Reselling web hosting, Anyone do it?
Discussion
Unless you can outsource all of your support to who ever you're reselling for - It's impossible to compete if you're a one man band.
You've got companies selling unlimited everything, 24/7 support and a free domain for 30p a month (Slight exaggeration on the price
but it's just a race to the bottom).
cPanel licenses are ridiculously priced these days with the account restrictions they bought in last year, but they've cornered their customers as it's a major pain to change and to be fair to them it's the best product for the job.
You've got companies selling unlimited everything, 24/7 support and a free domain for 30p a month (Slight exaggeration on the price
but it's just a race to the bottom).cPanel licenses are ridiculously priced these days with the account restrictions they bought in last year, but they've cornered their customers as it's a major pain to change and to be fair to them it's the best product for the job.
As above. No money to be paid in just reselling web hosting. Web devs can make a tiny bit of money on it because clients are happy for there to be one person/company hosting and supporting their site.
The only money to be made is if you can find a way to value add, or focus on a particular high-paying niche, like high security government hosting.
The only money to be made is if you can find a way to value add, or focus on a particular high-paying niche, like high security government hosting.
It is still doable.
As others have said, there is a clear advantage for those who are web developers - we host the vast majority of the sites we develop as we can control the hosting requirements and make sure that the hosting doesn't cause issues... We don't enter the race to the bottom and compete with the cheapest we can find - that would be to give away our skills and time - so we charge a commercial cost for the hosting which is a) reasonable for our clients and b) makes us a profit... however, as a part of that we manage that hosting for our clients, so it is totally trouble free for them, and because we control the hosting, it is mainly trouble free for us!
If you want to just resell hosting, some thoughts:
- your own server will make you more money - i.e. go further up the chain to make more from it, if you are already paying a company which is paying another company etc. then the profit is taken up-stream - go directly to renting the rackspace and you will clear more...
- don't compete with the silly up-front offers from GoDaddy / 123-Reg / etc. - look into what they really charge and add up all the costs and then make it more transparent to your clients - in reality their £1 domains end up far more expensive for those who keep them there year on year...
- profits come from scale, so there is little point in doing it for only a few people - you need to scale and be able to scale fast to make it worthwhile
we have three or 4 servers on the go at any one time - are in a continual path of upgrading them (which takes time), but have a large number of clients hosting active websites on them - and for our clients it really is an easy solution, with little effort for them.
As others have said, there is a clear advantage for those who are web developers - we host the vast majority of the sites we develop as we can control the hosting requirements and make sure that the hosting doesn't cause issues... We don't enter the race to the bottom and compete with the cheapest we can find - that would be to give away our skills and time - so we charge a commercial cost for the hosting which is a) reasonable for our clients and b) makes us a profit... however, as a part of that we manage that hosting for our clients, so it is totally trouble free for them, and because we control the hosting, it is mainly trouble free for us!
If you want to just resell hosting, some thoughts:
- your own server will make you more money - i.e. go further up the chain to make more from it, if you are already paying a company which is paying another company etc. then the profit is taken up-stream - go directly to renting the rackspace and you will clear more...
- don't compete with the silly up-front offers from GoDaddy / 123-Reg / etc. - look into what they really charge and add up all the costs and then make it more transparent to your clients - in reality their £1 domains end up far more expensive for those who keep them there year on year...
- profits come from scale, so there is little point in doing it for only a few people - you need to scale and be able to scale fast to make it worthwhile
we have three or 4 servers on the go at any one time - are in a continual path of upgrading them (which takes time), but have a large number of clients hosting active websites on them - and for our clients it really is an easy solution, with little effort for them.
Gassing Station | Business | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff