Are any of you folks reselling? I have several clients and Ive considered becoming an authorized reseller for hosting and collecting extra money from the clients and pocketing the difference. Ive never done this before, I always setup their sites and billing through big hosting companies and their credit cards get billed every month, or anually depending on how they set it up. I was just curious for those of you who are doing it, is it worth the pain of trying to get customers to pay on time and how did you handle credit card payments or do you just make them pay for a year up front? If anyone has words of wisdom or advice I'd appreciate suggestions. Thanks!

Not a bad idea, I think getting away from reseller and going anywhere is great. Reseller's suck (no offense), they typically cannot offer the same a real host can. Typically in hosting, you pay for quality.

Good luck with future endeavors.

I think you should become a reseller, its easy to become one and this will give you a consistent stream of revenue as well. Some of the hosting companies provide reseller program in which they handle the support and billing and you get your fixed comission. Search around in google and i am sure you'll easily find one that suits your needs.

In most cases you'd then have to support the end users. If you think the money you could earn are worth the trouble, go ahead. It's really only up to you to decide. Some people's time is worth more than others'.

Originally Posted by ldcdc

In most cases you'd then have to support the end users. If you think the money you could earn are worth the trouble, go ahead. It's really only up to you to decide. Some people's time is worth more than others'.

Reselling is a good way to get started. If you've got enough customers, you might consider purchasing a VPS for better customization and reliability. Supporting end users is one downside if you don't have the expertise, but if you've been creating and managing their sites so far on other hosts, I don't see why it should cause you any trouble.

Originally Posted by whym

but if you've been creating and managing their sites so far on other hosts, I don't see why it should cause you any trouble.

Thats how I look at it. If their website goes down they already call me to find out why. So if Im already the middle man I mise well get paid to do it versus not getting any extra money for the hosting tech support. Its incredibly rare that anyone actually has a hosting related problem with my sites anyway. 95% of them are simple html informative style sites so there's no data or DB related problems.

I plan on using a reseller until my free hosting site gets popular then i will upgrade to a vps server.

So if Im already the middle man I mise well get paid to do it versus not getting any extra money for the hosting tech support. Its incredibly rare that anyone actually has a hosting related problem with my sites anyway. 95% of them are simple html informative style sites so there's no data or DB related problems.

You're lucky. Looks like the downside is almost non existent.

It will be good to have a fusion of domain names and hosting reseller - you may consider to become a Godaddy or Enom or resellerclub reseller (the best three in the market)- It is your choice. Good luck for your reselling business.

Best wishes,

Originally Posted by ldcdc

In most cases you'd then have to support the end users. If you think the money you could earn are worth the trouble, go ahead. It's really only up to you to decide. Some people's time is worth more than others'.

Hi Turbo -

I think you definitely should look at reseller hosting, but I agree with the post above that providing tech. support, which pulls you away from design and development, is a drag. The secret is to find a company (like we've used for three years) that provides the tech. support for you. How can they do that? They set a "wholesale" amount for each plan that covers their support services (and hosting services), and you mark it up to cover your advertising work and profit.

PM me if you are interested in the company, or go to ResellerHostingDot.com (note, they offer traditional VPS and reseller plans too... you want the "Private Label Reseller" plan if you don't want to do the tech. support yourself).

Yours -
Scott

there is some good reseller packages giving you billing support and all the tools that you need for reselling. if you choose such package it will easy for you. for billing whmcs is good and you can use it for you customers for billing and support. this is special offers time and you can search arround and get some good package for good price

Originally Posted by Turbo6PGT

Are any of you folks reselling? I have several clients and Ive considered becoming an authorized reseller for hosting and collecting extra money from the clients and pocketing the difference. Ive never done this before, I always setup their sites and billing through big hosting companies and their credit cards get billed every month, or anually depending on how they set it up. I was just curious for those of you who are doing it, is it worth the pain of trying to get customers to pay on time and how did you handle credit card payments or do you just make them pay for a year up front? If anyone has words of wisdom or advice I'd appreciate suggestions. Thanks!

A reseller account is a good place to start, often cheaper then a VPS or dedicated.
You can slowly build your customer base to cover the costs of a future VPS or dedicated server.

All you have to figure out is what you will need... are your customers using windows and/or linux hosting?

Can they all use the same hardware?

But to keep it short, a reseller account is a good place to start and Im sure there are a few offers here in the forum

Originally Posted by OSWebMaster

...you want the "Private Label Reseller" plan if you don't want to do the tech. support yourself)

You mean you can't get white label or private label reseller plan if you want in-house support?
Then it's worth to go for a company with in-house support and get private nameservers to get a professional look, I recommend to have a look at ahosting.biz reseller plans, they support their resellers via helpdesk.

they support their resellers via helpdesk.

Virtually all reseller hosting providers support their resellers via helpdesk and some other means as well. I don't see anything special in it, to warrant the recommendation of one company over the others.

Originally Posted by icyblue

You mean you can't get white label or private label reseller plan if you want in-house support?
Then it's worth to go for a company with in-house support and get private nameservers to get a professional look, I recommend to have a look at ahosting.biz reseller plans, they support their resellers via helpdesk.

Hi IcyBlue -

Yes... "You" do get top level support on the standard reseller plans -- like the cPanel program. But your clients (the people you put on your server on a hosting package you set up), do not get support from the company. You have to provide it.

On the private label plan, both you AND your clients receive top quality tech. support.

Hope that clarifies it. You can always chat with the staff at the site if you have more questions (ResellerHostingDot.com).

- Scott

They don't need to do that, Scott. The staff's already posting in this thread.

http://whois.domaintools.com/resellerhostingdot.com

Go ahead, Scott. Offer IcyBlue some tech support. The staff must be very knowledgeable.

Like all blackhat vested-interest self-promoting spammers, you were destined to slip up sooner or later. James Lewitzke had you pegged from the get-go, I had you pegged from the get-go, now everyone else will too. The only reason, and I repeat the only reason, you're here is to drop self-promoting links to your third-rate monkey crap. You don't care about what others think, and you never did...the only people you care about are named Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Hamilton, Jackson, etc.

Oh wait...I'm sorry. I just went off-topic. Go ahead, tell me how off-topic I am. Or better yet, spin doctor some completely illogical explanation about how this is perfectly legitimate because it pertains to the topic at hand. Whatever it is, I'm sure it will be a highly entertaining lie.

Mods: what more is it going to take for you guys to realize what James and I already know (i.e. that this guy is a self-promoting blackhat with no interest in the greater good of the community as a whole?) If this doesn't do it, I have no idea what will.

Turbo6PGT: I used to resell hosting (sort of) and what I did was put all the accounts on one bill on my credit card and then billed the client. My clients were local, so I took cheque payments; it's cheaper in terms of bank fees and it was easier to manage/maintain since I just put their hosting on top of their design services all on one bill. Everyone won.

That's the big tip I can give you right now: resell everything that you can yourself. The client gets one bill, and you get more money per client (so it doesn't take as much to grow). The other advantage is that, if you design the sites you're hosting, you can offer better support since you'll have a more thorough understanding of their business needs. You can still get support from the host itself, but then if it's some small issue you can handle it too.

there are a few options on hosting reselling. you can buy a reseller account and allocate individual account for your client under your reseller account. The most popular reseller hosting is the WHM support cPanel, some also provide a billing system like WHMCS to automate the hosting selling and provide end-user support which usually cost you $3 to $10 extra per month.

there is another type of reseller hosting account using their own system and the provider will handle the end-user support make reselling hosting a very simple business. example like tactichost.com