I have been a webdesigner/developer for many years, but only recently I have decided to go "solo" after being laid up in a hospital for over 2 years.

I came back into the business about a year ago and back then I thought it would be a good idea to offer hosting services to my clients. At the time my own site was on godaddy.com and as far as I used it (mostly deployment) I was fairly happy.
One day one of their tech guys convinced me to sign up as a reseller and I did it without researching it first. Only recently I was actually in need of offering the service to a client (with more coming soon) and when I set up the reseller account I didn't like it one bit.

Revenue is not my main concern, but with an annual fee of $99 for their "baby" account and very little margin on each sale I quickly figured I would have been better off to search for an affiliate plan. I mean, at best I could make $1.25 a month for a basic hosting plan and about another $1 a YEAR for the domain name.

Plus, I have hardly any control over the accounts themselves and the branding is embarassing especially for a web designer. The "home page" they offer looks like something out of 1995. The net result is that I have not been selling my hosting plan and I am going to let it expire.

Keeping in mind that my main motivation is to provide affordable, quality hosting to those clients that don't already have it, my secong main one is to standardize the server enviroments I work with in developement (each job is an adventure otherwise) and my final one is to make some money if I can in the form of residual income, I had decided to advertise for like minded developers in my area to share a dedicated server. While doing that research I came across several companies such as gator (something) and others that offer quite different reseller plans: with them I pay a flat fee and I can host unlimited clients (within paramentes) and charge them what I please.

One company even offers customer support in the deal (not that important because my clients end up calling me anyway even if they have their own 24/7 support).

Now my question is (finally), was I stupid in signing with wild west domains?
How do they get away charging that kind of money when the competition has better plans?
Does anyone make any money reselling wild west's hosting? If yes how? Thousands of plans?

As you can tell I am pretty new at this side of the biz, but I want to make sure that I understand all the different factors involved and the users here seem to be incredibly informed and polite (a nice change).

Incidentally, for a developer like me with my type of clients (CMS and ecommerce, somewhat inexperienced) what would be the best way to go?

Thank you very much

PS: I am actually quite good at administering Apache, is the business side I lack experince in. The other reason I was looking for a partner is that I need to build redundancy for illness, vacations, winning the lottery, etc.

Corrado444

Offering a site hosting option to clients is a great idea. I have found that all my clients have surprised me by hosting their sites on my reseller. They have no time nor desire to search for a hosting company. They trust me to guide them.

I selected Sharkspace.com (formerly SJR) as my reseller and have never been happier with their uptime and support. Afterall, how their servers perform reflects upon my business. I make enough money to pay for the reseller hosting and a little extra. Mainly I offer it as a package to my clients to bring them peace of mind.

Being honest and friendly with my clients has paid off. And although I can't answer your questions directly (having no experience with those companies), maybe I have helped in other ways.

I wish you well in your business. :)

Now my question is (finally), was I stupid in signing with wild west domains?
I don't think it is a case of being "stupid". Naive, maybe. GoDaddy (Wild West Domains) have a good marketing department. You signing up only to realise later that it may not have been the best solution for you proves they do their job well.

How do they get away charging that kind of money when the competition has better plans?
GoDaddy are a domain registrar. They seem to be applying their domain registration mission statement to hosting services. Unfortunately for them and the customers that sign up with them, it really isn't that easy. They stretch the definition of reseller web hosting to breaking point with their offering. It really should be called an affiliate program.


Simon

Thank you for both your answers. Defining them as an affiliate program is probably the best way. However, they do provide some branding (poor as it is) and therefor when I sign p a client with their own service it reflects on me. Fortunately, their hosting serice is actually quite good. I host 2 sites with godaddy and I find their panel easy to use and the service rock solid. Their servers are a bit slow compared to others (I have a joomla site there that absolutely crawls) but then again I am not their core market.

Interestingly they told some of my clients that they could not host OScommerce or zen cart on their servers, a fact I have proven wrong several times and they do tend to treat every customer as if they were imbecilles. I often resent that, as I am not experienced in the business side of hosting but I know my stuff when it comes to administering servers.

I will check out sharkspace.com and see what their deal is. My goal is to sign up with a company that has good customer service, decent support, affordable (but not rock bottom) plans and that are willing to work with me if my needs expand in the future.

One issue that makes me uncomfortable is that some of my client's sites have the potential to become very trafficked overnight and I'd like a host that instead of shutting them down gives me the opportunity to upgrade my bandhwidth.

Thank you again

I have a reseller account with SharkSpace and they are excellent in every way. The servers are always up (and not overloaded) and customer service couldn't be better.

If you have skills in web development, you can get a reseller account, install billing script and start selling hosting.
You will have better control on your service.

corrado444, hello and welcome to the Forum. :)

If I can take you back in time for a moment, remember all the studying, trial & error, and testing you did, when first learning Apache and Web development? So it is with the Business side of Reseller Hosting -- along with finding a good Reseller package.

An important consideration is Control Panels. Although a somewhat biased opinion, since it is the Control Panel we use along with many other Hosters, a Reseller package that provides WHM/Cpanel would be a good choice. WHM (Web Host Manger) is 'your' Control Panel and Cpanel is for your Clients. Both are user friendly but again, regardless of what Control Panels you use, it will be up to you to learn them both -- yours & your Clients.

At this point, probably best to focus on what Control Panels to use and a Hoster with decent Uptime & Support. Cost of the Reseller package is the least of your worries right now and can easily be changed down the road. Regardless of what Control Panels you select, once you decide which ones you will be using and if you choose to switch Hoters, you need only find a Hoster that provides the same Control Panels and moving accounts should be painless.

One issue that makes me uncomfortable is that some of my client's sites have the potential to become very trafficked overnight and I'd like a host that instead of shutting them down gives me the opportunity to upgrade my bandhwidth.I would be more worried either about charges for the extra data transfer used, or about account suspension for CPU abuse, both of which are generally harder to extricate yourself from.

You may like to look at BlueWho.com
- they have a very open friendly approach, which from your 'chatting'
may suite you.
plans a bit small, support improving back to what it was, uptime v good, 5 IPs even on plan 1. a community forum that suites some.
Like everyone they have problems, but don't try to hide them

good luck
Brian

If you have enough clients to support a fixed fee reseller plan, then that's the best way to go...