Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : VPS Hosting : VPS Reseller, Why people use it? How does the business model attract them?

[Mohamed Meligy]

So, what would make people go with VPS reseller other than directly using its backend provider?

I can think of two possible reasons:
1. They don't know it is a reseller at all. It hides it from them.
2. It gives them better prices than provider. Assuming it gets %15 discounted price from providers, it sells plans %5 cheaper than announced at provider (for example)

Are those the only reasons?

Actually, my question has to do with the VPS business model in general. How would a reseller handle support for example, would customers be given access to reseller's provider support system? OR will the reseller have its own support system, which essentially just copies data from/to clients and provider support? Is there some other way?

In all those cases, I don't see a good reason why, if for example I were a reseller, people would come to me, but then, how do all those resellers make money?

Would be great if you can draw some light around that model, and how is it that it's actually working for some people.

Thank you,

[breton]

> Are those the only reasons?
Nope.
Resellers can offer additional services like panels, management, off-site backups etc. Resellers can combine best choices for different services (like domain registration + VPS in one place), some people like that.

[_theserverguy]

It's actually not just the VPS hardware. Resellers add value to VPS in terms of support, management, backups, and some other interesting features

[Mohamed Meligy]

Thanks guys.

It's interesting since most providers I have seen referenced here do not provide those, but maybe coz they're budget ones.

Regarding support, this is the more interesting part. I assume being with a VPS typically means more people to support you, but also more support layer that can't really do anything useful. I'm thinking unmanaged VPS now (especially Windows ones), I'd assume all the reseller can do as part of the base "included" limited support is contact the provider support for you, right? Which is just an extra layer between you as a customer the actual people who have access to the tools that troubleshoot and fix your problem.

I'm thinking about doing VPS reselling myself (not very seriously yet), but, want to make sure there are areas to improve existing offers and make it reasonable for other people to recommend me (trying to put myself in their shoes). The support point and the fact that most people told me to go with the provider not any reseller (that was BurstNet and its resellers) when I myself was looking for a VPS make me wonder, then how resellers are fine for the users!

[fkam17]

VPS reselling allows one to focus on their particular market segment(s), with higher level services which the backend providers might not cater for. VPS reseller helps backend providers to target well to certain customers which they don't know how to.

It's a very good model indeed so the backend providers can focus on the stability of the cloud while the frontend can handle customer end particularities.