What is your desired number of clients? How much time per day/week/month do you spend serving each client? How much is your time worth? How much do you spend on advertising? Plus a certain percentage as a profit margin, say 10%. Those figures lead to your target price. To start with, how long can you cover the wholesale hosting and other charges until you can get to your desired number of clients. If not long, you'll have to start with higher prices and you may end up pricing yourself out of the market.
sorry yes, hosting. but that's some great advice by tyrithe. I was worried that I'll need to set my costs based on the competition alone, and there are a lot of dollar hosts out there. I already have enough clients to cover my server costs. I want to mainly promote the hosting as a compliment to e-marketing services
I think the problem is that the "I am a web host" market is getting pretty well saturated. So you're getting to the point where there isn't much return in it if all you offer is the hosting. Hosting has become a commodity, and once it gets to that point, profit margins suffer. It sounds like you have this idea figured out with the added value of site creation, but what I think is the way to possibly succeed is to set yourself apart from the rest in some unique way. I wonder what the market would be for something like a specific joomla/drupal hosting, kind of like typepad or wordpress.com for blogs.
Basically, I'm thinking that the hosting is really just a value-add to my main offerings, which will be diverse but all e-marketing related. These include e-commerce, Joomla hosting, real estate hosting, and more. The hosting itself will come as a "1 year free" with each package, and then afterwards it's just residual income for me I also plan to market mostly in person, locally. The web is very saturated with companies promising what I offer. So I plan to appeal locally. And I have some great client successes already.
hi You should set the price that is comfortable for you , where you feel you can provide great customer service. So set the price which you feel provides value to your customers and brings you some money. Once you have set the price , then use "Good Salesman ship" to justify the price , explain clearly on your site how it compares with others and how you are providing more value. When you meet customers in person , first determine what they are looking for. If they are looking for Lowest price then you know you cant win, but explain them how spending few cents more per day can bring them great value
Set 100%. If you want to keep your price lucrative then make the webspace 50% of what you are getting. BTW reseller market is tough.