Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Reseller Hosting : HostYourSite.com - Comments or Experience - They bill customers for you.

[couponjim]

I am still looking for a reseller who will handle the billing for me. HostYourSite says they will do the billing for you. It is important to me to have the billing done. As I prepare to set-up 4 URLs I recently purchased: (none are yet open for business or have a host) DaytonWebHosting.com, DaytonWebSites.com, DaytonHosting.com and DaytonWebDesign.com (comments on the URL names also appreciated). Previous posts have said that most resellers do not do billing for you because of cost. If it costs too much for the bigger guys, it seems like it would definitely be too high for me. I would truly appreciate any comments/experiences with HostYourSite.com or any other resellers who do billing. Post here or e-mail me with any suggestions or ideas about reselling for someone who is new to this. Because of my disability, I am having to switch careers. I am a novice when it comes to the hosting field, but my 35+ years in retail store management has given me good business promotion skills. Now, if I can just learn all the acronyms. PS: I also acquired about 200 URLs for possible future use when Staples/Register.com had the $1.00 special. I could use a host for some of them. I really could use a normal reseller also to host these. Am I crazy?

[Edited by couponjim on 11-17-2000 at 01:28 PM]

[GordonH]

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Their prices seem on the high side even for a reseller scheme. Plus they charge a set up fee for most of the accounts which you will have to pass on to your customers and a lot of people don't like set up fees.

Gordon

[couponjim]

I neglected to mention that the $395.00 per year fee is not charged if you sell 5 sites within 6 months. Its under the "Special" on their home page I think. I too did not like the setup fee for each site.. The per site fee is also more than I would like to be charging. They do not allow you to charge less than their minimum pricing. I'm pondering a rebate to make the cost more competitive. Also, I'm wondering more and more 1. Why resellers do not offer billing service? 2. Why no-one seems to have experience with hostyoursite. Hope to hear from more of you on experiences, ideas or solutions. Thank you.

[JayC]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by GordonH

Plus they charge a set up fee for most of the accounts which you will have to pass on to your customers and a lot of people don't like set up fees.

You don't have to pass the setup fees on, at least not as setup fees. If you think you'd lose customers by having setup fees you could build them into your monthly fees instead of charging up front. You'll still be paying setup on the accounts you resell, so you're taking a cash flow hit, but you should be able to make it up within a few months.

[Chicken]

Originally posted by couponjim
Also, I'm wondering more and more 1. Why resellers do not offer billing service?

First, as a reseller you have to rely on your host to provide you with good web hosting service (including support, since anything that you can't do via a control panel of some sort will require you to contact your host). There's no 'telnet in and restart apache' option. This means that your choice is important.

Add billing and you have yet another thing to completely rely on. It is a liability for you and your host. Not only will they be gaining your customer's information (complete infomation, I might add), but they also will have to handle billing issues that arise. Possibly be subjected to chargebacks from people which they did not have any contact with (example: you provide horrible support and your client gets fed up with you).

I could go on, but you get the point...

[grizz]

We tried them back in Jan of this year when we were going to do the reselling thing instead of our own servers. This is what we found.
The reseller sign up was fairly quick, I believe you have to fax in a form and wait for sign up from there, took a couple days.
We then signed up 2 test accounts to ensure that things worked. It all went smooth until we tried to access FTP with the supplied username and pass, neither accounts worked. Phoned their "priority" support for resellers, the claimed to set up new passwords, they didn't work. Called later that day and was told they couldn't give out passwords over the phone, they would be e mailed. 2 days passed but the passes never came, called back, same song & dance, passes never came.
Talked to a supervisor and they straightened it out.
Went to FTP about a week later, passwords didn't work. Called again, same thing all over again.

It turned out that things worked for about 2-3 hours and that was it. Even cancelling the reseller account was a hassle, fax numbers didn't work, talking to people in the billing dept was like talking to your mouse.

Then bought our own servers.

Just my thoughs on Hostyoursite.com.

[Broadreach]

My advice to anyone that is going to start a hosting company is to look into the aspect of your own server. You have to think of it this way... Once you grow better you more than likely will want your own machine anyway as the previous post explained.

Trust me you will thank yourself in the end.

[couponjim]

Thank you for your very informative replies, both here and by e-mail. I am definitely going to have to rethink and almost certainly change my plans. Your insights and shared experiences are invaluable. I will continue to haunt this site and revisit a few threads. Thank you.

[successful]

DO NOT USE HostYourSite.com! Before we started our own hosting company we used to resell for them. When they heard that we started our own company they locked us out of our account and did not pay us the $2,000 they owed us and have not sent us a payment since. They claim that I had cancelled the account - which I never did and they ignore all communications (email, phone and fax.)

Currently we have lawyer drafting up papers and we plan on serving these crooks shortly.......

STAY AWAY

[Chicken]

Alex, I'm pretty sure you're a bit late in helping him as this question was posted 11/2000 - not all that long after I joined the forum, heh (around 4-6/2000 I think-ish).

[successful]

LOL

I had to find a place to let out my steam.....