I'm thinking of becoming a reseller and I'm wondering about doing things a little bit 'differently' from everyone else. My concept is to create one account for each customer, and let them PREPAY as much as they want into this account. I would charge each account only for tld's, disk space and data transfer as follows:

1- Charge for each new tld created in cPanel on the same day it is created.

2- Charge once a month, at the end of the month, for the maximum amount of disk space actually used during that month.

3- Charge for data transfer on a daily basis based on how much was used during the preceding 24 hours.

These charges should be updated once a day as appropriate, and then deducted from the customer's remaining account balance, so he can always check online and immediately know how much money he actually has left in his prepaid account at that moment in time (less whatever he has used since the last update of course).

Do any of the billing or account management software packages have this capability built into them, or do I have to write my own scripts to have this capability? If they already do this, can they also automatically disable or 'take offline' the websites connected with an account that reaches a zero balance?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide here.

It sounds to me a bit complicated - even from the customer's perspective... I would not want to check every day my account and see what I am billed.

This method is used for utility computing etc.

One similar system is H-Sphere - it bills upon usage.

It shouldn't be complicated for the software since this data is already being tracked by cPanel and displayed every time a user logs in. I'm guessing it is stored in a MySQL database where it can be retrieved by other scripts on the server.

I have the complication issue worked out for the customers too. They will get an automated email, every day in the beginning, telling them how much disk space and data transfer they used that day, how much it cost, and what their remaining account balance is.

This daily email update will have convenient links in it that allows the user to change the frequency these emails. If they get tired of seeing another email every day they can just "click a link" to get one every other day instead, or only Mondays and Fridays, or once a week. There will be another link in each email where they can go to make a custom schedule too, in case none of the built-in emailing schedules won't work for them.

Bottom line is, I'm trying to differentiate my service, and I think it might become popular if I do it right.

I checked H-Sphere by the way, but it doesn't appear to offer the kind of billing calculations I want to implement, so that one's out of the question. I'll probably have to code my own, I was just hoping there was already something else out there that would save me the time, that's all.

Sorry, the forum wouldn't let me edit my last post after 15 minutes so I'm correcting it here. The phrase above should say "in case none of the built-in emailing schedules work for them."

My personal advice is KISS. "Keep it Simple Stupid". There is no point having a complicated billing system that no one can understand and that costs more to manage than the customers you will generate from your scheme.

Complete the following statement you give to your customers...

"You should use our system because..."

when you've done that, find a simpler way to offer the same.

"You should use our system because..."

1- We never make you use a ticket system to tell us what you want or need, instead we encourage you to email us directly. Oh, and we don't have any canned responses to send you so every tech support email you receive from us will come from a real person and be written by him or her personally.

2- We send you daily, weekly and monthly usage and statistics reports automatically via email so you will never wonder how much you're using or when you've used it.

3- We send you a special email reminder every day that our software detects that your account will be "out of money" in less than 10 days, to give you plenty of time to send more funds before the deadline. And you can 'shut this off' by clicking a link in one of these emails after you've sent your payment so you won't be bothered by them again (until next time of course).

4- We email a full cPanel backup of your entire website once a week to the new (free) Gmail account we create for you when you register, thus eliminating the need to do this yourself. Won't it be nice to know that Gmail is storing your weekly website backup files for you?

5- We build basic 9-page websites using your images and text for $49, and we update your hosted pages for only $5 each even if we did not create them ourselves.


What do you think, would these features be a reasonable start in terms of helping to attract customers to a new hosting service?

Sounds like a nice idea but it is very complicated.

People don't like daily updates, they get annoyed.

I dont think you can send huge files through GMail. It will get rejected.

The billing system you speak of would need to be built. You'll need deep pockets :)

Just my two cents.

It's better to put your energy on the other selling points. This billing system won't mean anything to the end user (while it is more possible to annoy and confuse them - in everyday hosting all prefer a flat monthly rate).

Thanks for your two cents infinitienet!

I know people will get annoyed with daily updates, that's why each email will include links to change the update schedule. Just imagine you're a new customer and you actually enjoy receiving the daily status reports every day -- for the first week or so, but then they 'get old' and you wish you didn't have to see them every day any more. But you don't want to hassle with logging in to reset this preference either ...

Well, with the right links in the email message you do not have to login because they are pre-coded with the customer's encrypted username and password, along with the parameter changes that switch these updates from "once a day" to "every other day" or "once a week" or whatever other schedules I want to offer in these pre-coded links. These links give the customer an exceptionally fast and easy way to change this setting so he will never be annoyed by this feature, right?

Maybe it's not possible to send the whole backup file to gmail in a single email, I haven't checked yet to see if this is possible or not. But if I split the file into sections on the server I can send it in pieces, then it can be re-assembled later. My primary goal here is once again to give the customers some new features and convenience they have never had before, and in this case "peace of mind" knowing they always have a current backup in their gmail box.

Maybe this is what hosting companies should be thinking about in terms of differentiating themselves from the competition -- instead of offering yet another version of the same old thing all the time? I've read time and again that the way to succeed in this business is to differentiate your offerings, so that's what I'm trying to do here ... :)

By the way, I've built several similar systems in the past for some of the commercial programming clients I've worked for over the past two decades. This is not a difficult or time consuming project by any means. In fact I already have some code from a previous project I can us to get started if I decide to proceed, and even if I didn't I cannot imagining it taking more than a couple weeks to create the limited feature set I've described in this thread. Of course I want to offer more than I've posted here so it may take a month or two to code everything, but there is no 'deep pockets' issue here at all -- not for me anyways.

Thanks again for your comments, I appreciate all the feedback I can get because everything makes me think and come up with new alternatives!

1- We never make you use a ticket system to tell us what you want or need, instead we encourage you to email us directly.

Most ticket systems accept emails, so the customer can just use email if that's the approach he likes. The host still benefits from the better organization that a ticket system provides. ;)

My primary goal here is once again to give the customers some new features and convenience they have never had before

Stick to thinking differently. Things that many thought wouldn't work, do. You never absolutely know, until you try it. :)

Hi ldcdc,

Thanks for your feedback!

I built an email-based ticket system for my in-house email management several years ago when I started doing outsource programming and development work in the Philippines. The customer never sees the ticket system though, all he/she ever sees and uses is email. We will just use the same system for the hosting service if we proceed with it.

By the way, thanks for encouraging me to continue thinking differently. If there's one thing I have learned as a programmer it's the fact that most of my clients do not think in terms of what's best or most convenient for their customers or end users. But I do, and since I can code whatever I want I've made some clients really happy in the past -- because I make their customers happy. I only hope the same thing happens this time with my own service, but like you said, you never know until you try ... :)

Sounds very complicated and would be hard to develop. You might be on the right track though. If you can further develop this...you would have a good shot launching the idea.

Sounds very complicated and would be hard to develop.Only for a non-programmer.

You might be on the right track though. If you can further develop this...you would have a good shot launching the idea.

Well, at least it's a concept that no one has tried before, and it does offer some convenience to end users that doesn't seem to be offered with very many (or any?) other hosting services. Who knows if anyone will want it though? That's the big question. If I do it 'right' maybe everyone will want it -- but I think that's a long shot -- you know, like winning the lottery? :)