I think it's interesting not only for me to know is there anyone who's doing business as a webhosting reseller?...
Is it possible in reality to make money this way?...
What's the most popular webhosing who offers reseller's plans?

thanks,
tenzan ;)

Lots of people do hosting with reseller plans. It's ideal for freelancers and such who like to offer hosting to clients but don't have the numbers to justify a server and admins.

It's entirely possible to make money if you know how to run a business :)

I use HostNexus (http://hostnexus.com)'s reseller plans.

If there was no money in reselling, reseller accounts wouldn't exist :D

Well Webbist101 is half right. People would still buy them, just because they do exist, even if there was no money to be made. It's just the nature of people. LOL

But both Webbist101 and Danx are correct in that there is money to be made as a reseller. Especially if you target the local audience where they tend to be more willing to pay a bit more and don't tend to use the resources of a web sales customer.

In our case, our core business is web development, and reselling hosting compliments that. The hosting side alone DOES make money, but it relies heavily on the other services we provide.

I think that alot of customers like the "one-stop-shopping", where they can have ONE company take care of all the aspects related to their website - hosting, email, domain registration, design, programming, etc...

Originally posted by DanX
Lots of people do hosting with reseller plans. It's ideal for freelancers and such who like to offer hosting to clients but don't have the numbers to justify a server and admins.

It's entirely possible to make money if you know how to run a business :)

I use HostNexus (http://hostnexus.com)'s reseller plans.

Yep I know many people that have a business just selling other peoples products/services

I must agree with many of the posts especially the post from:
webbist101

Many web designers and freelancers use these services often. Reseller accounts can give more bang for their buck

In our case, our core business is web development, and reselling hosting compliments that. The hosting side alone DOES make money, but it relies heavily on the other services we provide.

I think that alot of customers like the "one-stop-shopping", where they can have ONE company take care of all the aspects related to their website - hosting, email, domain registration, design, programming, etc...


what did u mean by 'programming'?

is it possible to hire other people to do website design etc while i sell only domain registration and web hosting? i would only be making a small comission to hire other people to do webdesign etc until i am big enough to hire people directly to do that?

If u think my question is reasonable then where would i look for small design companies(outsourcing perhaps?)

THanks

Lots of hosts offer reseller plans.
The trick is to define what it is you need in terms of hosting.
Will you or can you support your own clients? How much space will you need?
What are the core compliments you need from a host to add to your existing services besides a place to put the files?
Do you absolutely need telephone support?

Those things taken into consideration will help you narrow down your choices.

I know somebody who makes quite alot of money from Reseller hosting. He targets his friends and people he knows most of all though.

Almost every host here is a reseller. Most popular hosts are probably server matrix, the planet, and ev1 for reselling. They rent someone elses server and split it up. This is probably more profitable until you have a very large number of machines.

Yes, if you rent a machine from someone and provide hosting accounts you are not a hosting company you are a reseller.

We could take that further and say everyone is a reseller, as you're just reselling another companies bandwidth ;)

< Running with a reseller, been doing buisness pretty well.

We could take that further and say everyone is a reseller, as you're just reselling another companies bandwidth ;)

The lowest common denominator is the actual server you are using. If that is not yours, then there is no way you can not be a 'reseller'

If you are selling hosting accounts, then you are not reselling a carrier's bandwidth. You are using a carriers bandwidth as in your clients are not buying network capacity.

If you are selling cabinets with uplinks to L3/Verio/UUNet/etc then you are reselling. If you have a routed network and supernet IP assignments, then you are also not reselling your network. You are selling your network and buying transit (or transit free peering).

That's like saying ford is a reseller because moog made one of the parts.

But, a more direct answer to the OP. Yes, reselling is a very important part of this market place and also usually a more profitable way to operate. You are leveraging the buying power of a larger company and usually have a much higher markup than if you did it on your own. The down side is you are also tied to that company for better and worst. It's like investing, higher risk higher rewards.

I made enough to start out my own hosting business without investing a single cent. It did work for me at that time. That was nearly 10 years ago. For now when I see the sheer number of resellers and hosts around, I think pure reselling of hosting will be difficult, but maybe for those who are designers , seo who add value to the hosting, they can still make money as a reseller.