revenue in reseller's hosting

[Lester128]

I was just wondering if it is really profitable to be a reseller, I mean if you have no other business to accompany it. Sorry for the question, I'm thinking about pros and cons of becoming a reseller, but don't really know anything about profits to make my business plan.

[Craig]

Hi

There is much money to make from having a reseller account, I started with a reseller account & still have loads as well as over 30 dedicated servers.

If your a new web host starting with a reseller is the best thing to do, build up a client base, save costs on admins, bandwidth, server payments etc etc plus you don't need to worry about server monitoring as the server admin does all that for you.

Once your making enough take the leap from a reseller to a full server (NOT VPS) & watch your business grow. Allot of reseller providers these days offer software which allow you to re-sell reseller accounts from your main account so having a reseller account these days is just like having your own server :-).

[Wojtek]

take the leap from a reseller to a full server (NOT VPS)
Might want to explain me why?

[Craig]

Might want to explain me why?

VPS *IMO* & my experiences shouldn't be used for providing hosting solutions as they are slow. VPS are fine for personal sites. Plus why move from a reseller to VPS to dedicated (full), too much migration.

Don't get me wrong, I use VPS but only for backups.

[James]

VPS *IMO* & my experiences shouldn't be used for providing hosting solutions as they are slow. VPS are fine for personal sites. Plus why move from a reseller to VPS to dedicated (full), too much migration.

Don't get me wrong, I use VPS but only for backups.

Yes, agreed. VPS is limited, though some of the VPS I came across are performing very well (512MB ram at least on Woodcrests).

You can profit from reselling for sure. You need the patience and skills however. ;)

[ldcdc]

You need to find a market that doesn't buy on price alone, since reseller packages are only so cheap, and venturing in the huge overselling realm is definitely not a thing to do without serious statistical data, that, as a new host, you can't possibly have. That's the tough nut that you have to crack! :)

[James]

You need to find a market that doesn't buy on price alone, since reseller packages are only so cheap, and venturing in the huge overselling realm is definitely not a thing to do without serious statistical data, that, as a new host, you can't possibly have. That's the tough nut that you have to crack! :)

Yes you need to find that market of yours. Nicely put.

[Wojtek]

Well, I'd still use a VPS in between
reseller -> managed VPS -> unmanaged dedi
or
reseller -> fully managed dedi

the reason is because on a reseller you do nothing technical.
Set your plans, billing and support desk, and promote.

On a dedi you have this whole concept of administration, security, setting everything up. Without proper knowledge one little thing can cause you lots of unwanted downtime :)

fully managed dedicated servers cost a pretty penny, might as well get a managed vps or two and learn how to make it work. Less of a learning curve then from reseller -> unmanaged dedi.

But, if you know linux at the same level as you know the english language, then go ahead and do the reseller -> unmanaged dedi way :)

[Amaresh]

I have also gone the way Wojtek has outlined, and I too feel that the jump from a reseller to a dedi would be too much, and migrating to a VPS would be the natural choice for most.

I'd rather not play around with a dedi without getting my hands dirty with a VPS first.

[Matsta]

Yep your right Wojtek. If you know virtually nothing about linux and root access and SSH, WHM, mod_rewrite,firewall etc. you'll find it dam hard to run a dedi and it'll cost more than a VPS to get it managed by someone else if you can learn you can manage it yourself and save yourself a few $$$$

[ldcdc]

I don't know, I would prefer the host to learn how to run a server on its own computer at home, not on the production environment where I have my sites.

Bigger VPSs might be OK for reselling purposes, but the entry level ones aren't exactly equipped for performance. Just a personal opinion.

[Wojtek]

Bigger VPSs might be OK for reselling purposes, but the entry level ones aren't exactly equipped for performance. Just a personal opinion.
This is obvious. You should not jump from a 20$ reseller to a 30$ vps :)

Note for people thinking about taking the reseller->vps route: Consider a vps with 512Mb+ of ram, and look around for a place that guarantees you a certain cpu processing usage.
Equal Share would not be that good, as someone with a 128mb vps would have the same cpu resources as someone with a 512mb vps.

[James]

All to do with what kind of sites you host as well, a lot of startup hosts use VPS.