Reselling... Is it worth it?

[siradio]

While sorting out my various hosting accounts, I decided to finally check out reseller packages (on both hostgator and eleven2) and I got to wondering whether its actually worth becoming a reseller?

Judging from some of the packages I saw, the level of profit you could make relies on you charging a pretty high price for a fairly low amount of bandwidth and storage.

It all seems a little fruitless considering that those sites offer regular hosting for much cheaper than their resellers possibly could without making a loss.

I do know we have a lot of resellers on these forums, so i'm curious as to whether its worth bothering with, and how exactly you can approach reselling with a high chance of at least making a small profit margin while offering competitive packages.

 

[blue^ray]

Hi, Ive been told the market is saturated and its hard to earn anything unless if you can invest the time to become a reputable (spelling?) reseller.

Also you would need to know how to help customers who have problem as I believe a reseller is responsible for helping their clients.

 

[peter phillips]

Pricing is very delicate issue here so if you set your prices too high, you will not attract any customers, set them too low and people will get suspicious about your services. So you'll need to find a nice balance between those two.

Starting out small in is pretty important in keeping your costs low and keeping your business under control. As long as you keep your costs at minimum you may make money. Key point is to attract customer with your custom solutions for their hosting need.

 

[NetworkTown.Net]

Well now that there is around 1000+ companys out there it is very hard to get customers only if you have time and money do it i have ran 3 diffrent hosting companys and i know that you have to put a lot of effort into it, becuase there is alot of companys i would not recomend doing it.

 

[madore9]

honestley its not worth it, getting a reseller account is never going to work if you really want to get into hosting i recommened getting a VPS or a dedicated so you can sell reseller accounts, no one trusts (with good reason) hosts that only sell shared hosting since usually they just have reseller accounts. you would also need to put the money into a nice web site.

 

[BeZazz]

Judging from some of the packages I saw, the level of profit you could make relies on you charging a pretty high price for a fairly low amount of bandwidth and storage.

in the hosting game most ppl over sell their resources

just say you had 10gigs of space
you may sell 15 1gig packages knowing/hopeing that that most ppl will only use a percentage of what you allow them and the same goes with bandwidth

when it comes to hosting ppl always get more more space and bandwidth then they actually use, at a guess (at near 3am lol) in the years i have been hosting(mainly admin of servers) 1%-2% actually use what they pay for

so most hosts i know over sell based on the fact they know percentage wise the vast majority of users will never use all of what is given to them

 

[Celdric]

I have a reseller account. In the past I used it just for my private domains.
And I don't think that I will sell webspace ever because the market is too hard. But I know a couple of people who are in need of freehosting. May be I try to earn some $$ with adds.

 

[siradio]

Thanks for all the input - I was kind of dubious about the possibility of becoming a reseller, and now i'm pretty much against it - I do have a question, however...

Can anyone tell me what it takes to sell server space for online games, such as Counter-strike? I'd imagine theres a whole added level of configuration required, however if anyone can help me out it'd be appreciated.

Thnx

 

[BeZazz]

you would need a dedicated server, it all depends but when it comes to game servers they require a lot of resources also you would have to know atleast the basics when it comes to compileing etc

 

[gauravmm]

Before going into business, ask yourself:
-Do I have the money to purchase my own server
-Can i offer, at a lower price, the same functionality
-Can I give 24/7 Support
-Can i pay for the advertising
If all the answers are YES, then you should start your own Webhosting.
(P.S. PM me if u do, i may be interested)

 

[beaver6813]

I tried getting in the web hosting game a few years back. I can tell you now, start as small as you can and gradually grow. Otherwise the money that you loose supporting the server and hoping that you get more customers is ludicrous.

It is a very saturated market but if you have the money for advertising you might do well. Although i found word-of-mouth the best form of advertising. I suppose its good for web experience, but you gotta be dedicated.

(I sold my hosting company )

 

[RickM]

Well now that there is around 1000+ companys out there it is very hard to get customers only if you have time and money do it i have ran 3 diffrent hosting companys and i know that you have to put a lot of effort into it, becuase there is alot of companys i would not recomend doing it.

Talk about understatement of the century!

On the last survey by WHIR there were over 800 thousand hosting providers that were over 6 months old. Thats a lot of hosts!

TBH no, its not worth it - not unles you have lots (i.e 10-100k) of cash to invest in a huge advertising campaign.

 

[Ray]

Heh.. i personally would get a reseller package only if you didnt want to sell.. You could use that package to create mini sites for cash.

 

[Millar]

Yes, I suppose reseller account's are pretty useful for setting up multiple websites, but it is extremely hard to generate profit from reselling.

 

[Virgil]

Reseller accounts are great if you're a web designer/developer because it makes it easier to offer your clients an integral service. If you plan to compete with web hosting companies, then it will be a very though task - not impossible, mind you- but you'll need to find a niche.

I've been in the webhosting business since 1997, and most of my reseller clients (the ones that have lasted past their first 9 months) are using their accounts precisely the way I described.

 

[VI5]

It's common sense to oversell.

Think about it, phone comapnies do it, ISPs do it, electricity companies do it, every service company does. If they didn't equipment and stuff would be rendered useless apart from rare occasions.

I wouldn't buy hosting and plan to use 80% of the bandwidth as its too risky for my site going down. I would honestly say (for people using shared hosting) that using 20% of the bandwidth is high.

As for using a reseller I wouldn't, I'm in my first week (just) of offering web hosting from a VPS and 2/3s of my clients have bought reseller accounts.

Some hosts don't offer reseller accounts as there is more work involved for them, they have to check all those sites to see if they're sending out spam etc, it's not just because they're using a reseller account.

 

[theprimehost]

A lot of people establish themselves in the industry as a web developer who offers hosting along with development (i.e. - They sell design and hosting services. The complete package.) That's the best way to carve a niche out for yourself. Since you've done the design, the customer typically will count on you for every aspect of their website, including keeping it online for a monthly fee that you deem justifiable.

 

[mogsub]

As a website designer/programmer I have a reseller account in order to host multiple websites reliably without having to worry about server management. I had a very few customers in the past that didn't have a hosting provider and when I sold them the sites I also offered them some months hosting