Hey everyone, This post is mainly aimed at freelance web designer and developers. I was wondering whether you could share some of the advantages and disadvantages of the hosting method you currently use to host client's websites. Do you host them on your own hosting account? Do they do it themselves? Or do you have access to the client's host login information? Im especially interested in finding out whether hosting client's sites yourself provides an interesting source of income as a designer, or is it something you could easily go without? I'm looking forward to reading everyone's opinions.
When I design, manage and provide content for my clients' websites, it's just convenient to host them as well as it gives me control over what's going on. I have a reseller account for that purpose, so if my client (or someone on their team) would need to access the site, I'd just give them their account info. In some cases, where clients already have hosting and they want me to work with that, I do that, but it can get awkward if/when their web person changes passwords etc. As to additional income... I don't usually charge extra for hosting - it's part of the retainer for the complete service, which includes providing (SEO) content etc. Hosting their sites also makes the website hands-off for my clients, which they like.
I work with a few web hosting companies and have seen freelance developers and designers taking care of friends, family, and clients who have very little hosting knowledge. It can be a nice way to do a favor and earn a few extra bucks. There are two main ways to do this. 1) you just host their sites through your shared hosting plan, this restricts the access that they could possibly have, but is easy, especially with low traffic sites and people who don't need access. 2) I would consider using a reseller program. At that point, the resources allocated to your account can be split among as many smaller accounts as you wish. As owner of a reseller hosting account, you hold administrative access, and then you can create and manage a number of your own hosting accounts, though the exact number will depend on your particular reseller hosting package. Each hosting account you create exists separately from other accounts sharing the server, but all remain within your reseller account. Here's an example of that from a company I use Nexcess: https://www.nexcess.net/hosting/reseller Hope this helps.
One practice I've heard of people doing (for good sometimes, and sometimes people can use this for bad intentions) is hosting clients sites, and they use that as leverage to make sure the client pays future bills. The bad example is web designers who try to force clients to stay with them when the client wants to leave, and refuse to give up the hosted content and even domain names.
I have been a freelance software engineer for many years now building websites and web apps. I do not want to become a hosting company. I much prefer hosting companies whom have their own team of engineers to patch and keep servers up and running. I generally will use pantheon for WordPress, bluehost/godaddy for other sites and if there is a need, I will spin up an amazon instance in the rare case. I want to focus my time on what I love doing, not worrying about the hosting sys ops side.
It depends. If they already have hosting, I go with it ( except their hosting is bad or they can't find the passwords ), else, I give them hosting free of charge for being my clients.
In my experience I have found that offering hosting makes life easier for my clients, I started out just doing basic sites and hosting them with other people for my clients however I found that sometimes I didn't have the control I wanted over PHP etc so instead I took the route of offering my clients the chance to use me for hosting and that has now become normal for me, I manage the server and sites for them with ease as once setup there is not much time I have to spend maintaining the server. Profit wise, If people have had a website made I don't charge them as I include it in the price for the first year after that I found that it is a very good source of income if done correctly.
You can get a hosting reseller account and use this providing hosting to your clients. This is the best option if you do not want to be involved with the technical aspect of the hosting. If anything happens such as for example mails not being delivered, you can call your hosting provider and have them fix the problem. If you feel comfortable with the command line, you can get a vps with cpanel. Cpanel is a hosting control panel that makes it super easy to provide hosting to your clients. If you have many clients, this will be the most profitable option for you. However, you are on your own there. Every time there is a problem you will have to fix it and to also maintain the server. Of course, you can hire a company to do this stuff for you.
The only way you are going to get rich is with RESIDUAL INCOME. If you are a Web Designer/Developer and you have an opportunity to HOST a clients web site than you have an opportunity to earn reoccurring monthly income. What I would do is come up with a package where your client pays X amount per month for hosting, maintenance and updates. Perhaps $149/mo. Wouldn't it be nice if you were able to develop a relationship with 50 clients and earn a $90 in annual residual income while also being able to profit from working with more clients and upselling other services? Everyone is saying "I'm not a hosting service" is probably not successful or could be more successful financially speaking. What if you had a niche for hair salons/stylists and built a turnkey web site solution which allows you the ability to launch a web site with widgets and capability to schedule appointments etc.. You could charge a design fee then a monthly fee for using the site and support.
There are multiple advantages to hosting the website yourself. This includes having more control over it, as others have commented above. It makes matters easier for clients, as almost all don't wish to have the hassle of dealing with a webhost or technical matters. If every client were to be with a different web host, with different contact details, interfaces etc. it'd make matters very difficult for any web design company with lots of clients. Therefore it's better to have them in one place. We have a mix of clients using their own web hosts, which they were on before we started managing their websites, and those using our webhosting account. As NetStar says, it can also enable a web designer to earn some recurring commissions by charging slightly more than the web host, which is only fair as one is taking a burden off the hands of the client.
If your client isn't tech-savvy, doesn't care about researching hosting and isn't worried about saving $5-$10 / month, then you should host them through a re-seller program at one of the big hosting companies (hostgator, bluehost, liquidweb etc) and earn yourself some small passive income from it. After you get a few clients, hosting your own sites will basically become free which is nice. If your client is smaller and is worried about these small issues, you should direct them to a hosting provider directly and collect the affiliate fee for the referral.
I think you have a lot of kids and people with piss poor business ethics that are probably not making any money in this thread... "by charging slightly more"... "earn yourself small passive income".... wtf... No. If your client is willing to fork out money for you to host it I bet you, you can get get a LOT more money per month by offering a hosting AND maintenance package. Smart business owners do not want to deal with the hassle of updating the web site and learning about techy geeky shit if it's not in their business model. Most companies that pay for a web site would absolutely consider paying additional money to have someone else control the updates. Lol @ these people telling you to charge slightly more for just hosting.... pussies.