Hi there,

We're a small web design company, just purchased our first reseller plan with budgetreseller.ca, and I wondered if anyone has advice on what I charge my customers for hosting, compared to what they would pay if they went to budgethosting.ca themselves.

a) The same as what they'd pay budgethosting.ca themselves?
b) A bit more because we're setting it up for them?
c) A bit less because it's cheaper for us too?

I'm interested to hear what other designers' pricing strategies are regarding reselling hosting services.

Thanks,
- Frank

Choice B sounds good to me. :agree:

As a designer, you really do have the potential to maximize profits on additional services such as hosting. Take advantage of it.

I agree with layer0 completely! However, it does sound like you should have looked into a business plan before jumping into becoming a reseller. You need to research and decide on a target niche, learn your market, expenses, profit margins, etc., etc. Look into these things and decide on what type of market you want and what type of host you want to be, (i.e. budget, high end, specialty, etc.).

Thank you both for your feedback! Sorry, I should have clarified, we already have a design/marketing business, we just decided to try adding hosting as an add-on service because we were arranging it for some of our clients anyway, and a reseller package gives us that opportunity without having to become a hosting company ourselves.

So because it's not our main business, you're right, we did just jump into it a bit, but as long as we don't lose anything on the deal, I'm happy for now if we can just use it to keep our design customers happy and, as you suggest, add a bit to our profit.

Thanks again,
- Frank

Yep. Since your a design company, your getting most of your clients locally and such which means that there really isn't any competition. Essentially, your prices should be higher.

Figure out how many accounts you can sell, and make sure you make enough money off each one to cover your expenses and make enough profit to make it worth your while. Don't price it so you are just giving the space away at your cost as you would just end up adding more workload without making more money.

By the way: Welcome to BudgetReseller. :D

just purchased our first reseller plan with budgetreseller.ca

Congratulations on joining such a customer centric company

We're a small web design company

You represent the perfect type of client for a reseller hosting package as you are selling a value added service ontop of hosting (ie hosting is quite secondary to what you are offering)

If you were to ask my opinion - and based on what I have seen from our designer reseller clients - you can and should charge significantly more for hosting then your root provider. You may want to consider bundling 30 mins of "basic" web site changes, etc into your pricing, etc....(or something along these lines)

your clients want to deal with a single point of contact and do not want to contact anyone else if something is wrong with their site - whether its design related or service related. There is a strong value in that single point of contact for most companies and they expect to pay a premium for that level of service...

Just my $0.02 and hopefully it is useful to you.

Very useful indeed! Thanks again everyone, I really appreciate all your helpful input and good wishes.

Your comments confirm my hunch that within reason, charging more for providing that 'single point of contact' is perfectly justifiable. Looking forward to adding this service to the offerings on our own web site!

All the best,
- Frank Herr
Best Light Communication (http://www.best-light.com/)

Haven't posted in a long time......

I am now back with Budgetreseller after a year of trying out Bliksem. I didn't get hosed the way some did, but me.

Budgetreseller is VERY customer oriented, and I couldn't be happier. I charge slightly less to clients, just because a small number of them pay the bills and I am not in it to gouge.