If we're being realistic and not overselling or anything, what would you guys say is the maximum ammount of customers you could have before you really needed to move to a VPS or a dedicated server?

Depends on how much space, bandwidth, and cpu usage each account uses and the resources available based on the server specs.

It is very much depending of the resources on the Reseller account and of the plans configured to be resell. I wouldn't sell more than 85% of the resources I have. I can not post any numbers... Do you mean any specific Reseller account. This will help us to be more specific in our answers.

There's no need to hurry to "upgrade". IMHO for most resellers it is smarter not to go for a small VPS (or low end dedicated server), and keep using (multiple) reseller accounts as necessary.

The number of customers you can host depends very much on the sites they have, which in return depends largely on the market you're targeting. For example, if your customers are small local businesses with small brochure-like sites, they're unlikely to be using much in terms of anything.

You may want to use multiple accounts with different hosts at some point though (more of a business decision than anything) so that a disaster on one server will not completely destroy your business. Bad things happen, and hosting customers are not exactly the most loyal bunch. :)

I agree. Some people prefer to use multiple reseller accounts with different providers.
We have one customer falls into this category.
He runs a fairly large shared hosting business with 1000+ domains.

If we're being realistic and not overselling or anything, what would you guys say is the maximum ammount of customers you could have before you really needed to move to a VPS or a dedicated server?

you're bound to oversell on a reseller account at one point or another and it's not as bad as overselling on a Dedicated server because most likely your host would be able to upgrade you pretty easily.

as for maximum accounts - you can fit as many as you want really but after a while even you'll notice you're putting too many people in there for the amount of space and bandwidth you were given.

We have had similar experience with many of our resellers purchasing multiple plans with multiple providers. The not all eggs in one basket comes to mind.

I would also say that it is not wise to quickly move to VPS or Dedi. Build up a profitable business first, gain trust in the community with a positive reputation and then and only then begin to upgrade. Make sure your business model can sustain the increase in costs versus your revenue.

Cool, thanks for all your advice guys :)

You may want to use multiple accounts with different hosts at some point though (more of a business decision than anything) so that a disaster on one server will not completely destroy your business. Bad things happen, and hosting customers are not exactly the most loyal bunch.

I second that, and most importantly, overselling will only meant when you see your cpu and ram are exhausted. Until they are exhausted and you have enough space and bandwidth, you shouldn't be worry about anything else other than the data security.

Thanks for your advise everyone :)

Well, I telling you 1 thing. 90% over selling reports on bandwidth. So be careful to got 85% using resources..!