I don't get it.

Most Reseller Hosts require a base account to qualify for reselling. These accounts seem to always have large amounts of storage (200 to 500 Mbytes) and large transfer allowances (as much as 10GBytes).

I don't see the need for this kind of resource to store a few pages of text with minimal graphics. Is it just to justify the base price of being a Reseller?

Or, can you use this space for an unrelated-to-reselling site (your own)? What if hosting is just an additional service to your customers but not the main empasis of this site (the Reseller home account)?

Or, can you use this space to develop sites for customers before publishing on their own domain-site? Of course it might appear you have multiple domains hosted in your one account.

Or, can you use it to develope software in support of hosting or other software (cgi's, php, simple control panels, whatever)?

I'll stop there and focus after comments.

Thanks for any replies.

Gary

i think it's just their way of getting you to pay more, and to prevent themselves from being ripped off. if you buy their cheapest plan and then become a reseller, then go on to buy 2-3 accounts for you or your friends with the reseller discount, they'll be losing money or just making a couple dollars off of you because you're just singing up to take advantage of the discounts. it's their way of protecting their business from people who would only use it to get lower costs. making people pay more would sift out those who don't take the program seriously.


Or, can you use this space for an unrelated-to-reselling site (your own)? What if hosting is just an additional service to your customers but not the main empasis of this site (the Reseller home account)?
Or, can you use this space to develop sites for customers before publishing on their own domain-site? Of course it might appear you have multiple domains hosted in your one account.
Or, can you use it to develope software in support of hosting or other software (cgi's, php, simple control panels, whatever)?

you'd have to ask whatever company you're considering joining as a reseller about that.

Some hosts do it to keep safe like dvaeorn said, others do it to allow their resellers to host smaller sites off of their own account.

I started off reselling because I designed sites for people and businesses... there were some that were quite large that required more space and their own domain name. While others were small in size and didn't require a domain name and I just linked off my own domain. I was able to host around 16 sites off my own account at no additional charge and the rest were on their own account which was okay since I got paid more for anyway. The setup turned out to be the best deal in my situation, allowing me to earn more than I spent on hosting the sites.

So, I think some hosts might consider this because lots of people out there that sign up to reseller plans are webdesigners and not particularly looking to become a webhost themselves.

You can also use the space to host the sites of the people that work for you (if you have any) at no additional charge to you or for your own personal site. Basically you can use your reseller account for just about anything that fits in with your providers terms of service.

dvaeorn is right.
What I believe that they require more administrative/paper work time to organize your clients and then bill it to you.

Hello
Personally I don't see the need for charging large amounts like this.
Whe I was a reseller I had to commit to $30 per month and I still have that plan because I had personal name servers that I haven't had a chance to move over.

When I set up my own reseller program I decided to make a flat rate entry of $10 and not force people to sign up for large amounts of web space.
If they need hosting they can buy a plan at the resold rate.

Most of our resellers are web designers so they don't need a large hosting account.

Most provide lots of support to their end users so we really don'yt grudge them the discount.

I notice that a few other hosts are offering htis sort of deal as well so perhaps the days of the big reseller account are coming to an end?

Gordon

hi, this is a very interseting discussion.

i think you just have to be lucky to find a good partner if you are reselling and there are basically 2 different plans:

- you resell accounts at a discount price or refer domains
- you pay for server space and add domains as you like

i chose the 2nd solution and am very happy with it.

i have 200mb with a 10g tranfer and can add domains and subdomains as i like, i just have to pay a 1time setup, no monthly fees for my client accounts, so i pay 40 bucks, no matter if i host 1 domain or 200 domains, i just got to stay within my gbs and my transfer rate or buy 1 additional account.


i currently host at http://digihost.com and like their service, i used to host at http://web229.net (IIC), but their support really sucks ... the server is ok although ...

cyberdao the company your going with overage is kinda high for over you band with limits.

When I was doing reseller work I paid $20 for the my hosting and $2.50 per domain there after I still am a reseller with them but they customer services has slowed down a lot to non existant. I now host my own servers and the reason why we charge for the master domain for our reseller program is because we make hardly anything anything off of the accounts that reseller signup.

Well thats my 2 cents