I currently operate a small web design business in the Atlanta, GA area. I am in the process of a TOTAL re-design of my small biz site and want to incorporate hosting along with a few other things such as; domain name registration (whois search, etc.) as well as logo design and marketing tips and promotion services.

I have the marketing and logo design partners and features established but I am still looking for advise on domain registration and hosting resellers / providers..

I currently host my site through Yorweb.com. Never had a problem and the owner is a super super guy. Always provide fast and courteous service.

What I currently do in the realm of hosting is basically act as an affiliate for him and he kicks me back a decent percentage of the initial payment (only). Nothing on the residuals, which I understand. I was offered to be a reseller and pricing structures were given. Decent, not the greatest, but I would say moderate pricing. This way I would receive those monthly residuals on every account.

Here is my question with this part!! My knowledge of the hsoting side is pretty good but not great so I KNOW I am not ready to have my own servers at this stage of the game, gotta crawl before you walk!!, but what about reselling as mentioned above? Is that easily managable? I have heard adn read these "horror" stories about transferring everything from one to another and the time involved in such a task. That worried me a little.

As for reselling, what about billing? EIS has thus far offered me a plan I am SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY looking at. Includes a billing manager within the system and after talking to Matt at EIS, I had teh "feel good" feeling about it. I am just the type that will place 110% into anything I do and failure is NOT an option. BUT, I want to know before I go head first into this thing that there is support and someone there who will answer my "stupid" questions until I gain the additional knowledge in the hosting world. I feel EIS has and will provide this for me.. Any thoughts? Any other recomendations on resellers that are "all-inclusive" and moderately priced?? I have seen some GREAT deals but still alittle green and not for sure about some things!

My biz is primarily design but I want to offer visitors and my clients something I KNOW is good as well as other options and provide quality support.

Any advise?? THANKS

Greetings:

Our parent company uses OpenSRS (TuCows) for domain name registration. It works out rather well. They have a browser-based interface and supply you with the code to incoroporate live ordering on your site (modifications are required).

The founder of our parent company started by reselling (back then the Hiway / RapidSite -- now owned by Verio -- route). Then when volume got sufficient, got one server, then another, then another; and they are now up to 25 or so servers. Still small, but solid progress.

Most resellers have to deal with billing and technical support issues. Most providers that have reseller programs, including our parent company, don't care if your client's didn't pay you <smile>; they want to get paid on time.

The good providers will help educate you along the way so you can grow your business.

Do your home work, determine your market niche, plan first, check things out, then proceed at a pace that makes sense.

Take care and may God bless your journey.

I would HIGHLY suggest a reseller plan.. Find a nice Plesk reseller plan and you will be all set. Just make sure and do some background check on the company before you sign up and there is no better place than right here. Also remember the rule. If it looks to good to be true... well you know the rest.. Best of luck..

I'm in a similar situation right now... small design business, just now adding domain registration and hosting.

For domain registration I've signed up for Dotster's Instant Reseller program. The reason? No initial signup cost or minimum number of registrations required. They sell you domains at a discounted rate ($12 for .com/.net/.org) and you can set whatever price you'd like to charge. Dotster processes the order, including credit card information, and sends you a check for the difference between what they charge you and what you charge your customer. I'm very new to the program and have only registered domains through it myself so I can't say how well it works for the customer, but so far so good.

For hosting, based on recommendations here, I'm considering both MChost.com and SplashHost.com. Their prices and services are similar (plans start at $35 and $30/month, respectively, for something like 1000 MB of storage space and 2 gigs of transfer).

I won't have my own credit card billing system set up right away because my volume isn't enough to merit having a merchant account, but if my business grows as I'm hoping it will, I'll look into some credit card processing providers. One mentioned here caught my eye... 2something... can't think of the name right now but search these forums. $49 startup fee and 49 cents + 5.5% per transacation, I think. For now I'll send paper bills and offer payment via PayPal. Not the most sophisticated solution, but it will do in the short term.

Best of luck to you!

Hello,

My suggestion would be to get a resellers account. First of all, most of them require very small start up costs, and they are fairly easy to run. You can bill your clients with either paypal.com, which is a free, easy to setup ecommerce service, or aquire an ecommerce merchant account. Either one will work. You mark-up & advertise the plans that your reseller account allows you to resell. Then your customer sends you the money first, then you send a percentage of the money to your web hosting company. The remaider of the money left is your profit. This is a good way to start, because you do need to buy bulk space at once. If you get more than 50 clients in your resellers account, I would get a dedicated server, as you can make more money that way.

Reply if you have any other questions, I'll be glad to help you.


Best Regards,

Brian Battersby