Results 1 to 17 of 17
  1. #1

    Your opinion on becoming a free reseller?

    I don't have any experience in reselling, and don't have vast amounts of money. So I'm thinking about this:

    I take out a reseller account, for say $5 a month, with all normal features. Then I offer free hosting, with unlimited sql, php, perl etc etc, but they have to have ads on their site. Do you think if I managed to get enough people interested in my site it would be possible to make a profit? Or atleast enough to break even?

    Just a thought at the moment, but any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

  2. #2
    I know of a company that does this and it works quite well, they are up to 5 ded. boxes now, google is keeping them in buiness, and they dont even put ads on the users sites, because they only accept certian sites, they make on avarage 600 a week from google ads
    Excell Hosting
    Budget Hosting

  3. #3
    Well....I think (aka my personal opinion, please dont hurt me! ) that perhaps you should offer free LIMITED accts with ads on their sites, giving them an incentive to upgrade to a paid acct. If you give them unlimited everything, then there is no incentive to upgrade, and an ad isnt really all that annoying if you are getting everything else for free and lots of it. Or try other tactics, like, pay your first month (or 2) and get another free, or a free gig of transfer, be creative

  4. #4
    Thanks for replying guys - much appreciated.

    Chaud: So does he just rely on people clicking on the ads on his homepage? That's quite impressive if you can get away with it by doing that.

    Rhiannon: I can see where you're coming from. But, I don't want to make myself seem inaccessible, if you see what I mean. I would just be happy with people having sites and me making a bit of money. But I do like the idea. And I wasn't very clear - I didn't mean unlimited everything - IE, bandwidth and space.

    Which brings me to another point. I've been offered hosting of 750MB and 20gig bandwidth for $5/m, and the host looks okish. How much space and bandwidth do you think I can genuinely offer to each customer? That fits in rather well with the ideas given of limited accounts...

    What do you think? Again, help much appreciated!

  5. #5
    I think that depends on who your target market is. If your market is people who just want to set up a homepage with some pics for grandma or a small business with a homepage and contact page, then the space you are considering may be good for you. Perhaps you can offer them 10-30 mbs of space and a gig or so of bandwidth. Who's the host btw?

  6. #6
    Yeah... I like that kinda ratio

    Prospective host may be ***** (sorry can't post link)
    Haven't done enough research into them to confirm yet though

  7. #7
    Ok, it won't let me say *****
    all one word obv. I've no idea why I can't post it though
    Last edited by The3bl; 04-23-2004 at 09:41 AM.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    May 2001
    Location
    Colorado, USA
    Posts
    814
    free and unlimited just attracts the wrong kind of customers. Not a good business model in the long run.
    Web Hosting Resource Kit - Web Hosting Reviews & Hosting Tutorials

  9. #9
    So maybe it is better to go for the limited accounts, and regulate carefully what site's there are. Well, thanks for the help, people.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    5,783
    You cannot post it because they are banned here.

    Participants may not post words or URLs that are censored by adding spaces, dots, or substituting characters; or by any other means in an attempt to defeat any censors put in place by WebHostingTalk.

  11. #11
    Whoops - sorry Techark, I didn't realise. I guess I should have taken the hint when it wouldn't let me post it, hey!

    Anyway, sorry, won't happen again. Just curious... why would someone end up banned? Does this indicate a negative reflection on their hosting abilities?

    Thanks

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jun 2001
    Location
    Kalamazoo
    Posts
    33,412
    Originally posted by robalewis
    . . .Does this indicate a negative reflection on their hosting abilities? . .
    It indicates a negative reflection on their ability to follow simple Forum Guidelines.
    There is no best host. There is only the host that's best for you.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    24,027
    Originally posted by chaud
    I know of a company that does this and it works quite well, they are up to 5 ded. boxes now, google is keeping them in buiness, and they dont even put ads on the users sites, because they only accept certian sites, they make on avarage 600 a week from google ads
    5 servers, and all they have from that is 2400/mth in revenue. At least, those 5 servers would be 1k/mth right there. That doesn't leave much left for other business costs, and profit. They'd be working for peanuts at the end of the day, and I'd hate to see that business model extrapulated out to 100+ servers.

    I guess the peanuts just get bigger.
    WLVPN.com NetProtect owned White Label VPN provider
    Increase your hosting profits by adding VPN to your product line up

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Posts
    2,733
    I think it would be easier to charge but it could be more rewarding to offer for free.

  15. #15
    Okay - thanks. I think I'll start off offering for free with ads, then maybe pay a small amount to get rid of ads.

    I can't find a large amount of other hosts who offer completely free hosting, and come with all features like sql php so I might give it a go sometime, when I have more free time. Thanks for all the help

  16. #16
    They dont have any other costs, they are young adults, just provide forum support, the servers cost them around 600 some a month..., http://illusionfxnet.com
    Excell Hosting
    Budget Hosting

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    In The Tree Outside Your Bedroom Window
    Posts
    37
    How would I automatically add banners to my client's pages using Cpanel/WHM? The only was I know of is using mod_layout in Apache. I would not be able to do this because I don’t have direct access to the httpd.conf file.

    Is there another way to do this?
    (¯`•.,¸Ryan¸.•´¯)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •