Hey guys i know this will sound a little crazy but still i will give it a shot and ask you. Well i am trying to make a website like godaddy.com or hostgator.com I do not want to buy a reseller program from someone else and sell hosting and pay commisions. I wanna run my own servers and make the most money out of this business. So Please give me some advices on making the most money from web hosting thanks. Answers are already appreicated thanks. P.s: I just wanna make the most out of this so any idea will be good, evenif its a reseller program, i just want to setup my own prices, i wanna sell them for cheap so i can get more customers.
As always, you can not just run away and buy ten servers on your own, before you even have any clients. So my suggestion would be that you start out as a client yourself, using someone elses infrastructure and selling from there. That will be much cheaper for you in the beginning and you are still free to set your own prices.
Running your own server is not as easy as you think it may be. There are several cost factors that you will need to put on the table such as server rent, software licensing, etc. Are you an expert in server administration and security? If not, you will need to hire a professional management company to manage that for you. Let me detail the cost for you. Server rental: $100/month at a start cPanel: $20-$30/month Other Software Licenses if you consider: $xx/month (WHMCS) Besides that, do you intend to have data backup? Add that to your monthly cost if you value your customers' data. I see several small hosting 'companies' close down due to the lost of data, and they do not what to do in this situation. Starting from a reseller plan should be a better choice rather than jumping into a dedicated server. There is not a lot of overhead costs involve in a reseller, as license and administration have been taken care of. If you have any technical issues you can't solve or have no knowledge on it, you can simply seek help from your hosting company. Selling cheap web hosting plan is one way to earn fast money, but the market has been saturated with $5/year web hosting plan. I advise that you concentrate on a niche market, provide personal level service to your customers and charge a premium for it. Side note to OP: Providing web hosting service is not just hosting a website and that's it. You will come across several technical issues if you go through the server route and you are all alone without any administration expertise.
In the initial stages you will make much more profit from a Reseller Plan that you will make from running your own servers. If you want to run a "proper" hosting company you can't do it with a single server. You need multiple servers, spare parts, staff on hand, networking equipment, racks, power, transit providers and the set-up costs of that kind will run into at least 5 figures with running costs in excess of 4 figures per month for a very (very) small set-up. There is less risk with a Reseller Plan, and if you use the right host then you can build a good profit base before starting out with your own servers. We have reseller customers who easily make 6 figure incomes (UK Sterling) while we are the one who operate all the servers and systems for them.
Start off with a resellers plan - there are some very good resellers programs around that you can set your own pricing and make good money. Try and find one that also offers support to your customers too unless you have staff and can provide 24/7 help, which is expected of a host these days. Good luck.
I think you need to kook around to make sure how many web hosts are there. You will have plenty of competitors and that will not be as easy as you said.
I agree with everyone else who suggested that you start out with someone else's infrastructure. If you have no previous experience managing servers, I recommend starting out with a reseller account. As you grow and learn more through providing customer support for your clients, you can upgrade to VPS and finally to fully managed dedicated servers. This is what I did. If you have extensive experience managing servers, but don't have many clients to help pay for staff, I recommend you lease servers in a datacenter. This way, you don't have to have your own staff or spare parts lying around. In either case, you'll have another company's infrastructure and staff to provide the backend support you need so you can concentrate on taking care of your customers. All that said, if you have lots of money and can afford to buy equipment and spare parts up front, lease space in a datacenter and hire your own inhouse staff, then by all means, go right ahead. I do suggest that in any case, you make sure you have a very good business plan that will help you grow your business and maintain control of your cashflow.
How exactly can I start out with a reseller account? Please PM me if you can and want to show me the details. Thank you.
I advise that you can purchase from a reputable company who is excellent in technical support and stand behind your back to assist you in solving technical issues. You have to scan through a list of companies, do research or Google about them. Top 10 companies review sites are certainly not recommended.
If you are asking such questions you shouldn't start with your own server. Buy some reasonable priced reseller hosting plan, build up your company website and start to test which marketing strategies lead to good results. When you will sure that you are able to get enough clients for your own server then buy one.
Its too much hassle to run your own server and supporting your clients. As everyone said, you can start of with reseller plan but remember that even if you choose a reseller plan you have to handle your client's support, both technical and non technical.
That's right so you need to make sure that the reseller hosting package you will buy comes with good support for you as the reseller. Most of the technical problems can be answered only by the company where you have the reseller account so you will ask them first and then you will answer to your client.