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  1. #1

    Question I've got my own server now.. How much do I charger?

    Hello everyone!

    Thanks to the recommendations of people on this site, I decided to get my own server from cologuys. So far they have been extremely helpful and my server should be up by tomorrow night. (A day or so late, but sh-t happens)

    My next question is this.. How do I figure out how much to charge per mb of hard drive space and gb of throughput?

    I dont want to me expensive or cheap, just a good value where everyone is happy!

    Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    Hot, hot Michigan...
    Posts
    3,506
    Moved to running a webhosting business...

    Now, as far as the question is concerned... Don't think in those terms. Think about them in these instead:

    How much is your time worth?

    How much 'overhead' do you have (taxes, employees if you have any)?

    Do you wish to make this your career, or is this something for extra cash on the side?

    Think about those, and write up a business plan. Then you'll be able to determine where you want to be priced.
    Ion Web Services/TronicTech
    http://www.ion-web.com or Unsupported webhosting?!?
    Shared hosting, Reseller accounts, Dedicated Servers, and More
    Proudly hosting since 2002

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Vancouver, BC
    Posts
    1,894
    Charge $100 per day

    No seriously you need to know your market. Who you want as clients. If you are going after everyone then your competing with large companies that charge next to nothing for the lots of space. If you are going to focus locally at first then set your prices competatively for local business.

    You can't seriously ask other hosts what you should charge as we really don't know what your costs are either.
    Gary Jones

    BlueFur.com - Canada Web Hosting

  4. #4
    Great questions and answers!

    I'm not going after the entire world.. (well, at least not yet!)

    I'm a computer consultant and most of my clients need web/email hosting. I'm offering it as a compliment to my existing consulting services.

    A more broad question would be, what is an acceptable profit percentage? If my server costs me $300/month with an unmetered 1gb pipe and 120gb of disk space.. should I double my money? Triple it? More? What's considered a fair practice for both vendor and client?

    Thanks again!

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    North America
    Posts
    1,229
    There's no simple answer to that question.

    For some clients, paying very little but having a generous disk space allowance is fine. They may be hobbyists who don't care if the site performance is slow - or they may be a charity with a very small budget who doesn't care much about high uptimes (at least initially).

    For some hosts, they have enough overhead that they have to bring in triple what they pay for a server every month. Others have a low-enough overhead, or enough revenues for services in addition to hosting, that doubling that figure comfortably pays their bills (all of them).

    There's no magic formula, there really isn't.

    I suggest that you talk with the folks at SCORE ( www.score.org ) about how to come up with a business plan. They'll tell you what questions you need to ask, how you need to arrive at these answers...so that as your business grows, you'll know how to change your pricing model. (You'll also have a good idea of how to price new services.)
    Lesli Schauf, TLM Network
    Linux and Windows Hosting: Scribehost

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    Sheffield, South Yorks
    Posts
    3,627
    I'm sorry, but this is getting daft really, no wonder customers think most web hosts don't know what they are doing or are out to get them when people come along, get a server then have to be told how to price their services - Plan, place, price your services then think about getting servers etc. Gah.
    Karl Austin :: KDAWS.com
    The Agency Hosting Specialist :: 0800 5429 764
    Partner with us and free-up more time for income generating tasks

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Location
    Calgary, Alberta
    Posts
    531
    I agree with KDA, there are far too many people that are getting into this business with no business plan, no REAL capital and no clue on how this industry works..

    Here is how I suggest people do it...

    1. Sit in front of Computer
    2. Write a business plan
    3. Phone yourself and start screaming your server is down
    4. Break your costs down to the penny
    5. Sit at your computer and stare at your monitor for 14-18hrs straight!

    When this is complete, we can start on an analysis to see if you can muster the actual business.

    In all seriousness though, it takes a hell of a lot to get one of these businesses going properly, by the book so to speak.

    1. Careful planning and LOCAL competition analysis
    2. Designing a ABCS business plan
    3. Sticking with your business plan
    4. Long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long days
    5. Cranky, needy, whiney, upset, demanding customers
    6. A solid background in System administration
    7. The ability to be able to focus and get the job done right
    8. ASK FOR ADVICE! Find yourself a business mentor, it made all the difference in my business
    9. Prepare your business from the network cable up
    10. Have sufficient capital to invest, not lot's, just sufficient

    I hope this sincerely helps! It works, if you are willing to work.

    Got questions, just ask!

    Cheers!

    /bin/false
    Jason (JC) Morris, Vice President - Technology
    TechWest Hosting - Enterprise Plesk & cPanel Hosting Since 2003!
    Shared & Reseller Hosting on Dell Quad Core 5420 Servers w/ RAID 10 in Multiple Datacenters!
    Ruby on Rails, FFMPEG, Fantastico, RVSiteBuilder, RVSkins, Nightly Off-site Backups, Clustered DNS!

  8. #8
    /bin/false thanks for that reply. I know I didn't start the thread, but I'm in the process right now of writing a business plan to get into the industry and your post was very helpful. Although I knew everything in your list already, it's nice to have something reaffirmed. Thanks for taking the time!

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