| Posted by deuce1, 04-01-2009, 08:04 AM | | Hi.
Can someone please give me a bit of advice.
I want to buy a reseller account as I have a few friends that need to host there sites and I also have one of my own.
I will also be selling hosting as a second small business.
I am getting really confused as I do not have any experience in this field and don't know if I should be looking for unlimited, unmetered or a limited account.
Any help would be much appreciated.
|
| Posted by Dustin B Cisneros, 04-01-2009, 08:50 AM | | Hello and welcome to our community, Well the hosting business is very competitive.
But seem's your new which is great. A reseller would be the best way to start for sure. So you are heading the correct way.
But from whom ever your going to buy this reseller from. You need to see if there reliable.
How do you do this?
Do a who is look up see how long they been in the business.
Go to www.webhostingstuff.com and enter there company name and read reviews about there service and see there uptime.
Ask them if you get cpanel for your client's
What type of server's are they and the spec's
Do they offer 24x7 Phone support.
And please read there Term's of Service its very important to know them when your a reseller because if you sell someone hosting and they abuse the TOS your host has every right to shut down your reseller because someone else violated the TOS.
Be very cautious and investigate every company.
Well dont want to scare you man but you get what you pay for.
Well if you need any more help on this topic ill be here to answer it.
Take care and god bless,
Dustin Cisneros
Semoweb
|
| Posted by deuce1, 04-01-2009, 08:56 AM | | Thanks semoweb for the advice.
What confuses me is that one company will charge £30 per month for unlimited space and bandwidth and another company will charge $60 for the whole year.
I don't understand how they can differ so much.
Is there a list of things that I should check against each company.
You have said chech there server and specs, what am I looking for.
Many thanks.
|
| Posted by Dustin B Cisneros, 04-01-2009, 09:02 AM | | Well $60.00 year is pretty cheap. But then again i dont know which company your reffering to. Can you create unlimited account's? Gotta watch out for this some companies are sneaky and say you can only make upto 40 accounts then you gotta buy another reseller. Which makes since. Why do they do this? To try to keep the server's level. But gotta watch out for it and ask.
Make sure when you sign up see if they can offer you a 30 day money back if your not satisfied.
And on server specs your just looking for something fast and upto you.
Linux is a good way to go very few people use windows but dont get me wrong people do.
Also ask if you will get fantastico in your cpanel accounts. Its a great benefit for your customer's.
Ask them if theyll give you private name server's which is always more professional and maybe a dedicated ip.
But the server spec's can be anything that will fit you and your buddy's current need's and always think about others just look around to see what companys got to offer that can benefit you and your clients i really wish you good luck with this.
Anymore question's feel free to ask.
|
| Posted by njoker555, 04-01-2009, 11:44 AM | | I would advise to go with neither company
why?
$60/year is $5/month for unlimited space - do you have a hard drive on your computer with unlimited space? I highly doubt that you do, so they are overselling and you won't get as good quality
And the £30 per month is similar, you don't have an unlimited HDD and they don't either so they are overselling too. You should look for limited space, non oversold space so that you don't get screwed after a few months.
There are plenty of great hosts listed in the Reseller offers section here, You'll probably find a more reliable company there
good luck
|
| Posted by IGXHost, 04-01-2009, 11:49 AM | | Agreed with njoker555.
When it comes to hosting, any type of hosting, you should try to do background checks on the company. How long has it been around? Any client testimonials/review?
Also check if the type and level of support they offer. If you're starting off small, I highly advise against going with an unlimited/unmetered plan. As njoker said, they're probablt overselling and for that price, it doesn't seem reliable.
Also keep in mind that if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Don't be bought in with the unlimited/unmetered nonsense. Nothing is ever unlimited.
Do some shopping around, low price doesn't necessarily mean good hosting. You want to look for a reliable provider that can offer quality service. The offers section here on WHT should be quite resourceful for you so go have a look. Good luck!
|
| Posted by ldcdc, 04-01-2009, 12:21 PM | | The price will more or less dictate what you'll get. At $60 per year, that's little more than a reseller account. You'll probably be sharing the server with a couple hundred other similar users. You can imagine that even a powerful computer, once "split" into so many pieces, won't give much of a slice to each. The account might be worth a shot for starting out and learning the ropes.
Read the host's terms of service carefully. You'll likely be much more able to judge the service correctly for what it is and what it isn't, once you read that agreement.
|
| Posted by ninak, 04-01-2009, 01:35 PM | | Check ou these places.
Hostgator
ResellerPanel
Godaddy
Then read, read again and one more time. Submit questions and see how fast the response is.
Sit yourself down with a piece of paper and a pencil and put down the good and bad points (in your estimation, not what someone else says) for each company.
Write down also what you want to get out of each and can it be accomplished.
since you are no famiiar with this end so I would go with one that will do the most for you. (Tech, phone, billing etc.)
|
| Posted by StartYourServer, 04-01-2009, 06:30 PM | | That is honestly how it always is with hosting. Unfortunately, most of the offers that seem "too good to be true" usually are...
|
| Posted by deuce1, 04-02-2009, 01:28 AM | | Thanks very much to all of you for your advice.
It has given me alot more to think about and research.
ldcdc, you said that for that price I will probably be sharing the server with a couple of hundred similar users.
Does this mean that I should be having my own server for my reseller account or only have it between a few other people.
Can you tell me if my plan is good or if it should change.
I have recently moved to Dubai.
Me and my business partner have just built a website for a company that we will be starting soon (nothing to do with IT).
We have also done a couple of sites for close friends out here.
Both us and our friends now need to host those sites and so we thought that as a second way of making a small income we would buy a reseller package.
Put our's and our friends sites on there and then my business partner who is experienced in sales and marketing would promote the hosting to get more clients.
We would have around 10 sites initially, but will soon be adding to it.
As things are pretty expensive over here we were planning on under cutting our competition and also give them more for there money.
As this is not our sole income, we can afford to do this.
I have read that an average site uses 500mb of disk space and 5gb of bandwidth per month.
From these figures, if we were to have a package that allowed 1000gb of space and 1000gb of bandwidth, we could have as many as 200 average sites on the one account.
I realise that there will be some sites that use more than the average, but even if we can get as many as 50 clients on one account we could still make a decent profit.
The idea of offering clients unlimited space and bandwidth is a very good selling point.
We would like to do this, but have something in our TOS to state that there is a fair usage policy of no more than 20gb per month.
If every client used this amount it would give us 50 clients.
We were thinking of charging £10 per month to our clients which would be competetive.
As you can see I'm very new to this and don't fully understand it.
Is everything I've said OK, or am I getting it completely wrong.
Thanks for your time.
|
| Posted by ldcdc, 04-02-2009, 10:29 AM | | The more you pay, the fewer accounts the host has to put on a server to break even. That doesn't mean they will put fewer accounts, but it increases the likelihood of it happening. The fewer accounts, the more computing power at your disposal. Just another way of saying "you get what you pay for" really.
I highly suspect that most sites don't reach anywhere near those figures, but the average website "out there" may not be the average website your customers have.
Those figures point towards a dedicated server.
I'm sure it is, but what good is an unlimited package, if it's actually capped to 20GB? Then you're really just offering 20GB.
So you're thinking of charging your customers $500/month in total, and paying... $30?
My recommendation to you is to forget about unlimited everything reseller accounts, and look for a reputable company that you can rely on in the years to come (the forum's search feature, while having some issues these days, should still be of great help). Build your packages around their offer. Start small. You're unlikely to be needing anywhere near 1TB of data transfer in the short, even medium term. You can factor in some overselling (selling more than you actually have on hand), but don't go overboard with it. Let experience guide you with regard to the percentages that customers use out of what you give them.
|
| Posted by StartYourServer, 04-02-2009, 08:32 PM | | Putting ResellersPanel in the same sentence as HostGator and GoDaddy should be a sin. Their hosting is horrible compared to the other 2.
|
| Posted by KMyers, 04-03-2009, 02:39 AM | | I tried ResellersPanel and left after a week, they refused to honor their 30 day refund...
|
| Posted by StartYourServer, 04-03-2009, 08:53 PM | | I would never pay for a service such as theirs. I would initiate a credit card chargeback if I were you.
|
| Posted by KMyers, 04-04-2009, 03:12 AM | | This was almost 2 years ago. I was young and stupid. I have learned ALOT Since then.
Also GoDaddy's Reseller Program blows as well
|
| Posted by Electric-Shadow, 04-04-2009, 08:48 AM | | Have you tried ResellerZoom? something like that would be fine for a small startup host. i've seen plenty of praise for them - it also depends on how much space and bandwidth you need.
EDIT: forget that just noticed the resellerzoom thread further down the forum, they did use to be good however.
|
| Posted by ninak, 04-08-2009, 12:00 PM | | I cannot comment on Hostgator but I can on Godaddy. Two different hosting accounts - both purchased on same day - one was a renewal for a year the other new service for a year. Within three days had to cancel both- money gotten back for new service but told on renewal that it does not come under 30 day guarantee because it is a renewal. Numerous emails to that affect and whith each ticket had to repeat the same situation as it seems they do an automatic response on every ticket you submitted. Waited on phone for almost 20 minutes after getting through the if this press this system.
Hosting at Godaddy is also a hit and miss thing sometimes you are lucky and sometimes you are not. JUST LIKE EVERYPLACE ELSE.
There are and always will be three not two sides to every story. There will be the one that you see, the one that the company sees and the third that binds it all together is the one that actually happens, and this is the one that people just seem not to see.
|
| Posted by xyclonehost, 04-08-2009, 12:32 PM | | godaddy n resellerspanel shldnt be in that list....hostgator's worth a shot...i'm with lonex for comin to 2 yrs now and no complains. ..reason i left hostgator for lonex..its cheaper. heh..
|
| Posted by xyclonehost, 04-08-2009, 12:38 PM | | I think the term 30 days money back guarantee IS for new subscribers and not renewal. and the guarantee is for.."You can try us out..for 30 days..if you are not happy...we'll refund you your money"... so its pretty weird if a renewal would come under the 30 days money back guarantee rule..coz...a renewal is basically.. "you have tried our service for 1 yr..so u r satisfied with our service..and its definitely past the 30 days"
get my drift? and if u didnt have a pleasant experience why did u recommend hostgator, godaddy and resellerspanel? that's pretty weird don't u think?
|
| Posted by ninak, 04-08-2009, 03:09 PM | | Maybe weird but it's just as weird as someone saying something about Resellerpanel and then telling them about Lonex which is part of the the same system, (Taken from websites - Lonex which is a service provided by LiquidNet Ltd – a UK based company.
ResellersPanel is a unique, fully-automated reseller hosting program, developed entirely by LiquidNet Ltd. - a prosperous UK-based hosting company)
Now that to me is weird.
Yes I get your drift, but when service starts to decline and that is the reason for change then according to the outcome (took 3 months but we did win) wheather it is a renewal or an initial investment according to the rules of any client has cancellation rights determined by the date of monetary exchange. In other words if you are giving someone 30days from purchase then that also applies when they renew since they are repurchasing and the time is started from the day that the paymnt was exchanged. Unless otherwise stated all purchases have a three day cooling off period, regardless of the aspect wheather it be renewal or new. (a company may give more time but not less)
|
| Posted by xyclonehost, 04-08-2009, 03:14 PM | | then i suppose its down to their TOS then. however, since you got your refund then i guess everything's settled then.
|
| Posted by easyhost1, 04-08-2009, 05:58 PM | | I agree,their is no such thing as unlimited space, a good dedicated server will cost approx $300 a month, so is this host who pays this $300 a month going to offer unlimited space hosting for $30 a month, which in effect means that you can fill up the whole server space and only pay $30 a month, while your root host pays $300 for the server a month. if he does this he will go bust in a short time.
|
|
 Add to Favourites
 Print this Article
|
