Hey guys well we are re-orging our web hosting business. We currently have about 30 sites that we host but are charging various rates depending on how and when we got the customer long before I got here. Some of them are probably not paying at all so I am wanting to change that. We have been hosting most of them on our web server here on our T1. I have sinced purchased a dedicated server with the whole 9 control panel, email server, stats, on and on. Now what I wanted to do is come up with pricing and packages to be setup in the control panel. We are not looking to compete with godaddy and the likes. We consider our hosting to be on a more personal level, more of a premium service because most of the clients we have are also our IT consulting customers who have asked us to build websites for them as well as customer applications. So the 10 dollar hosting will probably not do. As these customers can pick up a phone and call us on our cell 24/7 and we can quickly look into the issue. I am just struggling on getting a start to the packaging. I would like any input to help me get on the road to a more structured and organized hosting solutions better for us and better for our customers.

You should probably first figure out how much it is costing your per mb or gb of hosting space and bandwidth.

From there you should then calculate the amount of space and b/w that your 30 or so sites are using. I know it will not be that accurate but it will at least give you a starting point IMHO.

Briant,

Welcome to WHT (noticed your post count).

I would not look on WHT for people to give you package pricing advice. As this differs from every business.

Look at the key factors
Hadware Cost
Bandwidth Cost
Maintenance Cost
Software / Licensing Cost

Add them up / factor your profit margin in and divide by the number of accounts you plan to host on each server.

When I used to work for KI Technology (an IT consulting group) our hosting packages started at $19.95. And that was for only 100MB disk space and 1GB of bandwidth with 5 e-mails and no control panel. We did all their site design so they didnt need access to the site for updates.... don't know if this is a similar situation to yours.

Yes that is a familiar situation to mine. We have alot of customer database apps and things of that nature. At this point I have no clue on the bandwidth used by each customer but I can get an idea on disk space.

This is what I’m thinking this includes backing up the sites to off server storage area.

Plan 1 - 19.95
Free registration of domain name each additional 9.95
Storage including web and email space 150 mb
1gb monthly transfer
5 email accounts
unlimited attachment size
Included 1 sql server database
Control Panel access
anitvirus and sparm protection
additonal bandwidht .50 per gb (this is what it cost us from the company we are hosting with)
Each additionial email account $2



Plan 2 - 24.95
Free registration of domain name each additional 9.95
Storage including web and email space 250 mb
3gb monthly transfer
15 email accounts
unlimited attachment size
Included 1 sql server database
Control Panel access
anitvirus and sparm protection
additonal bandwidht .50 per gb (this is what it cost us from the company we are hosting with)
Each additionial email account $2

Plan 3 - 39.95
Free registration of domain name each additional 9.95
Storage including web and email space 500 mb
5gb monthly transfer
25 email accounts
unlimited attachment size
Included 2 sql server databases
Control Panel access
anitvirus and sparm protection
additonal bandwidht .50 per gb (this is what it cost us from the company we are hosting with)
Each additionial email account $2

Plan 3 - 79.95
Free registration of domain name each additional 9.95
Storage including web and email space 1 gb
10gb monthly transfer
50 email accounts
unlimited attachment size
Included up to 3 sql server databases
Control Panel access
anitvirus and sparm protection
additonal bandwidht .50 per gb (this is what it cost us from the company we are hosting with)
Each additionial email account $2


Email Only Package
$2 per mail box

Ok if this server is costing me 205 bucks a month with 80 gb space and 200 gb in and 200 gb out how do i figure out what that is costing me.

also I get 10 gb free of backup and then ever other 10gb cost me $10 dollars...so if i was going to back up the whole drive the server would end up costing me $275. I also got 100 domains on ensim included in that price.

Moved to Running a Web Hosting Business.

Lois

Originally posted by briant97
Ok if this server is costing me 205 bucks a month with 80 gb space and 200 gb in and 200 gb out how do i figure out what that is costing me.

200gb monthly for a deticated server???? most deticated servers offer like 1000gb don't they?

the price is easy to figure out BTW...price divided by amount of space/bandwidth will tell you your price per unit

so in your case your price 100mb is 26 cents (or 35 cents with the backup service you stated above)

Briant,

I have attached a pricing template that some kind soul posted on WHT a while ago (sorry to whoever did it originally as I can't remember who it was now :)) Hopefully this will help you in calculating your margins and costs.

Adam

Yeah I was a little worried about the bandwidth but it is the best deal I could find for the price. The guy also said that most places over sell the bandwidth hoping you don't use and he said they don't oversell. Plus in my packages I am charging each package the same price they charge me for going over .50 cents per gb.

I have attached our pricing zip after using the zip file. I chose storage as the determining factor because if person goes over bandwidth they will be charged what it cost us which is .50 cents.

Briant,

You look set to make a healthy profit on each server with that pricing structure. Bear in mind that the template doesn't take into account support and maintenance costs though. It may also be worth asking your provider about buying additional bandwidth in bundles, this could reduce the cost of any regular overages that you may incur and help boost profits a little more.

I can buy unmetered bandwidth when the time comes but for now we are on our t1 and running our whole company including the webhost and we are not maxing it out. So moving the webhosting off and to this company with 200 gb for now. Once we get moving and see how things go I'll make the determination as where we want to go next. I really appreciate everyones help in the forum thus far. The good thing is that now we at least have the right tools to get this thing inline and understand each customer and how much one is costing us.

if person goes over bandwidth they will be charged what it cost us which is .50 cents.

And you will spend most if not all of that 50 cents in processing fees. I would make it an even dollar to cover your merchant fees.