Currently I have five active sites, ranging from this to that as far as content matter but I am beginning to look into reseller hosting plans for a few reasons:

I have several websites, it would be nice to have more control over them and adjust to their needs.

But mainly, as person who is trying to be an 'internet entrepreneur', it would be nice to offer hosting.

I'm just wondering if this is a path I should walk down. I know many do, but I have some questions:

I have a great domain name, haven't purchased it yet but its short, comical and easy to remember. If its still available when if I decide to do this, the i'll nab it. I don't think it will be a problem reaching customers, with reseller plans so affordable only a minimum of customers would be needed to cover costs of operation.

What are the demands for smaller hosting sizes? There are so many hosts who offer 'unlimited' hosting for an affordable price (I know, not really unlimited, but still). There are plenty of people who only need a small amount, to host their blog, a personal site, a forum for a gaming clan. Is there a market for 500mb hosting? 1gb? I would offer it for $2 a month. Is it reasonable to think that I could get 20 clients to pay that, which would cover operating costs.

Business wise, you can make more by selling less. And everyone typically buys more than they need, anyhow.

What about you guys? How's business, honestly? What are your plans and prices you offer your customers? How long have you been in the hosting game and how long did it take for you to get on your feet and have a strong web presence. And what did you do to promote your services? It seems that offering rebranded hosting would be a highly competitive area, as your services are the same as a lot of your competitors, yet some people get away with different prices.

I was thinking of also offering free hosting, in smaller sizes. Ad free, but with the option of allowing users to display ads I get paid for, in turn of a revenue sharing program of sorts. I'd have to work out the details of that.

Anyhow, just some thoughts I've been having. Talk to me about reseller hosting.

Currently I have five active sites, ranging from this to that as far as content matter but I am beginning to look into reseller hosting plans for a few reasons:

I have several websites, it would be nice to have more control over them and adjust to their needs.

But mainly, as person who is trying to be an 'internet entrepreneur', it would be nice to offer hosting.

I'm just wondering if this is a path I should walk down. I know many do, but I have some questions:

I have a great domain name, haven't purchased it yet but its short, comical and easy to remember. If its still available when if I decide to do this, the i'll nab it. I don't think it will be a problem reaching customers, with reseller plans so affordable only a minimum of customers would be needed to cover costs of operation.

What are the demands for smaller hosting sizes? There are so many hosts who offer 'unlimited' hosting for an affordable price (I know, not really unlimited, but still). There are plenty of people who only need a small amount, to host their blog, a personal site, a forum for a gaming clan. Is there a market for 500mb hosting? 1gb? I would offer it for $2 a month. Is it reasonable to think that I could get 20 clients to pay that, which would cover operating costs.

Business wise, you can make more by selling less. And everyone typically buys more than they need, anyhow.

What about you guys? How's business, honestly? What are your plans and prices you offer your customers? How long have you been in the hosting game and how long did it take for you to get on your feet and have a strong web presence. And what did you do to promote your services? It seems that offering rebranded hosting would be a highly competitive area, as your services are the same as a lot of your competitors, yet some people get away with different prices.

I was thinking of also offering free hosting, in smaller sizes. Ad free, but with the option of allowing users to display ads I get paid for, in turn of a revenue sharing program of sorts. I'd have to work out the details of that.

Anyhow, just some thoughts I've been having. Talk to me about reseller hosting.

Some say competition is fierce, some may say it's a saturated industry.. Personally I think there is a lot of scope for the "little guy" to make a decent amount.. It's all a matter of who you target. Different pricing will attract different types of customers.. You'll need to decide upon your goals and decide what ultimately you want to get out of this..

I think of the unlimited hosts as the ones which draw in and introduce people to web hosting.. If you're naive enough to believe unlimited webspace exists, then no doubt you're very new to web hosting. Eventually though, that newbie will begin to learn more about web hosting and venture out to find new providers offering a higher quality of service and after sales care..

You don't need to compete against the unlimited everything hosts.. We certainly don't, and still see a rise in sales every month from people tired of the constant host hopping and eventually fork out the money for something reliable..

Reseller hosting I believe is your perfect starting point in starting your web hosting company..Having limited experience is fine, but the difficult part is finding a reliable & reputable provider as your reputation will pretty much depend upon them.

I see.

I feel like I understand the dynamics of running a internet based business, i'm just trying to do some research before I put my foot in the door with webhosting.

I feel like I have some good ideas related on how to market it, everything from offering limited free hosting (with the hope they would upgrade), revenue sharing on ads, doing direct old school marketing of just going to new businesses in the area and asking if they have a website, if not, would they like one. I do web design and for a very reasonable price would happily do something and host it for them.


Hosts I am currently looking at:
Surpasshosting. 500gb for $65/mo
Magmahost 100gb for $15/mo X however many I need. I want more than 100gb, though.
Supergreen/JustHost are the same thing I think "unlimited" for $20/mo.

I think Surpasshosting would be reasonable, I read only a few reviews but they seemed positive. Magmahost had mixed reviews, with mainly negative comments on customer service and UK servers not actually being UK servers. I haven't heard of speed or downtime issues for ither one. I hosted 3 sites on Supergreen before for an old client, and it seemed good enough. No major issues, although (and I didn't realize it was such an issue until I saw magmahost threads) the customer service was slow. But I never expect an answer in 10 minutes, so if I wait 3 hours for a response I think nothing of it.

Anyhow, just some more thoughts.

I used to be a reseller, back in the day. We eventually had to hand over the company to the host we were reselling from.

Some tips for you:

Payment - Do yourself a favor and use PayPal at the beginning or for the time that you are doing reselling. We were totally ripped off by a company back in the day. I wish I had stuck with PP like I wanted. I didn't see the writing on the wall.

Clients - You cannot please everyone all the time. Clients, no matter how good a friend this person may be, is still a client. Treat everyone the way you would like to be treated and then at least you can sleep at night. Trying to please everyone all the time will wear you down, make yourself stressed.

I offered free blog hosting for 2 years before becoming a reseller. Loved that as it was friends and I just hosted their blog, they did everything else. Once you add in the money making factor, people that you know and don't know will want to make sure they get the most for their bucks.

I wish I had been told these things back in the day. Good luck!

I think reseller hosting is the one which should be selected when planning to run a web hosting company. Check for host which have a good reputation in the industry in terms of support and customer care. I believe you can find one by searching the forums here.

I see.

I feel like I understand the dynamics of running a internet based business, i'm just trying to do some research before I put my foot in the door with webhosting.

I feel like I have some good ideas related on how to market it, everything from offering limited free hosting (with the hope they would upgrade), revenue sharing on ads, doing direct old school marketing of just going to new businesses in the area and asking if they have a website, if not, would they like one. I do web design and for a very reasonable price would happily do something and host it for them.


Hosts I am currently looking at:
Surpasshosting. 500gb for $65/mo
Magmahost 100gb for $15/mo X however many I need. I want more than 100gb, though.
Supergreen/JustHost are the same thing I think "unlimited" for $20/mo.

I think Surpasshosting would be reasonable, I read only a few reviews but they seemed positive. Magmahost had mixed reviews, with mainly negative comments on customer service and UK servers not actually being UK servers. I haven't heard of speed or downtime issues for ither one. I hosted 3 sites on Supergreen before for an old client, and it seemed good enough. No major issues, although (and I didn't realize it was such an issue until I saw magmahost threads) the customer service was slow. But I never expect an answer in 10 minutes, so if I wait 3 hours for a response I think nothing of it.

Anyhow, just some more thoughts.

Greetings,
The problem with the companies above is that they are doing alot of overselling, simply put you will never be able to use all of the space and bandwidth you purchase. This simply comes down to (as you mentioned above) people purchaseing more then you need.

I would advise you start with a reseller plan who sets realistic plan rates. You can always buy more space and bandwidth if needed. Once you start outgrowing it, you may be able to look into a semi-managed Dedicated Server.

I also think there is space for new hosts if you provide quality service and if you don't go with all unlimited plans as Rameen said. Best of luck to your business. And the best advertisement is your reputation.

Thanks for the responses, all input considered.

I guess my next question is, what is a reasonable space to start off with?

I think I have a pretty solid marketing plan and incentives program. First year of operation would to be developing a web presence and gain good reputation and customer relations. Incentives program would encourage existing customers to refer others in exchange for a year of free hosting (refer 3, year free or something). So that'd be my advertising initially. I'd be offering 500mb or 1gb sizes for $1 or $2 a month. The only trick is, getting a lot of people to pay that small amount to make a profit.

EDIT: And I am not dead set on offering small plans, it just seems that the cheap price overweights the storage size in this scenario. ( "Two-dollars! That's f#*$ing cheap!") Thats the competitive edge, the price (and incentives).

I think you can go for a 5gb space and upgrade as going forward. If you are able to find many clients you can always upgrade to higher plans, which will have more disk space and bandwidth. And I believe every hosts provides that.

I think you can go for a 5gb space and upgrade as going forward. If you are able to find many clients you can always upgrade to higher plans, which will have more disk space and bandwidth. And I believe every hosts provides that.

I'm sorry, I didn't notice that you were looking for 100gb+ disk space, sorry about that.

An issue you may run into from getting a small plan and upgrading later is the higher cost when you need to upgrade.

I know it may sound like overkill, but I think 100gb is where I should start out, if I can get a decent price.

Why 100gb?

I want to offer small hosting packages for $2 (200mb or so) for small personal sites. I'd also like to have some adjustability as to how I split up the hosting as some people may require more, but the biggest package would be a 1gb.

Starting off with 20gb seems to be hardly worth the time.

I understand 100gb will be nowhere near full during initial start up and the first year, but as HostDime mentioned I should reserve the space in bulk right now.

One very important thing in the hosting business is uptime, Before price, quality and uptime need to be addressed as part of your business plan, Will you be providing full off site back ups on a different server, I would rather have 2 x 50gb plans on 2 seperate servers so the risk of downtime is reduced amongst your business, As they say "dont put all your eggs in the same basket"

Remember to do a full research into the companys uptime history, support , etc, do they have an off site support forum incase their main site go's down ?, do they have a telephone number you can rang if all else fails ?

These are all the questions all should be answered within your business plan

Regards

I'm not wanting to jump into this right away, so I would make sure to do the proper research.

One thing I also did not consider was overselling, meaning I don't really need 100gb of space to sell 100gb of space, assuming most people don't use their full quota anyhow...

What would the solution be to data backups? If I performed a weekly data backup of everything hosted under my name, is this information I could simply save onto an external drive, downloaded weekly? (It seems the bandwidth would be insane). How do you do backups without exceeding your own bandwidth supply from the data transfer?

I'm not wanting to jump into this right away, so I would make sure to do the proper research.

One thing I also did not consider was overselling, meaning I don't really need 100gb of space to sell 100gb of space, assuming most people don't use their full quota anyhow...

What would the solution be to data backups? If I performed a weekly data backup of everything hosted under my name, is this information I could simply save onto an external drive, downloaded weekly? (It seems the bandwidth would be insane). How do you do backups without exceeding your own bandwidth supply from the data transfer?

I personally cant see you exceeding the bandwidth supply for creating back ups, what happens if all your clients use all their allocated space over night and you crash the server, the hosting company will be best of pleased with you for that :).

What i mean about having different plans is to balance the load.

say you have 50 sites on one server and server 1 gos down for 14hours, all your clients will have no site for 14hours, now if you had 2 plans and server 1 went down maybe you could transfur over to server 2 so the clients sites would go up agian.



In WHM, go to Backup and then click on Configure Backup. You can enter the details for the FTP server and how to login to FTP on that screen. You can also set WHM to store backups on the remote server via FTP on this screen.

This will back up all user settings, files and databases. However, server configurations (e.g. Tweak Settings, EasyApache Profiles) are not backed up with FTP backups.


You could store data back up on an external drive if you wanted but i,d make sure that the drive was stored in a very safe place.

In WHM, go to Backup and then click on Configure Backup. You can enter the details for the FTP server and how to login to FTP on that screen. You can also set WHM to store backups on the remote server via FTP on this screen.

As he is wanting a reseller account, I don't believe he would have access to the WHM backup features..

As he is wanting a reseller account, I don't believe he would have access to the WHM backup features..

That wasnt ment for this post, sorry.

Like everyone has said, it is hard out there but there will always be a market. You have to put forth some risk to see if you can make it or not. For smaller plans like 500mb and what have you, thats what we did. Best decision ever, you can find a market in whatever you do.

I'm not wanting to jump into this right away, so I would make sure to do the proper research.

One thing I also did not consider was overselling, meaning I don't really need 100gb of space to sell 100gb of space, assuming most people don't use their full quota anyhow...

What would the solution be to data backups? If I performed a weekly data backup of everything hosted under my name, is this information I could simply save onto an external drive, downloaded weekly? (It seems the bandwidth would be insane). How do you do backups without exceeding your own bandwidth supply from the data transfer?

Greetings,

It is great to see that you are doing research and taking into account everything, however that being said....

1) Overselling isn't offered at every hosting provider. I recommend starting with a smaller package but going with "overselling enabled" that way you can sell more then you really have. Once you begin approaching your limits, simply upgrade to the next highest package. Saves you time and money, and I've never seen the issue with "overselling enabled WHM" packages anyways, although I'm sure someone can drop by and say it leads to overloaded servers :rolleyes:

2) Backups are compressed. Take this into account.

I recommend following up (if you haven't already) some of your questions towards a web hosting providers sales department and see if any meet your needs.

I say take the risk. Don't expect to break even right off the bat, but with a little luck, a few months and you may be covering your expenses and by this time you will have already learned a lot :)

I have a great domain name, haven't purchased it yet but its short, comical and easy to remember. If its still available when if I decide to do this, the i'll nab it. I don't think it will be a problem reaching customers, with reseller plans so affordable only a minimum of customers would be needed to cover costs of operation.

If its valuable, get it first.

What are the demands for smaller hosting sizes? There are so many hosts who offer 'unlimited' hosting for an affordable price (I know, not really unlimited, but still). There are plenty of people who only need a small amount, to host their blog, a personal site, a forum for a gaming clan. Is there a market for 500mb hosting? 1gb? I would offer it for $2 a month. Is it reasonable to think that I could get 20 clients to pay that, which would cover operating costs.

There is certainly a market. If you target at small organisations. :) Our web hosting plans are as low as 50mb, and we have lots of customers. We rather build on a small-based clientele that pays more and stays in the long run.

It depends on how you want to market your hosting plans. If you intent to offer unlimited, you need to make sure your TOS is clearly define, and customers know what is allowed and not.

Business wise, you can make more by selling less. And everyone typically buys more than they need, anyhow.

It depends on your marketing strategy.

What about you guys? How's business, honestly? What are your plans and prices you offer your customers? How long have you been in the hosting game and how long did it take for you to get on your feet and have a strong web presence. And what did you do to promote your services? It seems that offering rebranded hosting would be a highly competitive area, as your services are the same as a lot of your competitors, yet some people get away with different prices.


You may want to consider offline marketing than online marketing if you want to compete on more expensive hosting plans. Business is great for us, as most of our sales are done offline, which gives us a smaller competitor market to work with.

I was thinking of also offering free hosting, in smaller sizes. Ad free, but with the option of allowing users to display ads I get paid for, in turn of a revenue sharing program of sorts. I'd have to work out the details of that.

You need to consider how to implement and manage such a service if it works. Generally, I do not see a big market for free hosting, but there is a much bigger market for paid affordable hosting.

Anyhow, just some thoughts I've been having. Talk to me about reseller hosting.

Reselling hosting is a great way to start. It tends to be cheaper than fully managed VPS and dedicated. For us, when we started, it brings the cost down to bare minimum. Although, we are able to go into VPS/Dedicated for a long time, we still stuck with Reseller for sometime, as it maximises profits. That being said, one shouldn't stinge on getting a quality hosting package, whether reseller/vps/dedicated. You wouldn't want a server to be down all the time, or with a slow response support.

Greetings,

It is great to see that you are doing research...

...I recommend following up (if you haven't already) some of your questions towards a web hosting providers sales department and see if any meet your needs...

...I say take the risk. Don't expect to break even right off the bat, but with a little luck, a few months and you may be covering your expenses and by this time you will have already learned a lot :)
Great advice. And yes, so refreshing to see someone actually researching before jumping in.

I started off the same way in 2001. I had one site, then added another, then another. Back then, I had to pay $17 a month for every site. Then I stumbled onto WHT and discovered reseller accounts. Beauty. Since then, and after setting up a small hosting site, I never really advertised it online. I basically used it to host my own sites, plus offered hosting to my local design clients. That makes for a nice hassle free low maintenance server.

The one thing I will say is don't sell yourself so short on the monthly fees. $2 a month is super low, especially if you are targeting local customers. Usually, local clients are oblivious to the price wars that exist online, and are more than happy to pay $10, 20, even 30 a month for reliable hosting from a local host. And the best part is that they usually just want to cut you a check once a year (saves you money on transaction fees, cc fees, etc).

Vito

Wow, very helpful and good advice here. All well spoken.

You know, I submitted a support ticket to Magmahost, about 5 hours later I got a response. I read mixed reviews on this host, but the mainly negative things I read were customer service response time, and something about UK servers being set up in the US and things that eventually got fixed.

I'll look around, my plan now is to target local customers and new businesses. And actual old-school letter campaigns to known out-of-town businesses. Y'know, like a brochure in the mail.

Any suggestions at hosts I should consider? I have looked at a lot, and read a lot of reviews but it seems like one person loves hostgator and another person is appalled with their service. It makes it hard to find out which ones are worth doing business with.

Mainly, I need:
Fast server.
Uptime!
Backups, or scheduled backups.
And around 100gb or so of space. While I know its not going to be filled anytime soon, I think its reasonable I could find people to fill the rest over time.

I'm actually pretty excited about this.

Oh, and from Magnahost when they responded:
"You can now take RSR5 which is equal to 2 x RSR4. It is not shown on the website yet - but the bandwidth and disk doubles. The cost is $19.95/month"

They're cheap, but how is their service? I get so many mixed reviews. They have all the bells and whistles I would need, but more importantly is speed, uptime, and security/backup ability.

If your main marketing efforts are done offline, you certainly can charge more for a lower discspace and data transfer. besides, its the relationship that counts, and what these group of people are looking for. Price is not the only factor in decision making.

How you can proceed is to shortlist the list to 3-5 hosts. Test their sales/support team, by asking really detailed questions. For me, i recently evaluated ServInt, WiredTree, LiquidWeb and KnownHost using a excel spreadsheet with scores based on different components. Among the list, I am most impressed by the sales team of ServInt. Others such as WiredTree, LiquidWeb seems quite unconfident when answering their questions. KnownHost was good, except that they didn't include a proactive monitoring & resolution(unless I subscribed to Hyperspin). This question was asked, as having a host that proactively monitors the web servers and fixes the problems can help me focus on sales, rather than resolution.

At the end of the day, you need to count on a provider that is able to provide support to you. Don't just see the price. You would want to use a host that your own clients would be satisifed. When evaluating, put it at the point of view of your clients. :)

Currently I have five active sites, ranging from this to that as far as content matter but I am beginning to look into reseller hosting plans for a few reasons:

I have several websites, it would be nice to have more control over them and adjust to their needs.

But mainly, as person who is trying to be an 'internet entrepreneur', it would be nice to offer hosting.

I'm just wondering if this is a path I should walk down. I know many do, but I have some questions:

I have a great domain name, haven't purchased it yet but its short, comical and easy to remember. If its still available when if I decide to do this, the i'll nab it. I don't think it will be a problem reaching customers, with reseller plans so affordable only a minimum of customers would be needed to cover costs of operation.

What are the demands for smaller hosting sizes? There are so many hosts who offer 'unlimited' hosting for an affordable price (I know, not really unlimited, but still). There are plenty of people who only need a small amount, to host their blog, a personal site, a forum for a gaming clan. Is there a market for 500mb hosting? 1gb? I would offer it for $2 a month. Is it reasonable to think that I could get 20 clients to pay that, which would cover operating costs.

Business wise, you can make more by selling less. And everyone typically buys more than they need, anyhow.

What about you guys? How's business, honestly? What are your plans and prices you offer your customers? How long have you been in the hosting game and how long did it take for you to get on your feet and have a strong web presence. And what did you do to promote your services? It seems that offering rebranded hosting would be a highly competitive area, as your services are the same as a lot of your competitors, yet some people get away with different prices.

I was thinking of also offering free hosting, in smaller sizes. Ad free, but with the option of allowing users to display ads I get paid for, in turn of a revenue sharing program of sorts. I'd have to work out the details of that.

Anyhow, just some thoughts I've been having. Talk to me about reseller hosting.

I'm not sure you're a 'internet entrepreneur' if your just thinking about covering your costs. Also don't forget supporting you clients with email problems or all the other problems that come along especially when your on holiday. Its a job that calls for more than selling a couple of sites, you're responsible for other peoples uptime, that in its-self is not a problem but it is a responsibility. If you want to be a 'internet entrepreneur' you should think about doing something no one else is. Web hosting is not a way to "get rich quick" but don't be put off by me, I love it. :)
Regards Terry

The Idea is great ! as even if there are number of competitors the market is still growing and you would get tremendous scope. You can fairly make a good sum, however it depends on how you execute the things and implement it.

I'm not sure you're a 'internet entrepreneur' if your just thinking about covering your costs. Also don't forget supporting you clients with email problems or all the other problems that come along especially when your on holiday. Its a job that calls for more than selling a couple of sites, you're responsible for other peoples uptime, that in its-self is not a problem but it is a responsibility. If you want to be a 'internet entrepreneur' you should think about doing something no one else is. Web hosting is not a way to "get rich quick" but don't be put off by me, I love it. :)
Regards Terry

Couldnt agree more :agree:, It could maybe take acouple of years before you see a good enough profit.

Plus

Like i said dont put your eggs into one basket on an 100gb plan, head for 2 x 50gb plans from 2 different providers at 2 different datacenters, So if downtime does occur because it will at some point, then the whole of your clients sites will not be down just half if you balance the load correctly, Regards

Yeah, the 'internet entrepreneur' quote was more or less sarcasm on my part, which I know doesn't transfer well online. I'm aware I'm not going to make it rich, that was never my plan.

I think my marketing plan is to get some local businesses on board. Offer them several plans, everything from just web hosting, to basic site design and basic SEO services. I'll mail brochures to out of town businesses and contact local ones personally. I'll leave my card with all potential clients so they can call me if any questions are had.

Online, I want to do an incentives program as mentioned before. Refer me 3 paying customers, and you can gladly have a year of hosting for free. Have my customers promote via word of mouth, etc.

Ohh man, its early. Need some coffee. Quick question: How hard is it to manage 20 sites? 200? 2,000?? How much time do you feel it takes up and how much time of your day is spent dealing with issues?

"What would you say, you 'do here'?" Haha.

Yeah, the 'internet entrepreneur' quote was more or less sarcasm on my part, which I know doesn't transfer well online. I'm aware I'm not going to make it rich, that was never my plan.

I think my marketing plan is to get some local businesses on board. Offer them several plans, everything from just web hosting, to basic site design and basic SEO services. I'll mail brochures to out of town businesses and contact local ones personally. I'll leave my card with all potential clients so they can call me if any questions are had.

Online, I want to do an incentives program as mentioned before. Refer me 3 paying customers, and you can gladly have a year of hosting for free. Have my customers promote via word of mouth, etc.

Ohh man, its early. Need some coffee. Quick question: How hard is it to manage 20 sites? 200? 2,000?? How much time do you feel it takes up and how much time of your day is spent dealing with issues?

"What would you say, you 'do here'?" Haha.


Depends how you wish to run your business, Are you going to check all the sites your hosting everyday to make sure their not being used for spam/scam.

How are you going to offer support to your clients, How long will it take you to respond to tickets ?.

once your clients are setup its pretty much straight forward, depending on how knowledgable your client is will have things dependent on it aswell, regards

If you are on managed hosting, managing 20-80 sites would be fairly easy if you target the local businesses. Support request are kept to the minimum. Probably a support request once every week or two. If you hit the 100 mark, probably you would need to consider hiring someone who can take care of your support. Outsourced support could be an option to you.

Also i would think about making a good support forum and put some video tutorials on their which would help with the basic support side of things.

such great info, thank you all !

There is a lot of scope for the "little guy" to make a decent amount......

As time will pass you will learn tactics of this business, and always keep in mind success does not comes in a day, step by step you will achieve it.

Yeah, I am in no rush to jump into this. Don't get me wrong, this is definitely something I want to do but I am most certainly going to do some research before just blindly jumping in.

I did however choose a name, which is a step. "Hostgasm.com" ... "We're that good"

The plan, in a nutshell, is to be as friendly and helpful as possible making our hosting experience "the best you've ever had"... Haha.

Just looking for a great reseller, which offers non-oversold servers which are fast, great uptime, and good support.