Most people here appear to indicate that bulk plans are better. Why are bulk plans better, especially for people just starting out in the hosting biz?

Here's why discounted plans sound better to me...
1) easier to manage
2) more flexibility in adding many more accts
3) ability to sell larger accounts (though if you only plan to sell 20MB diskspace, 200MB bandwidth accts, maybe a bulk plan is the way to go???)
4) you don't have to worry about overusage of bandwidth and diskspace as much as you do with bulkplans
5) you only pay for what you sell (IOW, you don't have to pay for a large expensive account with a ton of space of bandwidth you may never need if you don't sell anything)

Am I missing something, or am I just plain wrong? If so, what am I not getting?

Bulk Plans, in my opinion, have the following advantages:


You can add/edit/remove accounts in real time. ie. if your clients needs more pop3 accounts or mysql databases, you can upgrade it yourself within seconds without first having to purchase a bigger plan.
You have all your clients under one plan - easier to manage.
Access to DNS zones (depending on the control panel you use).
Ability to log into your clients' accounts with your reseller password (depending on the control panel)


you don't have to worry about overusage of bandwidth and diskspace as much as you do with bulkplans

You don't really need to worry as with most bulk plan providers, you can monitor the bandwidth usage and control the limits of all your accounts.

There are advantages/disadvantages with both styles and in the end its up to you which is better for your business and your clients :)

Yes the "bulk" plans are to replace the old and tired "buy 1 domain at a time reseller plan". Evolution works by improving and replacing that which was with something that is superior. There's no question about it, the bulk plans are more appealing to most consumers, and consumers drive the market - not web hosts with outdated business models. </opinion> [if I'm still allowed an opinion :rolleyes:]

1. Flexibility [as per Marc's post]

2. Better utilization of resources.
Bulk plans make it easier to use up more of the allocated disk space & bandwith. The market is generally designed to reward better resource usage [speaking of all industries], same is likely to apply to hosting.

I don't know about that. Most places only give you 500 Megs and maybe 10 GB total bandwidth in a bulk plan. If you want to sell large accts, that makes it impossible to sell very many large accts, such as accts with 200MB space and 10GB bandwidth plans out of a bulk acct. IOW, the space and bandwidth usage on most bulk plans is too low. Yes, there are large plans, but the relationship of disk space and bandwidth and how many large accts you can fit in are still relative.

Originally posted by chrisb
I don't know about that. Most places only give you 500 Megs and maybe 10 GB total bandwidth in a bulk plan. If you want to sell large accts, that makes it impossible to sell very many large accts, such as accts with 200MB space and 10GB bandwidth plans out of a bulk acct. IOW, the space and bandwidth usage on most bulk plans is too low. Yes, there are large plans, but the relationship of disk space and bandwidth and how many large accts you can fit in are still relative. Hi Chris,

Agreed up to a point. Utilization options will obviously be better with smaller accounts than larger, and larger accounts could certainly be better suited by a single domain plan.

But overall, small accounts will leave less resources unused - sort of like filling a jar with pebbles v rocks :) And of course, there are & will be many more small accounts around than large accounts.

I think that "why is x better" in this case is probably not a good yardstick to use. Bulk plans are not necessarily better across the board for everyone. Some people prefer to buy accounts one at a time instead of paying for space they might not be using. The question is not which is better (period) but which is better for you and your needs. Those people who cannot sit down and put together a list of the pros and cons of each type of plan as it relates to their own business model should not be jumping in too quickly to either one.

Originally posted by GeeksRUs
I think that "why is x better" in this case is probably not a good yardstick to use. Bulk plans are not necessarily better across the board for everyone. Some people prefer to buy accounts one at a time instead of paying for space they might not be using. The question is not which is better (period) but which is better for you and your needs. Those people who cannot sit down and put together a list of the pros and cons of each type of plan as it relates to their own business model should not be jumping in too quickly to either one.
I did say "most consumers", not all consumers. I think there was a poll around these parts recently about this subject and it was 9 to 1 in favour of bulk style plans. I should post the link to the poll if I bring up the poll but I'm too tired and am just about to head home from the office to my loving family. :)

Bob, I wasn't referring to your post specifically. My thrust here is that it doesn't matter if most consumers prefer them. The original question was why they were better. They aren't, necessarily. They are better for some people, and not for others. For my tastes, I would rather see hosts asking more questions about adequate business planning than about anything else, since it appears that quite a few have done no planning, have no idea where they are going, and don't really seem to care much one way or the other.

Imagine you could host unlimited sites in your space !
A Bulk plan mean you only pay a monthly X amount nothing above that so you know your costs. Otherwise you would be calculating how much you make per account .....
You would get busy with a calculator rather than sell sell sell

Hi again Jerry,
You're a bit prejudiced for bulk plans since that's what you sell. I've been to your site, btw. As in all things, it all boils down to what works best for the reseller. I love the hosts that offer a choice of bulk or plan discounts. I don't like those host that have tiered plans. Now *that* should be outlawed... lol

Here are why bulk plans bother me...

1) BANDWIDTH... most appear to have too little bandwidth to give people very much bandwidth and it's expensive to buy more bandwidth. It also seems like you'd have less control of someone going over their bandwidth than selling discounted plans.

2) DISK SPACE... scability bothers me. Say I start selling at a bulk plan with 200MB of space, and the highest reseller plan only goes to 1000MB, then I have to start all over, and keep buying different plans OR even worse the host forces me to go to a dedicated server without all of the features of my shared acct... so now I have to spend extra money to buy what I use to have.

As an aside, it's easy for me to write a perl script to check user's diskspace, but I have no idea how to write one that will check bandwidth, and if customers go over, I may want to suspend their acct temporarily.

Should I just let customers go over their alloted bandwidth, and hope I get paid? Or, perhaps even better, should I give them 2 gigs less bandwidth than they really have? That way when they reach their bandwidth, send them a warning, and when they reach their *absolute* bandwidth limit, suspend the acct temporarily? I really want control over bandwidth, and not have to keep checking a control panel to see what it is.

generally you wont need to keep thecking the control panel
when you set up the account you will have an option of how much BW to allocate to the account, and also options of what to do when they get near/go over the limit....usually things like contact you, send them a form letter, suspend the account

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
Yes the "bulk" plans are to replace the old and tired "buy 1 domain at a time reseller plan". Evolution works by improving and replacing that which was with something that is superior. There's no question about it, the bulk plans are more appealing to most consumers, and consumers drive the market - not web hosts with outdated business models. </opinion> [if I'm still allowed an opinion :rolleyes:]

In reference to this, I will just quote myself from another post.
We do pretty well with the "old (and tired) approach" to reselling. So does HostingMatters, VenturesOnline, Akashik, RTShosting, LinuxWebHost, Burst, HostingDirect, LiquidWeb, JaguarPC, WWW-Hosting.net, Vortechhosting, and HostCaters---just to name a few. Thousands of resellers love the "per account" method. I'm not saying it is better or worse than bulk. I am saying that it should not be looked at as worthless.



You can also add/remove accounts in real time with the "per account" method of reselling. If your clients need more pop3 accounts or mysql databases, you can upgrade the plan yourself within seconds by purchasing a larger plan. You do not have to ask to do this, but cotrol it from your own control panel. In many cases, there is only $1 difference. Resellers make more than the extra dollar charged by charging their clients more.

You can exercise ownership on all your clients from one site with the "per account" method also. With WHM, all resold, and now the reseller's account itself, can be managed from the same screen. DNS zones can easily be added/changed/deleted from the same control panel. In fact, all functions which can be managed in a "bulk" reseller plan can be managed in a "per account" reseller plan - with the exception of the quotas, which can be changed through upgrade/downgrade with "per account".

With WHM, "per account" resellers also have the ability to log into their clients' accounts with their reseller password.

Advantages of "per account/as needed" reselling:

Add accounts when you want, and do not feel pressure to use up resources for which you have pre-paid.

You do not have to worry about having all your accounts being swapped around on servers because there are too many resellers over-crowding a server. If all a reseller's accounts are not entirely transferred to another server, imagine a bulk plan being split up over 4 servers because a reseller did not use their resources fast enough to have them all on one server. While constantly adding and closing accounts, the reseller would never be totally sure if they were getting everything for which they had paid. They would constantly be adding/subtracting space and bandwidth usage as accounts were added/dropped-off of various servers. Setting up accounts as needed allows the set up of Web Host Managers (WHM) for resellers on different servers easily. The reseller can then add accounts on new servers. You get exactly what you pay for.

Advantages of "bulk" reselling

If you already have many accounts to resell, it is more economical to choose the bulk plan, as it is usually less expensive in the long run.

You have the ability to offer custom plans to your clients.
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Now having said all that, I can see where there are advantages to both types of reselling. So much so, that some hosts are thinking about offering both types. I feel that neither type should be looked at as being better/worse for all resellers, as each reseller has individual needs.


-Lamar

i think a bulk plan is good as it would allow you to host as many sites as possible into the limited space that is there.

This enables a reseller to earn more money by not investing much.

I am looking out for bulk plans

anyone has any suggestions ? experiences??


let me know

On the issue of transfer allowance, I do not see an advantage to either one. Either way, if you sell individual packages or purchase a bulk plan (in which you delegate the amount of transfer per site), you as the reseller are responsible for overused transfer. So, if you are reselling an individual plan that includes say 2 GB transfer, and the client uses 3 GB- you as a reseller are responsible for that payment. It is likewise the same for bulk plans, as you would delegate 2 GB of your global transfer to the client. If they use an extra 1 GB, you are still responsible for providing that extra 1 GB at your cost.

The real differences that I can see between per plan reseller accounts or bulk accounts is cost vs profit potential.

Generally, a per plan model allows you to only purchase what you actually sell. So, it has the advantage of costing you the minimal needed to operate your service, which is perhaps most benificial to new resellers with limited capital. It also has the advantage of retaining cost with your level of profit. As if have 10 clients, and lose 1, your operational costs then will change to reflect 9 clients (and you will not be stuck with operational costs for 10 clients.)

However, generally bulk plans cost much less per plan sold (as you generally save by purchasing the storage/space in bulk), and therefor you will have much higher income per client. So, if you actually have a good number of clients or are optimistic about your ability to sell, you will save on costs per plan and make more income by purchasing a bulk service.

Just my 2 cents..

Originally posted by hitspot
On the issue of transfer allowance, I do not see an advantage to either one. Either way, if you sell individual packages or purchase a bulk plan (in which you delegate the amount of transfer per site), you as the reseller are responsible for overused transfer. So, if you are reselling an individual plan that includes say 2 GB transfer, and the client uses 3 GB- you as a reseller are responsible for that payment. It is likewise the same for bulk plans, as you would delegate 2 GB of your global transfer to the client. If they use an extra 1 GB, you are still responsible for providing that extra 1 GB at your cost.


Don't you have more control over bandwidth usage if the accounts are separate (non-bulk) and you use DarkOrbits WebHost Manager? I think you can set bandwidth limits with WHM, but not with Ensim or others.

Bandwidth is my greatest concern. As a reseller, that could raise my bill quite considerably if it were exceeded. How do you guys do it? Just let the customers go over, and bill them? Do most of your customers that exceed their bandwidth limit pay willingly or try to fight it?

you can use WHM on a bulk account (and hence set BW limits) too

Hello
We have customers on bulk plans who will buy additional one off resold plans for customers they know will use a lot og bandwidth.

Gordon

H-Sphere combines the two, allowing reseller hosts to create reseller packages that have a certain amount of disk, transfer, email, etc as part of the package deal (read bulk) and also allowing you to buy more at fixed costs.

If they ever get all of the bugs worked out I think they'll have a superior system for reselling. Actually, their system is superior right now in terms of functionality but they do not hide the hosting provider very well in some cases so as a private label reseller system it doesn't meet all the requirements.

Originally posted by GordonH
Hello
We have customers on bulk plans who will buy additional one off resold plans for customers they know will use a lot og bandwidth.

Gordon

I can see why they would have to order an additional account with the bulk plan that you offer. Yours only offers 10GB of bandwidth total for the 500MB plan. What if I wanted 10GB of bandwidth for just 1 100MG account? The low bandwidth seems to be the problem with most bulk plans, though I know both types are oversold when it comes to bandwidth.

Anyhow, how do you handle it when customers go over their bandwidth?

Bill them per GB or get them to buy another 10GB 500MB block


The fact is we couldn't offer any more for that money or offer the same plan any more cheaply.

10 users x $75 = $750

If they all used their full allocation that would be 1000 accounts.
If we assumer half that would be 500 accounts per server

Cost of server approx $500? (not telling you)

Slim pickings


Gordon

Can you really earn more profit with a bulk plan vs plan discounts? Wouldn't it depend on how they are structured?

You've almost talked me into a bulk plan? Would a bulk plan serve me best if I wanted to offer these 5 different plans.

25MG, 1GB bdwth

50MG, 3GB bdwth

100MG, 8GB bdwth

250MG, 15GB bdwth

500MG, 25GB bdwth

I like bulk plans better because I have several domains that I don't really use too much, but I can go ahead and host them there for free. Also, I can "give away" plans as specials, contests, etc.