| Posted by Airforce, 01-04-2012, 04:06 AM | | Now I'm not looking for a get rich quick scheme but I'm within a semester of graduating college and am looking to start a webhosting business.
I'm trying to understand how I can offer a competitive package with a reseller account with companies like GoDaddy out there. Here's my basic logic.
GoDaddy Economy account
10GB space
Unlimited Bandwidth
100 email accounts
10 mysql databases
3.99/month
(anonymous seller of reseller accounts) //name not mentioned so as not to offend but most of them are like this
75GB space
1000GB Bandwidth
Unlimited cPanel Accounts
Unlimited email accounts
Unlimited databases
//note the previous 3 are not really unlimited with spac restrictions)
24.95/month
Operating at full capacity (which I wouldn't), if I offered a plan similar to that of GoDaddy, my plan would look something like this... (note numbers are rounded)
10 GB space
125 GB Bandwidth
Unl. email & databases
3.99/month
I'm offering less at the same price and with 75GB of space I would have enough room for 7 to 8 customers (assuming I actually reserve that much space for each customer). That's like $30 per month I'd be making when I pay 24.95, not to mention other fees associated with having an account.
That's my perspective. I'm just looking for some other perspectives so I can make an informed decision.
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| Posted by Jim K, 01-04-2012, 04:16 AM | | Well you can get profit from reseller hosting if you sit down and think of a business plan.
The most important thing when you start on this area is to not rush things.
Now about the packages you mention. There is not such thing as unlimited. It is a marketing trick or to be honest a marketing lie.
The package you want to offer is a good one. If you think that the most of your clients will never end up using all the space and bandwidth you are going to give them
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| Posted by BrettB, 01-04-2012, 04:39 AM | | The host that's selling you the reseller account probably oversells to an extent, but you should be able to use all the space/bandwidth they allot to you. You can decide if you want to oversell your plans (selling more space/bandwidth than you actually have available), but if you do, make sure that you can (1) upgrade your reseller account if necessary, and (2) afford the associated upgrade price based on what your customers are paying you.
Don't try to compete with GoDaddy and the other big names who have a lot more resources available to them. For example you can addon other services/features that other hosts don't have and charge a higher premium.
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| Posted by WebServer4Net, 01-04-2012, 09:22 AM | | Its profitable if you can find enough clients and good hosting company.
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| Posted by RRWH, 01-04-2012, 09:54 AM | | You have the basis for a business plan.
Now, you need to factor into your "$30" a month (5.05 net) how much time and effort you will put in supporting your clients. If you are only making $5/net, then all you can afford to do is spend less than 1/2 an hour per month doing all aspects of your Hosting business or you are actually getting poor quick!
It can be done, but as noted, look at how you can generate more revenue while offering a unique product in the marketplace.
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| Posted by availes, 01-04-2012, 10:12 AM | | I think one of the best ways to start as a reseller is locally. If you can sell a few plans to local businesses you can pay for your reseller account. Obviously once you have your reseller account paid for as you start selling other account they will be profit.
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| Posted by Innerwish, 01-04-2012, 10:22 AM | | It will be profitable if you make a good business plan.And dont expect to get clients from the first day. Many companies can wait more than 3months for their first clients.
I am telling you that because you have to thing about making promotion too. More promotion = more clients = more profit.
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| Posted by Geovanie R, 01-04-2012, 10:26 AM | | There are two popular strategies employeed when reselling a provider: 1) overselling, and 2) adding value.
Overselling, if you're unaware, is simply selling more resources than you have knowing that each client will never reach even a fraction of their alotment. Such is the nature of hosting. This could, potentially, allow you to have a $30 reseller package, but with 50 clients at $5 per account, you'd be at over 700% profit. The problem with this is, if you don't properly track your clients' use, you may get into a situation where your resource cap is being hit, which will not only cause issues with clients, but with your host.
One way to mitigate this, and which coincides with the second point, adding value, is managing and/or developing your clients solution. With this option, you could have the initial cost of web development (flat up-front fee), and a nominal monthly service fee on top of the fee for the resources. You could, theoretically, push something like $10 per account and double your monthly reoccuring profit, as well as have a large upfront profit for the development fees. You could even subsidize your development fees for clients who sign up with you for hosting, with a contract for 12 months (as an example), locking in the $120 (aka expenses paid for over a quarter).
In the end, the quality of service is up to you to dictate. Not only are you the face of the company, but your choice of host will affect your success as well. Many customers are picky about the details of the infrastructure, but so long as you choose a good host, and treat your clients well, no one is going to care that you're reselling, or that you're overselling; at the end of the day all that matters is the result.
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| Posted by Steven F, 01-04-2012, 10:29 AM | | It all depends on a lot of things. There are two different types of cPanel reseller accounts (in my view, at least).
The first is those that are not allowed to oversell. That means that you can create 75 GB worth of cPanel accounts and allocate up to 1,000 GB of bandwidth. Even if you only use 1 GB of disk space and 10 GB of bandwidth, you cannot allocate any more space. This is better for the host as it insures that you do not go overboard with your account creation, but it does limit the reseller.
The second is those that allow overselling. That means that you can allocate 500 GB of disk space (or more) as long as your clients are not actually using it all up. You can also allocate as much bandwidth as you would like, as long as it's all not being used. This is easily abused, but a lot of providers will limit the amount of accounts you can create, so that their servers are not abused to the extreme.
Just find out what type of provider they are and then base your business model around them. Also, do not use GoDaddy. Find a reliable provider that sells quality services.
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| Posted by Collabora, 01-04-2012, 11:21 AM | | Don't listen to uninformed advice such as this:
Not only is it uninformed but hypocritical.
Hypocritical because this same host (who might very well be an excellent host) offers "unlimited websites," "unlimited features" and "unlimited customers [reseller plan extra!]"
Uninformed because the term "unlimited" simply means "no hard quota" or "you get what you need." Given the correct setup one can offer "unlimited" plans within a carefully thought out TOS.
For example you implied in your post that all your websites will average about 10GB each (I believe they will be a lot smaller, but let's go with that). You can offer an unlimited plan as long as you restrict (and monitor) your customer activities to sites that only need a few mb to around 10 GB. In this case you do not need a quota, and by definition plan will be "unlimited." e.g. without limits.
Last edited by Collabora; 01-04-2012 at 11:26 AM.
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| Posted by jgoodwin, 01-04-2012, 11:48 AM | | You are on the right move, starting a business with reseller hosting. The benefit you have with reseller hosting is that you don't have to manage the servers and you can always purchase reseller space from hosting provider who have good server configurations.
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| Posted by Ableer Web Services, 01-04-2012, 12:31 PM | | Provide what you have and price it to where you make what you need to make to stay above the water. The guys at the top of the chain all started out the same way all of us here on Web Hosting Talk did.
Good luck,
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| Posted by ChaseNet, 01-04-2012, 06:05 PM | | It's been said, but it can't be stressed enough. An excellent thought out business plan, attached to the proper reseller plan at a web hosting company is the best and least costly way to start out.
From there, you can offer other products and such that aren't offered else where, reach out to local businesses, and grow from there.
With the exception of companies whom started with large coffers to begin with, we all started out small, and the vast majority of us have proven that becoming successful can happen, obviously depending on your definition of "success".
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| Posted by StarWebHosting, 01-05-2012, 09:21 AM | | Yes i agree a good business plan is the place to start. Don't try to compete with the big boys as you wont be able to but look at the service that you can offer.
If you setup a business with a reseller account start small so your overheads are low and give each customer the personal touch. Eventually you will get some good reviews and hopefully a good reputation in the industry. This takes time to build but as it does you will start to pickup more clients and if your business plan is good you might make a bit of money along the way!
Good luck with your business.
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| Posted by TheJoker, 01-05-2012, 10:59 PM | | It will be hard to compete with the big boys who offer cheap unlimited plans, but there are lots of small hosts out there making a profit. Then again, there are many small reseller hosts who fail. I'd venture to say that more fail than succeed, kind of like the restaurant business.
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| Posted by Forward Web, 01-06-2012, 06:36 AM | | Your somewhat on the right path to figuring it all out, but I will say that how many customers you can fit onto reseller package is not always determined by the amount of Diskspace/Bandwidth being consumed. Things like CPU/Memory, also play a big part. Another factor to consider, is your web host really giving you 75GB of diskspace? That seems like a hefty chunk of diskspace and one term you need to familiarize before getting into this industry is overselling.
So in short, reseller web hosting is profitable (otherwise nobody would be doing it), but in order for it to be profitable you have to have a full understanding of what you are getting your-self into.
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