becoming a reseller & need advice

[sprouter]

Hi I am about to start up selling hosting & would like any tips or advice. Never done it before & don't know where to start. I definately want just want to be a reseller, too complicated getting my own server as I am not really all that technical. I will also need some advice on reseller packages at a good price if you can recommend some.

Thanks.

[James]

Sprouter,

As for a reseller package you could request for quotes here at FWS.

It's not so bad to be a reseller with a reseller account, if you operate your business well enough. If you have never done it before it would be ideal for you to make some "buddies" online who are experienced and are willing to help you out, should you face any problems.

If you have the money though, definately consider getting a pretty stable managed server.

[sprouter]

Sprouter,

As for a reseller package you could request for quotes here at FWS.

It's not so bad to be a reseller with a reseller account, if you operate your business well enough. If you have never done it before it would be ideal for you to make some "buddies" online who are experienced and are willing to help you out, should you face any problems.

If you have the money though, definately consider getting a pretty stable managed server.
Hi James, yeah I wanted to know about the features I should be looking for in a reseller hosting plan? I know I want enough space & bandwidth but what other features are "a must" for a up coming reseller like myself?

[monaghan]

Naturally I'd reccomend our reseller hosting :) (Linux/cPanel or Windows/Helm)

What you need to think about is your market, most control panels make it easy to be a reseller as there're more or less point and click to do just about everything. The key thing is marketing.

Do you offer Linux/cPanel or Linux with another panel, what about Windows ?

Think about what your customer will want. Everyone these days seems to offer cpanel hosting for just a few $'s, if you're going to do the same, then think about what will make them come to you instead of someone else.

Also, think about the costs, a $1 package sold by Paypal is not going to leave you with much in the bank after PayPal have had their cut and will most probably get you a string of clients who don't care and will leave you as soon as they see a $0.75 package. Read through some of the older posts here and other forums to see the sort of thing you can expect from a client at differing price ranges.

A basic cPanel reseller account on a host with Fantastico will give you basic support & billing scripts, if you need something more advanced, then there's a whole range of paid products to help you run your business.

[James]

I wouldn't go far as recommending my own service as it will undermine the reason I posted in the topic.

You should research into types of hosting and decide which genre fits your way of liking and skill. Windows or Linux? What control panel? This type of research. Seek advice, read, ask around.

Think about money as well. When looking for a package, do not look simply for the cheapest plan with the highest disk space and bandwidth. There's a thousands reason why, all of which you will only be able to realize later in the game.

Think about the type of potential target clients. Make a clear plan.

[sprouter]

I see your point there. I am not going to try and be the cheapest as this would be an impossible task as the competition is high. Rather I wanted to offer my webdesign clients hosting but also offer a quality hosting service at a "good / fair" price. I also wanted to offer free hosting for those who post in my forums, one of those post for host deals.

[monaghan]

I'm not sure that you'll make much (if anything) with post for hosting, however as a designer it's useful to be able to offer the complete design & host solution, this would be a good selling point.

As you're the designer, then I'd get an account that has the common features you'd expect when selecting a host for one of your designs.

The simplest option would be get a middle of the road reseller account, avoid the very cheap, especially if you have good relationships with your hosed customers. The only thing you need to decide is whether you want a *nix based account or a Windows based account.

Talk to your potential supplier before buying, make sure you can easily upgrade if needed, make sure they'll have the support methods you need. Simple ticket based support is much cheaper to provide than 24/7 phone, however may not be as quick to get a reply, so think what you actually need.

Finally decide whether location matters, if your customer wants easy inclusion in the newer generation of "local" searches, then you'll want a server located in the country where you clients have most customers, or possibly have accounts on servers in several locations.

There's no substitute for reading and even more reading, look for the "my host is sh*t because..." type of post to see where most people (hosts and clients) make the common mistakes and then you can hopefully learn from them.

[sprouter]

I'm not sure that you'll make much (if anything) with post for hosting, however as a designer it's useful to be able to offer the complete design & host solution, this would be a good selling point.

As you're the designer, then I'd get an account that has the common features you'd expect when selecting a host for one of your designs.

The simplest option would be get a middle of the road reseller account, avoid the very cheap, especially if you have good relationships with your hosed customers. The only thing you need to decide is whether you want a *nix based account or a Windows based account.

Talk to your potential supplier before buying, make sure you can easily upgrade if needed, make sure they'll have the support methods you need. Simple ticket based support is much cheaper to provide than 24/7 phone, however may not be as quick to get a reply, so think what you actually need.

Finally decide whether location matters, if your customer wants easy inclusion in the newer generation of "local" searches, then you'll want a server located in the country where you clients have most customers, or possibly have accounts on servers in several locations.

There's no substitute for reading and even more reading, look for the "my host is sh*t because..." type of post to see where most people (hosts and clients) make the common mistakes and then you can hopefully learn from them.
Thanks Alex that is good advice. Yeah the post for hosting is just a part of the overall plan. Many of my clients will be paying customers & the free hosting will be supplimented by advertising dollars. Do reseller packages offer a ticket supports system that I can offer clients? Also what is the best automated billing system do you think on offer? Why do I need to choose between linux & windows, I mean what is the difference to the end user?

[Craig]

Hi

Make sure you pick a company that offers quality & fast support, a good idea is to test there support first by emailing them & see how long it takes for a reply, also if you can find one that offers a money back, ie 10, 20, 30 days etc etc then you can always claim your moneyback & this gives you a great testing period. There are many billing scripts out there, clientexec which is one of the best & has a build in ticket system but if your starting out you should look at WHMCS.com, this has everything, billing, client area, domain checker, downloads section & its all in one & its very easy to install.

Goodluck

[monaghan]

Do reseller packages offer a ticket supports system that I can offer clients?
Depends :) If you have a cPanel system with Fantastico, then you can install a few different options with just a few clicks, however as a web designer, then I'd expect that you'd be able to search the Internet and find a whole range of ticket systems to install. The choice is yours, research !

Also what is the best automated billing system do you think on offer?
I use whois.cart (www.whoiscart.net), I ditched ClientExec a year or so ago, but that's had a new release recently, so should be far better, again, there's many systems and I guess how they fit into your current customer billing arrangements will be the key, so we're back to research again :)

Why do I need to choose between linux & windows, I mean what is the difference to the end user?
The main reason for choosing Windows is offering ASP or ASP.Net based hosting, if you have no need for this, then a *nix based system will probably be your best bet.

[RHSourceLimited]

sprouter - I've sent you a PM.

[Jan]

Did you PM advice or spam? I get suspicious when people can't be open on a forum. Why do they PM? Is it because they have been here before and trying to hide it? Is their URL censored?

[sprouter]

Did you PM advice or spam? I get suspicious when people can't be open on a forum. Why do they PM? Is it because they have been here before and trying to hide it? Is their URL censored?
SPAM, yeah....[edit]....but hey at least he apologized (see later post).

[X3r0X]

Tsk tsk tsk it was his first post too. NOT the best way to become accepted in this community :P.

As for recommending resellers, the best thing you can do (I think as someone else stated before) is simply search google for "xxx host" that you are comtemplating to use as your host and see if any negative/positive feedback comes up. FWS is a good resource, as are many other forums, for finding feedback. But still remember to take all comments with a grain of salt, you never know whos writing them after all :).

[WL-Michael]

Yeh, guy has been PM'ing everyone like this. Shame.

[RHSourceLimited]

Sorry about that. I'm new to these forums as you can see so I'll know not to do this again.

sprouter - Please kindly remove my email address from your post.

Thanks.

[sprouter]

Sorry about that. I'm new to these forums as you can see so I'll know not to do this again.

sprouter - Please kindly remove my email address from your post.

Thanks.
NO Problem, sorry about that just got a bit carried away :wink2:

[Jan]

What are you hiding RH Serve?

[RHSourceLimited]

NO Problem, sorry about that just got a bit carried away



Cheers - appreciated



Jan - I have nothing to hide.



(:

[HostFrog]

Hi I am about to start up selling hosting & would like any tips or advice. Never done it before & don't know where to start. I definately want just want to be a reseller, too complicated getting my own server as I am not really all that technical. I will also need some advice on reseller packages at a good price if you can recommend some.

Thanks.

Well you should start off very small, and don't get in over your head. Otherwise it will be near impossible for you to make a profit on reseller hosting. Do not offer packages for $2.00 a month. Basically that is not feasible with reseller hosting packages that are 1-4GB in diskspace with a company that does not allow overselling. Basically they limit you to resource usage, and depending on your diskspace and transit (bandwidth) applied to your account, is how many accounts you can create. So the lesson today is, that if you are considering starting a hosting company, I would suggest you do some research on a web hosting that would be right for you. Plus always keep in mind, offer small packages at higher rates. If you can offer good support when needed you should not have a problem. You know the ol saying "You Get What You Pay For" Well that is especially in the hosting industry. Think about it!

Good reseller Hosting for novice hosting company: http://www.quickhost.com

This company offers Anonymous Technical Support. Meaning they do the support for YOU, and your company gets the credit for it. Very good for starting reseller companies :) Have fun!