Hello,
Please take the time to participate in this poll. Thanks!

Poll: All dollars are in USD and the revenue is after taxes are applied.

I'm not trying to be rude, just out of general curiousity, since I'm going to be opening a web hosting biz soon. :)


P.S. If this thread has already been introduced, please redirect me to it, thanks!

Hi,

Might want to specify a time frame for the poll. Are you asking how much per month, year or what?

Take care,

Louis

The average revenue per year.

I think different poll options would be more appropiate.

$0 - $500
$500 - $5000
$5000 - $10000
$10000 - $50000
$50000+

Just a suggestion :) There are many larger hosting companies here that will easily fit in the $7000+

<EDIT>Per year? x12 the amounts above :D </EDIT>

ah.. I see. heh.

There are actually web hosting business that can earn upwards of $50k? Not talking about the large corporate hosting companies... Verio, etc.

$7,000 + per year?

That is extremely low, how about changing the poll around..

Originally posted by oSM
$7,000 + per year?

That is extremely low, how about changing the poll around..

The name "1st page" is such a rip off of frontpage...

I think you need to put more options on your poll, you wont get a very accurate result if your highest is $7000.
Some hosting companies here, i imagine, would be taking that a month.

$7000/year?

ROTFLMAO!!!!!!
There are actually web hosting business that can earn upwards of $50k? Oh my. No offense, but definitely speaks to the avg age of the participants in the forum, doesn't it!?

Heh.. 50k a month is small compared to a lot of the companies on this forum :)

50k a year wouldn't even cover what most small hosts do per year, thats only 4grand a month roughly.

Originally posted by progex
ah.. I see. heh.

There are actually web hosting business that can earn upwards of $50k? Not talking about the large corporate hosting companies... Verio, etc.

Actually if verio will make 50k monthly they should've been offline for a long time. Just analyse their datacenters

Los Angeles •
San Diego •
San Francisco •
San Jose •
Boca Raton •
New York City •
Rochester •
Sterling •

I guess 50k is the cleaning staff wages ?!? :D

Hrm... Who here owns a web hosting company with a $50k/month revenue? :D

Heh, well.. I'm sure we can't compare Verio with many of the web hosting companies on this forum and the web. I'll be more than willing to talk to the CEO of a multi-million dollar company... j/k

:eek: 11 votes under - $1000... :confused:

pattox> The name "1st page" is such a rip off of frontpage...

How does the name "1st page" relate to this thread? :eek:

Front Page
1st Page

So now you're telling me every domain that has the word 'HOST' is a rip-off of HOSTING.COM OR HOST.com???

No need for bashing :D

*raises hand*

50k is small for what we pull in actually, but i shall not be more specific than that :)

Excellent point from DanielP and you can do for yourself a small computation for a reseller ONLY biz:

5 ded. servers(2 CPUs, 2 GBs RAM, 2x40GB HDD...) in a excellent noc costs around 2500$ a month

resell 5 servers x 40 accounts (1 GB HDD & 12 GB BW) x 30 $ = 6000 $

This makes before wages, telco and so on about 3500$. This will leave you easily the 1000$ mark.

Am I right ? :cool:

telco?

The demographic trends shows that there are alot of start up hosts, and then over the years they either die out or never expand their services. While there are the big boys on the other end of the scale who proberly make a living out of hosting/web design. But It's hard to tell becuase there is a 7 grand max.

Lunarpages has 40,000 clients their cheapest plan for almost 8$ , even if they have everyone for 8$ then 320,000$ per month!
whooaa

Yeah, that is if everyone had the cheapest plan ;)

What about for us who host dedicated servers and colocation, both do not have to be used for 'web' hosting..

Can I be counted?

$100 - $1,000 - 31.88%

LOL DAMN! Thats per annum!?!?!

LOL... 30% make less than a gran per YEAR ! And to specify $7k per year as the upper bound speaks very sadly for todays industry! :eek:

This is my full time job, yes, I make $50k+ p/yr. Maybe that's because I don't sell plans for a few bucks p/mo like some of you. Maybe if you charged more and improved your marketing/business skills, this could actually turn into a full time job. Otherwise continue to sell your $4 p/mo plans and jump joy at making a big mac meal per customer. lol.

Those poll amount are way too for a "business". I wouldn't call $300/month in profit a business.

$50,000!! :|. I had no idea how much you can make from this business (I don't have a business but I'm thinking about it). I always thought that you had a second job aswell. Didn't realise you could live off webhosting. I have been thinking about starting a webhosting business for a while now, but this has helped make my mind up. I was just going to do it, just for a bit of fun, its different and to help make a bit more cash. Now I have a new plan of action, Work until I can afford some hardware and software, install it all, make plans etc. And then if I get enough customers to give up my day job. Then great. If not, then thats what I thought would happen any way.

I don't mean to discourage you but the industry is not the same and it is much harder to get customers nowadays. I've had customers who've been loyal for many years and refer people. Otherwise you are left trying to gain a customer base against penny hosts who offer the world for next to nothing and it's hard to make a living selling web hosting for a few bucks per month. I don't think I would get my hopes up too high nowadays with this industry as there are a zillion companies out there and it's not like ten years ago when we were selling plans for $20 per month minimum and there was plenty of demand. The undercutting of prices by newcomers was so high and fast that it delivered a big blow to the industry and those of us who hope to making a living from it. I doubt I could make what I make now if I was to start now. Sorry I don't mean to discourage you but that's what I think. Having said all that, good luck :)

Originally posted by progex

Poll: All dollars are in USD and the revenue is after taxes are applied. You're leaving out the significant number of hosts represented here that have never made a profit.

Wow, per year, I don't even have to check the actual accounting numbers to be able to answer that :-)

Yes, 7,000 yearly revenue as a maximum is a bit too low...

The spread on monthly volume for Web hosts is truly enormous, I can tell you that first hand.

I've seen Web hosts process as little as a few hundred dollars per month to over $500,000/month+. The latter ones are very much the exception to the rule of course and this aggregate data only reflects a cross section of the total market.

If I had to pick an "average" figure - I'd say a few thousand dollars a month is pretty typical for many.

There is some abiguity in this thread about "make" - does it mean net revenue or net profit?

Yea, it is a little confusing.

But, I voted based on monthly, before I read the post.

The rates are a bit off. Anyone suggest I make a new one?

100+ servers and counting.....lets just say not enough

Dr. Evil

"One Million Dollars"

On a more realistic note, I have no clue, luckily I don't have to deal with billing at all.

Enough - or I wouldn't be doing this :D

Well, it has certainly gotten much more competitive the last one year! I expect a big big shakeup to come this year.

Originally posted by basic
Well, it has certainly gotten much more competitive the last one year! I expect a big big shakeup to come this year.

Shake it baby shake it.. make the bad apples fall.

Originally posted by progex
ah.. I see. heh.

There are actually web hosting business that can earn upwards of $50k? Not talking about the large corporate hosting companies... Verio, etc.

Large web hosting companies make *millions* per year. 1and1.com made close to 500 MILLION last year. Interland
does about 30mil/year.

Almost 500 Million? damn

So are they the biggest web hosting company in the world?

Let me rephrase* their parent company, did that. I'm far to lazy
to dig through their filings and see what 1and1 did on their own,
but I am sure it is significant.

They claim to be the largest host in the world. So does Interland.

Depends how you define host, though.

They could both be large in their respective target markets,
right?

Who was 1and1's parents?

You'd also might want to consider the web hosting divisions of some of the telecom companies.

Didn't Exodus have revenues in excess of 1 billion? It was bought by UK's cable and wireless, but I think it was then sold to a group of private investors.

If you're only making $7,000 year that is barely enough to consider yourself a company? That doesn't even pay yourself..We're going to be hitting about $50k/mo. in the next few months. Higher revenue doesn't mean much to us though because we'll still keep the same profit as owners. We'll just spend more on support and marketing..If you're running this business on your own and you can't make at least $5k/mo. then you should really consider a new occupation. Hosting is hardly considered easy work even though so many think it's the easiest thing to do.

On another note after reading more of this thread, here's a few comments about some things. 1and1's parent company is Schlund (www.schlund.de). They are a large german investing company that does lots of different things. Companies like RackSpace who don't necessarily spend a whole bunch on servers and datacenters they spend a lot on actual support employees. They make a good $5,000,000+ per month. Ev1Servers makes about 2.5M per month. ServerMatrix/The Planet makes a similar amount. Some shared hosting companies also make high amounts. HostRocket brings in at least $100-$200k per month. UnitedHosting which is reletively small brings in at least $30k per month. There are tons of hosting companies though. Each one applies to slightly different markets who can bring in money from that. A large factor to how much money you make, is how much you have to start out with. If you start this company with like $200 you got from christmas money, you'll be in trouble. But if you start with about $20,000 from a loan or an investor or something then you'll be a lot better off...

We are starting a web design business and are considering adding hosting as one of our services. After reading through this thread, it seems that hosting is somewhat lucrative and could be more than just an ancillary service. Unfortunately, I don't have much experience with hosting (other than a couple of sites I've developed over the years.) Is this something I could learn while doing? It seems like going the reseller route would be the way I go, with my limited knowledge (at this point,) could I be successful, or would it be a drain on the design business? I appreciate your opinions and words of advice.

dB

Hi David:

One can always learn, of course, but to become good it takes A LOT of time and some real interest. I suggest, if you choose a reseller hosting plan, go with cPanel, for the one simple reason that it is *very* easy to change hosts. If you are not sattisfied, simply have your accounts transferred to another cPanel host. If you go with Plesk or some other system that is much much harder, so you're more dependent, and dependency isn't good in this business.

Keep to the cPanel Hosts David

David visit the thread

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=268769

You will need to have Linux/Windows knowledge, choose your target market, get www.clientexec.com for your billing, start off from a good reseller program (search them at www.tophosts.com)
www.thewhir.com/reseller/ and read all the articles.

Web hosting is always a good addition to your design business and viceversa

On the Interland and 1und1 note... Interland were biggest in the US, 1and1 were the largest worldwide. I suspect that Interland's lead is being strongly challenged following 1and1's launch in the US and the huge financial reserves they assigned to penetrating that market.

Originally posted by jezzomaster
Keep to the cPanel Hosts David

Wow, Cpanel == success?

To think our business model has been flawed all this time!

Originally posted by UH-Matt
Wow, Cpanel == success?

To think our business model has been flawed all this time!
I think they're saying that there are more cpanel reseller suppliers, than Plesk reseller suppliers.

That's what I understood their comments to be etc. :)

Originally posted by UH-Matt
Wow, Cpanel == success?

To think our business model has been flawed all this time!

Didn't I try to tell you this months ago? :crazy:

Originally posted by nickn
Didn't I try to tell you this months ago? :crazy:

Yep, we've decided to start all over again.

Thanks for all the advice, it will be very helpful to us.

David

Company I work for makes about 22k a month, it flux's between 19 and 23 and it keeps rising

The *cPanel* advice was for a prospective RESELLER -- not for a web hosting company!!! We offer Plesk and cPanel, and from OUR perspective they are almost even -- but from the reseller perspective cPanel makes most sense because an unsatisfied reseller can EASILY change hosts as the transfer is the easiest -- no need to reupload sites, databases, etc.

Hmm, the poll results are interesting..... the least and the most are both popular options. Goes to show, you either make or break.

Originally posted by RaineTech
If you're only making $7,000 year that is barely enough to consider yourself a company? That doesn't even pay yourself..We're going to be hitting about $50k/mo. in the next few months. Higher revenue doesn't mean much to us though because we'll still keep the same profit as owners. We'll just spend more on support and marketing..If you're running this business on your own and you can't make at least $5k/mo. then you should really consider a new occupation. Hosting is hardly considered easy work even though so many think it's the easiest thing to do.
$50k/mo since last August - impressive. All off one server? Your account login button goes to one server - your own.

And your site took about 3 minutes to load. If you're packing 50k worth of clients on one server, you might want to think about putting some on a ZX-81.

Originally posted by UH-Matt
Yep, we've decided to start all over again.
Us too. ;)

Originally posted by RaineTech
. . . We're going to be hitting about $50k/mo. in the next few months . . .
Is that from raine-tech.com?

BTW, you're getting 404 errors off your order links.

50K from raine-tech.com? Why have you left soo much empty space below company info and i would be really startled if you are making that much of the site..

Strange....
http://www.webhosting.info/webhosts/reports/total_domains/raine-tech.com

I'd be happy with $5/mo. :D

Originally posted by BlueCapacity
Strange....
http://www.webhosting.info/webhosts/reports/total_domains/raine-tech.com
I wouldn't worry too much about Webhosting.info. They say that HTTPme hosts 15 domains (http://www.webhosting.info/webhosts/reports/total_domains/httpme.com), where I know it's really more than 20,000 domains. ;)

Originally posted by universal2001
I'd be happy with $5/mo. :D
Keep up the hard work, and one day you'll reach those dizzy heights. :D

Aussie Bob you should update them then on Http's market share :D

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
I wouldn't worry too much about Webhosting.info. They say that HTTPme hosts 15 domains (http://www.webhosting.info/webhosts/reports/total_domains/httpme.com), where I know it's really more than 20,000 domains. ;)

haha... Yeah, theres always exceptions. Ah, I dunno, that site is fairly accurate for me. I guess it depends on your setup and everything...

Maybe they measured Aussie Bob 3-4 years ago and never came back though their latest check dates to 05/24/04

Originally posted by Yaser
Maybe they measured Aussie Bob 3-4 years ago and never came back though their latest check dates to 05/24/04
It's not that. HTTPme uses different nameservers (for their resellers) for all the servers etc, and they don't pick them up with their scanning. I think they only find the few domains on the "HTTPme" nameservers.

Originally posted by Yaser
50K from raine-tech.com? Why have you left soo much empty space below company info and i would be really startled if you are making that much of the site..
I would agree with that observation.

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
It's not that. HTTPme uses different nameservers (for their resellers) for all the servers etc, and they don't pick them up with their scanning. I think they only find the few domains on the "HTTPme" nameservers.

Yep, I think so. We do the same thing; the numbers that webhosting.info show for simpli.biz are pretty much the domains that Simpli itself owns.

Now, if you happen to know the name servers that we give out to our customers, webhosting.info gives a somewhat more accurate picture. However, generally only our virtual hosting and a few of our reseller clients use our name servers. Everyone else uses their own, which means our client base still appears a lot smaller than it really is. This is going to be the same as it will for any company focused on reseller hosting, dedicated hosting, and/or colocation.

crap...I voted thinking it was monthly...i doubt any hosts make under 1000 a year....

maybe raine-tech.com charge each of their 100 clients $500 a month?! lol

Originally posted by NexDog
$50k/mo since last August - impressive. All off one server? Your account login button goes to one server - your own.

And your site took about 3 minutes to load. If you're packing 50k worth of clients on one server, you might want to think about putting some on a ZX-81.

If you used WHTirc you would learn to ignore anything that boy says. Hes 14 years old but claims to be "building" offices. Was also famous for saying once that iNET was going to be building a datacenter with him.

There are many many excellent IRC logs of the conversations which take place when Raine is about - It really is a joy to watch, but please take it all with a pinch of salt.

I'll just be happy when i reach my ROI point.

baby steps...

Originally posted by UH-Matt
If you used WHTirc you would learn to ignore anything that boy says. Hes 14 years old but claims to be "building" offices. Was also famous for saying once that iNET was going to be building a datacenter with him.


It'd be nice if someone changed his signature to that above quote for as long as he was here :stickout: *nudges mods and admins* ah... That would be cruel though wouldent it... Oh well just more to show people that not everything they read here is true.

I would like to acquire his company for $2 million pounds. (under table $40k).. hmmm ;)

WoW! I might want to jump in on the web hosting business.. but probably too late?

Originally posted by prohostweb
. . . baby steps...
Yes, and right there is the key ingredient for success. Tiny steps taken each day, over a time period, will lead you to your destination, provided you are headed in the right direction etc. I can still remember when HTTPme was doing $100/mth in business. 2+ years down the track and that $100/mth grew to over $45K/mth. Just lots of small steps inbetween the $100/mth and $45K/mth. :)

Aussie Bob, where did you use to advertise when you had started out? Mind sharing some secrets:D

Originally posted by Yaser
Aussie Bob, where did you use to advertise when you had started out? Mind sharing some secrets:D

Right place + right time + bit of luck + lots of hard work and sleepless nights = httpme.com

Nice formula, couldnt agree more.

Hard work dedication always pays off along side advertising dollars, happy customers and reliable service :)

Originally posted by mrzippy
Right place + right time + bit of luck + lots of hard work and sleepless nights = httpme.com
hehe, that's pretty much what it all came down to. :D