discuss.

A reseller is a business. In that sense, there is no difference between the two propositions.

Renting a server doesn't make a host any more of a "real company". There are resellers with tens of accounts and hundreds of customers, whereas there are dedicated server owners with a much smaller customer base.

Reseller vs Dedicated is very much a matter of which fits your short and medium term needs and abilities better.

Originally Posted by ldcdc

...Renting a server doesn't make a host any more of a "real company"...

That's the part that really sticks out for me for some reason, and number one reason why I started this topic in the first place.

I got to thinking: if I were to open a reseller account and send tons of traffic to "my company", all I would be doing is promoting somebody else's company/servers.

If I owned my own server(s), all the traffic I am sending to my company would actually be building my company.


Was also hoping to get some insight from people who are, or have been on both sides of the fence themselves about the pros and cons of each- and am also open to hearing the horror stories, especially, in the realm of each.

I got to thinking: if I were to open a reseller account and send tons of traffic to "my company", all I would be doing is promoting somebody else's company/servers.

In depends on the definition and details of "reseller". There are lots of reseller accounts out there where you get to create your own package, set your own prices etc. Eventually you can even move your customers (their accounts and data) to your own dedicated server, hosted anywhere you please.

Say I were to contract 200 something clients and each client had one website.

What would be the downside of transferring all of their data from the servers I have a reseller account with to a server that I personally set-up and got working... so far the only downside I can think of is the 7 dollar per domain fee it would cost to transfer all of those domains.

That's kind of the thing that's making me think that if I get into this, that I should probably have my own server first- or else i'm going to pay 7 dollars times whatever amount of domains there are that my clients have later on.

Some more insight on this? that would be awesome.

you can even move your customers (their accounts and data) to your own dedicated server, hosted anywhere you please.

yes, but at 8 dollars (ICANN transfer fee) per domain.

one would have to look at the pros and cons of that scenario too though, eh?

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so far (and forgive me for thinking out loud) i'm thinking the way to do this is to get my own server, and then start sending traffic. Not open a reseller account somewhere, and then put up with that transfer fee of a set-back cost later.


The horror stories of having your own server and providing support for your clients?

hairygunther has scared the sh*t out of me with tales of foreign hackers.

Anything else one needs to be concerned about before embarking on such an endeavour? Any hidden gems of insight someone can't glean from *just* reading about it, and needs to be "in the thick of it" first so to speak, to get a better handle on?

Customer support (that isn't out-sourced, or delegated to others) I imagine could be a big time-vampire.

Resseler is the easy way.But clients dont like it much.Own a company for hosting is the proffesional way.But its not easy at all.

Starting your own company is definitely better, even if you take into consideration all the fee's etc you need to pay. If your internet link is reliable and you got the capital to start a business I think that you should go for it. And then maybe you can offer the reseller opportunity as well. I have researched alot into setting up on my own, unfortunately my location is a problem and the internet provider is not as reliable as it should be.

Taking in all the math and calculations and comparisons, you ROI will be in a year or 2 if you have enough customers available at the moment. Even advertising fees are not that expensive if you really look into it. So if you got the cash and starting up, let me know, maybe you can offer some good packages.