3 replies to this topic

[iwz]

Hi, i'm interested in becoming a hosting reseller but am unsure of how dense this market is. With almost all major hosting and domain vendors offering reseller plans i'm wondering how much competition will i have and is it cost effective?

What are your thoughts? And what hosting/domain provider would you recommend>?

[N4Z.]

If you're reselling I would suggest going somewhere professional or somewhere private where you know the owner personally or professionally.

Going to any old site that says "UNLIMITED EVERYTHING $5" Is a definite NO.

Don't start a hosting business thinking "Im gonna take over the hosting industry!" Because you will never be successful in comparison to the big hosting websites (1and1, GoDaddy, RackSpace etc.) Just sell cheap plans to friends and family, just enough to cover your expenses, then start selling to other people. Hopefully your friends and family will recommend you to others anyway so you will always have customers coming and sometimes going.

Always offer cPanel. If you are buying a Virtual Private Server (VPS) I suggest maybe offering WHM as-well so your customers can maybe offer hosting to others too. But think small, start with a simple reseller then build up to a VPS or bigger Bandwidth and/or Disk space.

Don't offer anything you don't know about... I got Ruby on Rails installed on my old server just to land a deal, the guy wanted help from time to time, but I had no clue about RoR, so he ended up leaving my service. So stick to what you know. This is why cPanel comes in handy, the new v11 comes with all the popular languages and scripts so you don't HAVE to give them all the support they need on RoR for example, because it's all preinstalled and they can use it as and when they want to.

Research your market if you go public... don't settle for the cheapest, thing quality not quantity... Don't go giving 50GB Bandwidth with 5GB Disk Space if you can't afford to, offer small amounts at a time, unless the customer really wants more from you. If you go giving out huge space and bandwidth, you're going to all fall fast!

Stick to what you know, don't go breaking your back for a customer who you don't provide for yet! Telling them you can give them this this and the other, but really can't, will only leave you customerless in the long run. It's all simple common sense.

Never give up on support, hosting is a full time hobby, you need to be there for each one of your customers where they want you to not when you want to be there, because if there hosting goes down during the night for you but it's day time for them, they are without a site for a good few hours, you are their beck and call, to prove you are there for them every step of the way to ensure they have a great hosting experience and know their site(s) are in safe and helpful hands!

Anything else, just PM me.

Good luck on your venture dude!

[iwz]

Hi, i've researched two providers. Both are large well trusted companies.

One is $50 a year subscription, you then buy domains and hosting etc ate wholesale or similar rates.
Another is around $100 a month, for which i can host unlimited sites, with unlimited bandwidth etc.

Now my main concern is covering costs. So i am not sure if becoming a reseller myself is the correct decision.

Soldier, if you are still a reseller, pm me and maybe we can work something out.

[N4Z.]

Sorry, haven't done hosting for 2 years. I build and sell computers now, much more money!

Good luck to you though! Web Hosting Talk forum has a LOT of good links!