Hi, I am from Malysia. I am interested to be a reseller in my country but i got some inquiries:

1. How much can a web hosting company earn per month? or
Each month they have how many active account?

2. Where are most of the user from? US? Asia ?

3. Whats the package price range where most of the user prefer?

thank you for helping me solving my inquiries.

Hello
Its quite easy to work out what you will make.

Say you buy a plan for $4 and sell it for $8 and you sell 10 per month then you will make $40 profit in your first month.

Most of our customers are in the USA.
I have to say that the majority of our credit card problems (frauds and malicious chargebacks) eminate from Thailand and other South East Asian countries so you may want to think carefully about how, and where, you sell the service.

Gordon

1. Around $4-6 Billion this year
2) US
3) $0 :) I think about $10-15

Don`t restrict your service to specific countries. I`m a reseller myself and have customers from Australia, Europe and US and I don`t see any problems with that. And I`m even in Europe while my provider is in the US.
The smaller the package is, the smaller the profit will be. But then you might get more customers quickly.

Originally posted by Haakon
Don`t restrict your service to specific countries. I`m a reseller myself and have customers from Australia, Europe and US and I don`t see any problems with that. And I`m even in Europe while my provider is in the US.
The smaller the package is, the smaller the profit will be. But then you might get more customers quickly.

Yeah, but you have the big luck of living in Norway, which is not a part of the EU, meaning you don't need to pay taxes for countries outside of Norway. I'm gonna start a hosting company as a reseller and I live inside a EU country, therefore when my clients sign up for webhosting, I will have to make them choose first what country they come from, i.e Internation, EU Country and EU Country with VAT Number. Therefore, I might restrict my services to Internation only, that is, outside of the EU...

Pretty much half of our customers come from outside the U.S. such as Australia, UK and that area, Middle East, Oriental and Africa nations.

I came to find out it is a cause of pricing. For example, what is $1 to me, may be $3 to them. So if you charge $10 U.S. per month, they may be paying $30 in their currency. So I think I can safely say that the more you charge, the more likely your customers will be from the U.S. And the less you charge, the more likely you are to penetrate the markets in the rest of the world which isnt so saturated with competitors. Of course, what $1 to me, could also be only 50 cents to them, but either way, it has gone well for us to do this.

Hello
You may not have to charge customers in your own country VAT.

I know that in the UK you can be over the VAT registration limit and not register provided you can prove that your EU trading is less than the UK VAT threshold.
We also have a ruling from customs and excise that our place of supply is Clifton NJ (the VDI NOC) and we are classed as a telecommunication supplier so most of our activities fall outside the scope of UK VAT.
(this is the same situation as AOL UK who do not charge VAT on their service fees)

Obviously we pay tax, we just don't have to charge it, even to customers in the UK

Gordon

Ah...well ok. No, American companies dont have to even worry about that :D

Think yourself luck webdude, its a minefield.

What are my chances of getting a green card?

Gordon

Theres a better and very much easier way. Sneak into Mexico and then just walk across the border. Assuming you are white, they will simply ask you where you were born. Tell them the United States, and they let you in. They only ask so as to hear your accent, if it's not a Mexican accent, they let you go. I used to visit Mexico all the time, never had a problem, never had to show a bit of paperwork. Since immigration doesnt have any authority over U.S. Citizens, they wont mess with you unless they are positive beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are NOT a citizen.

Gordon H,
Whats VAT ? thanks!

Value-Added Tax. Wow, my research into taxes was actually useful for something!

For me, I charge $40.00 USD for a high end hosting plan while others charge roughly $20 USD a month.

My ratio is 1:2 with them. Most of my clients are usually businesses around my area. IF I had 10 clients, I'd be making $400 USD a month while others may need to have 20 clients to make the same amount.

Synergy - I agree with your math. OTOH, how long does it take to get 10 customers at $40 vs. 20 at $20?

Jaeim... It is a question about advertising.

With an effectie advertising solutions, sometimes the $40 plan can get more clients and faster than the $20 plan can...

ksstudio, I am from Malaysia as well. You can bomb me with mails if you want. :)

How come the one who bombed me is noti and not ksstudio?? :p

hehe... nvm .. nice to meet you noti ....
ksstudio... are you still there?

yup Donovan i am still here, so are you running a hosting company, so how much so u think we can get?

Maybe we should talk this in person.

There isn't any standrad for the income issue. It just depends on your bussiness strategies and management etc...

The VAT is a 17.5% tax charged on all services and most goods sold in the UK.
All EU countries have it but you only charge it to customers in the EU.

We started Hosting in earnest last August (prior to that we did managed hosting for clients).
Current monthly turnover from hosting and domain names is about 10,000 US dollars with approx 3000 of that being clear profit.
We sell a lot of domain names at low mark ups which is why our costs appear quite high.

We have other business interests also.

Gordon

Hey there ! it's nice to see webhoster from Malaysia (me too), it's good to know that I am not alone :-). Welcome to the webhosting industry.

Majority of our client based in the US, Canada, minority from Asia and Europe.

I agree with Donavon, it isn't easy to buid a client base, you have to keep yourself updated on the options currently available, knowing the market is somewhat important in bringing your website closer to success.

Gordon,

Here in the Netherlands the VAT has raised from 17.5% to 19% this year. I'm not sure if we are the only ones who did so?

Arnoud

>> fweikeong, Hi nice to meet you too

May i know what kind of billing system u r using, i mean the software and the billing account provider(ibill...etc)?

and how is your business growing? I got a lot more things to learn from you all!

:)

After doing some research, i finally sign up with venturesonline as a reseller

But noe comes the other problems:
dunno which biiling account to choose from
the software ...etc

got lot more things to learn!

Anyway thanks Guys!

**** the netherlands i hate about the 19% vat, but i can life with it

ach ja moeten we maar mee leven he, went wel...

A lot of people are really interested in "How much can a web hosting company earn per month?"

But the number of people viewing is absolutely more than web hosting company who reply.

Boy, I never expected to see any fellow Malaysians on this forum :) Where are all of you located? I'm based in Kuala Lumpur.

Anyway, time for me to quit lurking and make my first post...

As the rest said, your profits (or losses!) really depend on many factors. You can't really expect anybody to tell you how much you'll earn - it can be anything from 1 Ringgit (for the rest, that's our currency :-)) a month to... well, the sky's the limit!

If you're planning on just reselling for one or two friends and business associates, then don't give up your day job just yet.

On the other hand, if you've got a serious business plan and the funds - RM 100k (US$25k) or more - then of course you can advertise and expect larger profits.

And if you've got a couple of million bucks from old Uncle Harry's estate to splurge... well, go buy a datacenter :-)

To answer your second query - most of our customers are from Malaysia. We prefer to stick to a niche market, there's more than enough of a market here right now. Sure you can go global, but it's tough out there!

And to your 3rd question - I can answer for the Malaysian market in general - our best-selling packages are US$30 a year! These are really simple packages, just plain vanilla FTP access, a little space and a mailbox. No CGI, no PHP, no fancy stuff.

Good luck in your search!

Regards,
Warren
wt@nerraw.com

i am from penang and i am staring my web hsoting business only for some of my web-designer friends :) i visited your site and you are offering .com.my domain registration. mind telling me what hosting company are you with? i am with 4webspace.com and i have been trying to register .com.my domain names and i am still having problems registering the domain names with mynic!!!! it really make me mad(sometimes) when they just cancel your registration because or PTR/SAO issues ... all my .com sites are working perfectly, wondering why they have to check those records :(

by the way, thanks in advance for your reply :)

Hi Warren Tan & noti,

I am from Penang, yeah thats true i am a 'boy' i am at the early age of 20, and cureently i am doing selling PCs business and i am planning to switch to web designing and web hosting business bacause i felt that this industry potential is really big. I am targeted at the local market first.

noti,
i am having the same problems with u also when i am trying to change my name server. And i have submit my second apllication for changing the name server last week, but their is still no reply!

warren tan,
I am totally newbie, do u mind i ask u more question regarding setting up a web hosting company at our local market?

Thanks !

Hi Warren,

It's been a while since my last visit to your site (domain regitration services), good to see that you have a new site design and a lot more services offer on your site now, keep it up, Malaysia Boleh !

I still remember Andrew from the north of penisular posting on this forum last year, wonder how he is doing now..

Just some tips for everyone:-

1. Do a lot of thinking, you need to know what you can offer and where is your target audience, draft out a marketing plan, this is very important to get started.

2. Don't start big, budget and cash flow is very important in keeping youself a float while building your customer base, observe carefully the places that is bringing quality traffic to your site, find ways to expose yourself to this potential customers.

3. Observe what your competitor has to offer, try to avoid a battle field where you have least chances to stand out from the crowd.

4. Read the forums and see how others promote their site, keep yourself updated on the market trend, you need to react fast to changes or you'll be either wasting your hard earned money or be thrown out of the market.

5. Be dedicated, helpful, professional and resposible to your prospects/customers and they will value your effort by recommending you to others.

:)

Hello everybody! :)

Noti: I've currently got servers with Catalog, 4Webspace and a UK provider. I'll be getting another server soon, this time with VenturesOnline. I had servers with Dialtone Internet before. Quite a mover, heh :)

ksstudio: Sure, ask away! Maybe the rest can help you out too.

foong: Good to see that you have dotservant.com! How's it going? I see you're probably based in the US (your prices are in US dollars)

All: Yes, MYNIC is a HUGE headache for us too. For those who don't know, MYNIC is the registrar for Malaysian TLDs, .com.my, .net.my and others.

They actually MANUALLY check every single new application for a domain name with a nslookup to ensure that the nameservers are responding AND are correctly set. If the PTR is wrong, your application is cancelled. If the SOA is wrong, your application is cancelled. If you're got only 1 nameserver, your application is cancelled. It's a huge headache, especially at some hosts like 4Webspace! When 4webspace turned off our DNS and forced us to use their nameservers (which had a wrong PTR), all our .com.my domains went down!

Oh well :) But to their credit, they now allow us to run DNS on the RaQ.

Anyone mind letting me know of the Malaysian sites that is successful ?
It can be any type of sites as long as it is a malaysian built site and gaining popularity. I just want to know how malaysians are doing on the internet. I am not referring to the big sites like cari, catcha, lycos malaysia, asiatravelmart etc. I am looking at the those build from scratch by small group and does not have VC funding and are not very high profile type.

:)

really nice to learn that there are some malaysians here and even someone from penang (penang is a small island, ksstudio maybe we have met :))

well, actually i am a webmaster myself and running several websites, but due to the recession of the internet economy i lost 90% of my sponsors and i am forced to rent out some of my server resouces to my friends in order to cover the cost.

i have a friend who owns a mp3 site and has 30000+ unique visitors daily (sorry can't mention the url as mp3 = illegal) ... he is earning big money(RM10,000+/month) though :)

by the way, mynic is really slack! since the domain name will work with or without checking the ptr and sao records(even networksolutions doesn't do this), they still do that for no reason and result in slowing down the registration process ... i wrote to them asking for a reasons/purposes, but they just said its the rules and even stated the sections of the rules ... but since i called and email them before they appeared to be very friendly and reply my mail even its a complaint ... a great start for our local "e" businesses :)

Warren, wow you have so many servers, you must earning big money from you webhosting businesses ... WELL DONE!!! love to know another successful ebusinessman :) ... by the way, if you don't mind i have drop you a email regarding the .com.my domain registration with 4webspace server. thanks in advance for your help :D

Hey,

Never thought that they are so many Malaysians here. :eek: I guess this thread has become Malaysian only thread for now. :D

Well, I don't have my own hosting company though. Tried to start one a few times already, but financial problems and billing problems. Hmm. :bawling:

I might want to start my own small hosting company again when I have enough resources - money and found a good billing method. :stickout

Anyway, I'm glad that so many people from Malaysia are starting as a reseller now. Erm.. Warren, can you please send me a message through ICQ please? I've just got my new computer in New Zealand. I'm looking forward to talk to you again. :)

Btw, I'm from Sungai Petani, Kedah, but currently studying in New Zealand. :)

Regards,
Enzy aka Andrew
weishen@pl.jaring.my

Originally posted by fweikeong
Anyone mind letting me know of the Malaysian sites that is successful ?
It can be any type of sites as long as it is a malaysian built site and gaining popularity. I just want to know how malaysians are doing on the internet. I am not referring to the big sites like cari, catcha, lycos malaysia, asiatravelmart etc. I am looking at the those build from scratch by small group and does not have VC funding and are not very high profile type.

:)

Hmm.. I'm not sure what web site you're asking for but I'm starting one soon. :) I'm still designing it though. It's at http://webedge.hypermart.net/ps2/beta/index2.html for the time being. It's supposed to be my school assigment - technology innovation and I chose PS2. :) Later, I'll make a community web site with it, if I can get somebody to sponsor it.. Hopefully.

Regards,
Enzy

Hey guys, I am from Kuala Lumpur. Warren, maybe one day we can go to mamak and have a drink, you call it "yam cha". :p

For the Malaysians who want to add me at ICQ, my UIN is #13580554 . Tell me you are from WHT when you are adding. :)

Cool, it is good to hear that you are so successful.

By the way, Andrew, we met before at freewebspace.net forum. I am "Wes-A" that time, and I think maybe you have at least some blur memory for me?

[Edited by Donovan on 04-06-2001 at 04:11 AM]

Hey all, just finished reading the thread and thought I'd throw in my 2 cents or pfennigs.

I own ACNS Hosting.

We do a lot of web design, hosting, web app. development and offer ISP services as well (ISP, however, only in Germany).

Due to the high cost of business here in Germany it has taken a while to show a profit. I started (legally) Accent Computer & Network Services at the beginning of '99 in Germany.

Since then it has been nothing but headaches working with German Companies. They have NO IDEA what customer service is. I even went through a phase with my credit card acceptance company where I ended up losing about 85% of my customer base. And then about a year later I got took by CWI Hosting, out of Texas, and that cost me about 35% of my customer base.

It has taken quite a while to get the customer base back where it was. It was even harder reestablishing trust with the customers after all that happened. Also, I was in an auto accident last year as well, hehe. Ended up spending 2 months in the hospital. When it goes to wrong it really goes wrong.
So you see, you can charge what you want but if you back isn't covered and if you can't count on the Companies that you do business with, it will be even harder than it needs to be.

chuck

Hi Warren, as i am really new in the server and dns stuff, can you please help me with the registration of .com.my with the raq3 server at 4webspace? i am setting up my own co-branded nameserver, but after i lookup for the PTR and SAO recors ... it hink its still unacceptable for mynic. if you are willing to help me i can pay you USD100 for your kind assistance. Please do consider my offer and you can contact me through clteh@mailnt.com or icq:13438442

I've just contacted you off-list... and no, please, I'm not accepting any money :)

Hello ppl,

Thanks for sharing your comments & experience! :beer:

Now i am going for a beta test on my hosting site, please take a look and give me some comments. The thread is located at:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=8309

Congrats and welcome to the webhosting family.

:) Wish you luck !

Make $10,000 a month :-) that's my goal by august.

Wow ! USD 10 000, that must be great ! Good luck to you and me ! :beer:

:D

Just wonder is there any host running on Pentium 4 server ?

Sorry but I would NEVER own an Intel platform. AMD all the way baby. :)

Hi hi,

another real Malaysian, I think I am only one from SARAWAK.

nice to meet yours.

I operate few site.

<<EDIT>>

I know many issue about web hosting, DNS, technology...

if some one can not register .com.my, ask me lah, it is very easy job lah

See you all

Oh Noooooo, soooo many Malaysians here! "How to cari makan?" Well guys, I am also one of your kind and in Kuala Lumpur. Anyway, I am doing web designing(self taught) on a part time basis and hoping to make some good money.

Best of luck to you all in your endeavours and happy web hosting......:D

Hi Lah_Lah ... just visited your site allsite.co.uk, it looks great nad the offers are quite attractive :) ... by the way, i saw a wap image when i was suring around your site ... do you know how to create a wap site? may i have your icq no or email, or can you please email me at clteh@mailnt.com, as i would like to know more malaysian webmaster :)

cactus ... mind giving me your icq no or email as well? really wanted to know more local webmasters :)

Hi hi everyone

welcome !!

nice to meet you!!

ICQ: 75376553 (but not online offen)
MSN: cwanyin@hotmail.com (most)

we must have a association for webmaster of malaysia.

Well who care about it, all the webmasters are competitors.
May be.

I also run another site http://2u.com.my

Originally posted by Lah_Lah
Hi hi everyone

welcome !!

nice to meet you!!

ICQ: 75376553 (but not online offen)
MSN: cwanyin@hotmail.com (most)

we must have a association for webmaster of malaysia.

Well who care about it, all the webmasters are competitors.
May be.

I also run another site http://2u.com.my

We already have --> http://WebmasterMalaysia.com

:)

Ok, fine

I just got two new P-IV [1GB RAM, 2x18GB SCSI 160MB/s] boxes for my new project launch. They are insanely fast.

I am sure in 10 months they'll feel slow, but its great right now.

Why do you ask?

AMD makes good chips for graphics, but for my money I prefer Intel. And at $375/month, I have nothing to complain about.

Rik

Originally posted by ckizer
Make $10,000 a month :-) that's my goal by august.
I wonder if you reached the 10K barrier :)

Originally posted by ksstudio
1. How much can a web hosting company earn per month? or
Each month they have how many active account?

Back to the original question ...it really depends of the size of your customer base. Small host? $500-$3000/month. Medium size host? $5000-$15000. Large host? $70000+ per month. But then again ...those are just approximate numbers. You will find hosts that only earn $90/month or hosts that earn $200.000+ per month.

wow..i never think that there are lof of malaysian webhoster and web designer here
hi, i'm 20 from penang and i'm web designer. welli'm planding after i get a good job, i'm going to buy a reseller account too to offer free host and paid host, sometimes client need a web design and host, we can use our own reseller to host them. it can bring much earning .. make a package design pages + host i guess this is not a bad idea. :)

my pal in Australia makes $350,000USD per month.. He's in the top 5 biggest hosting companies in Australia and listed on the OZ stock exchange.. :)

that's my dream..god