciate your forthcomingness (is that a word? :eek: ). I suppose it's because all the posts about SplahHost, AlwaysWebHosting, etc. always talk about how great Alan, Ronnie, etc. are. While I have great respect for them and their efforts, I'm still nervous about a (mostly) one-man-show type of company. What happens when things get to be too much for him (or her) to handle? But the posts for Voxtreme always refer to "they" and the "team".

So now I'm all confused and don't know whether to be comforted or troubled by the fact that Voxtreme is new but does not appear to be a one-man, its-my-baby company :confused: .


From TheMMIz:So instead of spending around $40 a month with those "You buy and divide plans", you only have to buy what you needUnless you're hosting larger sites that will hog up much of your bulk plan, I'm not sure this really works out. Let's say I have all small sites, and I charge $10/month. With VO, that's $6 profit per account, and my own account is $17. With a bulk plan, that's $10 profit per account and my own account is approx. $30 # accounts.......VO..........Bulk
2 accounts.......($5)........($10)
5 accounts........$13.........$20
10 accounts......$43..........$70
20 accounts......$103........$170
100 accounts.....$583.......$940 (larger bulk plan)
The bulk plan quickly becomes more profitable, with very little risk, ecpecially if I throw a couple of my own sites in there basically for free.

However, if these bulk resellers are operating under a faulty business model, they will soon need to raise their rates, thereby negating my calculations. And if VO is really so reliable, I can probably charge more than $10 on the basis of great service.
( :idea: why don't I start a new thread (http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=41152) about this very thing)


From Typhoon:My posting experience may not be great here, nor I doubt will I have your respect
What's not to respect? You took the time to write a well thought out reply in order to help a total stranger. Thanks :) . Now that I've done some more searching through the forum, I see that Voxtreme did have some trouble in January with uptime. I'm glad to hear that you think they have put that past them.


But I still wish I could get more feedback about their feature set. I suppose that would require someone who has a lot of hosting experience with multiple companies, and has actually gone beyond the basics. Regardless, thanks to everyone so far, and let's keep those posts coming!

I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who can say anything negative about Ventures Online.

There are advantages to being a one man company, like i dont have any partners to fall out with which could cause serious problems to a company. Just to let you know I am taking measures to prevent sudden growth causing any problems.