Background
Currently I host 4 clients (3 friends 1 cousin). As of right now I am breaking even on my VPS2 with LiquidWeb with 768MB RAM and 100GB HD. Current I am using (OUCH) 50GB according Vertuozzo, but WHM reports aprox 15GB. I don't oversell. One friend at the time I did a 50/50 split and gave him 10GB/100GB $25. another friend has no limit on sites and pays $16 base for 1GB/10GB+$1 100MB/1GB.

Bottom Line

Excluding setting up one friends second website this week, I have 4 currently paying clients which covers my hosting free. They all pay through PayPal subscriptions.


Now that I am breaking even on the hosting, I want to now have a goal to get all my communication costs paid for through hosting friends and families sites, since I am on disability. My current costs are as followas:

Internet $75/month
Cellphone (aka home phone) $90 (unlimited anytime+LD I ain't giving it up)
Web Hosting (already paid for from clients) $75/month
Domains I have but am not making money on or are for personal use ($45/month)
2 vBulletin member area access ($80/yr)
2 Smugmug accounts ($200)
]
Roughly that works out to $300/month and am getting $75/month. That leaves $225 to go (My goal is 30 monthly hosting accounts since my VPS2 should be able to handle that). The money I get will help eleminate my debt so I can get a new Mac next year to replace my MDD G4 and a new monitor this year. I also now have a 800# for a Mac Phone Support line I am setting up, add another $50/month into the mix. :D

So the questions is, should I go super professional (I already had to do up a skeleton page for this new account and welcome e-mail) and settle one pricing system and rules and make them into a website at their own domain name?

Has this all made any sense?

It does make sense Mac.

You know what you want and you are following correct path. You have done your homework well.

Make a small site with just 1-2 packages since you are NOT planning to attract international clients as of now.

So make a small website and spread it in local market, friends, family.

Just keep local market in your mind and soon you will be on a lookout for a dedicated server ;)

Good luck!

If you are counting on this venture to bankroll your personal/business debt, then YES, you should go 'super professional' !

You have already bent over backwards and put in some hours to get 1 single account online, for a 'friend' paying $x. With a little more effort and maybe ~$20/month (WHMCS or similar) you can automate your sign-ups/billing and do some manual follow up's on your new accounts.

Then worry about support. If it's just friends & family then support is just a 'casual' thing. A phone call, IM or email saying "i need this... whenever...".

If support is for an 'out of family' client, then you have to deal with it quickly (i.e your cell phone is on 24/7 or get 'manged' support for $10-$200/month).

You are at 50% capacity on space and you say you will not oversell, so you will have to eventually upgrade before your 30 client target if you keep 'giving away' space that isn't being used.

It's not a bad thing to 'oversell' as long as you manage your resources (cpu/memory/hd/bandwidth) and upgrade/update before you are at 75% capacity.

If you're on disability, you need to report that income and they will probably reduce your check. You need to consider if that's worth it.

--Tina

If you are counting on this venture to bankroll your personal/business debt, then YES, you should go 'super professional' !

I am not "Bankrolling" any business expenses (well that Toll-Free number for Mac Phone Support might be a business expense).

If I was hosting 30 friends/Family and their friends/family, That would net me $450/month, and be near my net allowance for disability. I would then be willing to put in 20hrs/month dealing with the support (server problems is kinda fun). For the record it is a hobby, but why not run it as it if it was a business since I already have it on my resume?

Here are a few pages I already have setup:

info (as it's a hobby it's on my personal site0 <<snipped>>
Skeleton site placeholder: <<snipped>>
Welcome e-mail stationary for Mail.app 3
<<snipped>>

Since I want to be a security nut, only Port 25 and 80 are none SSL. in June I am killing FTP access and during the summer POP before SMTP and require everyone to use SMTP Autentication (the only flaw in that. is that due to ASSP, SSL over SMPT doesn't work).

I have a few websites, but one (which makes money when it has fresh content (3 years ago) is not even making $50/month anymore.
You have already bent over backwards and put in some hours to get 1 single account online, for a 'friend' paying $x. With a little more effort and maybe ~$20/month (WHMCS or similar) you can automate your sign-ups/billing and do some manual follow up's on your new accounts.
As for support I deal with it as soon as I get notified about it. Since my cell is on when I am awake, I get to the problem instantly and my e-mail is checking every 5 minutes (I wish cPanel had push e-mail). As for auto signups etc. I do not want that as that will lead to fraud etc. Also since I am on disability, I don't work.


Adding 1-2 new people a month is very easy. my pricing starts at $16/month for 1GB space and 10GB bandwidth. My goal is by going with me, friends and family and (select) friends and family of theirs, won't have to worry about Shared, VPS, dedicated as with the $1/100MB/GB structure, I can support thm right through to a very demanding site. I worry all about the backend and upgrade them seamlessly when needed, change providers etc. I do agree about not handling their domain names.

As for capacity, I don't give away any space, 15GB is the total for all sites, so I am stumped (and my 1.4GB logs for my one site of mine doesn't bother me (I want the endless logs :D). There is this virtfilesys folder that cPanel has made which is like 15GB+ or something. I really really do need to account for that 35GB of missing space. It has gone up 20GB this month.

As for the website. what name should I use in the domain? webhosting or just hosting? I also offer e-mail only hosting.

I hope this mess makes sense.

You customer base needs to go beyond friends/cousins/family if you really want to turn this hobby into a business. Do you have any marketing plan in place to attract new business?

I don't want to make it into a business as the profit would be not much.

The pages I posted were for opinion only and not to get clients. How do I post page for review without breaking the rules?