Hi, I am thinking of getting into being a reseller but I have a couple questions I hope you can help me with:

What happens if someone goes of their limit - for example say I have someone get up with 1gb transfer for their plan and they go over that - will their site just be blocked or will the company I am reselling for charge me for the extra badnwidth and then I will need to try to collect from those that I sold to?

Who do you recommend? I want to sart small and grow. I'd like to find someone with a good start plan that I can easily expand over time.

I seem to have found two types of reseller packages
The first give you a specific amt of space+Bandwidth and you host your site and spilt it up however you want. The 2nd type charges you a monthly fee and then offers you additional packages at a low price that you can buy as needed (example: $25 month gets to space to host your site , then for example you sell a package A to a customer for $5/month and the host charges you an additional $2 a month so your total monthly fee is now $27) Which is better? It seems to me the first type of plans are better?

Final question:

How do you handle support questions? I know a decent amt about hosting but I am also no expert in php, cgi, etc. So if someone buys a plan from me and sends some question about getting a script to work & I don't have a clue how to help them, what should I do?

Thanks in advance ! !

Hi,

The answers depend on the type of reseller you have, if you have a bulk plan and one account goes over its limit, provided your whole account hasn't gone over then you shouldnt be charged.

The type of plan you get depends on how you want to run your company, bulk plans are more flexible if you want to make your own packages as you can set your own quotas and prices.

for these i recommend www.splashhost.com www.mchost.com www.voxtreme.com and www.purple-paw.com

As for the scripts, a lot of hosts, myself included do not provide support for 3rd party scripts. If you do this then alls you need to provide is the Path to perl, MY SQL info etc, and then if you do know a bit about the particular script then you can help them.


Hope this helps a bit

Originally posted by freew
Hi, I am thinking of getting into being a reseller but I have a couple questions I hope you can help me with:

What happens if someone goes of their limit - for example say I have someone get up with 1gb transfer for their plan and they go over that - will their site just be blocked or will the company I am reselling for charge me for the extra badnwidth and then I will need to try to collect from those that I sold to?

It actually depends on the company, most will charge you the overages fees, while others might block the site, but that is dependent on the host. I assume most charge overage rates however.

Who do you recommend? I want to sart small and grow. I'd like to find someone with a good start plan that I can easily expand over time.
This answer is predicated on what type of reseller account you are looking for. There are the two that you listed below.
For bulk, I recommend
www.splashhost.com
www.mchost.com
www.voxtreme.com

For single I recommend
www.venturesonline.com (fantastic host)
I seem to have found two types of reseller packages
The first give you a specific amt of space+Bandwidth and you host your site and spilt it up however you want. The 2nd type charges you a monthly fee and then offers you additional packages at a low price that you can buy as needed (example: $25 month gets to space to host your site , then for example you sell a package A to a customer for $5/month and the host charges you an additional $2 a month so your total monthly fee is now $27) Which is better? It seems to me the first type of plans are better?

This answer depends on your business plan, we have found that customers like and appreciate the bulk space/bandwidth option so that they can have the flexibility to create packages as they would like. So they don't have to resell their hosts specific packages. If I was looking for a resellers account, I would opt for the bulk type of package.
Final question:

How do you handle support questions? I know a decent amt about hosting but I am also no expert in php, cgi, etc. So if someone buys a plan from me and sends some question about getting a script to work & I don't have a clue how to help them, what should I do?

Thanks in advance ! !
Well you are the first means of support, which simply is your client should contact you regarding any issues or problems with their account(s). If you do not know the answer, send in a helpdesk ticket, call, or use some other means to contact your provider to see if they can give you the answer.

Hope this helps
-Steven

Let's just say we all have a lot to learn :)

>>I want to sart small and grow
That is the best way to go really. Host your friends first and learn from their problems - they can also help you when they learn in support issues.

One peice of advise - shop around. It is hard to find the best servers and hosts - and don't stick to one your customers do not like. I still use the worst servers on the web, cause my customers like them :)

Stay with virtual hosting and reselling for now - untill you have enough experiance (and customers) to run your own dedicated. You'll have many problems on the way - think of them as learning experiances and hands on training.