How to start your Reseller hosting Business

I know nothing about reseller hosting but want to start my own company Choose a Reseller hosting Plan that will "fit" your needs and budget.

  • How Much space do I really need?
    If you have no hosting customers to start your host business with, then buying a 5 GB reseller account is probably not the wisest choice for you.Be realistic about your selection of a reseller hosting package.Most customers ( 80% ) do NOT use all there alloted a space or bandwidth.Reseller hosting providers usually only count the amount of space used not the amount you have resold.This opens the door for alittle more profit in over selling your plan.
    OVERSELLING!?
    You maybe thinking,"I thought that was a very bad thing?"
    No, not if you are responsible in how you are doing this.If you seriously and continuously overselling then you just might run into some problems,which most can be fixed by upgrading your resell plan,depending o how much you have oversold.But realistically for the beginner web host this will not be an issue.
  • How Much Bandwidth do I really need?
    Not as much as one is lead to believe. As with the amount of space needed ,monstrous amounts of bandwidth is just a waste of your money that could be used in other places, getting started. A good healthy dose of the facts of bandwidth will allow you to see in the murky waters of the "salesmanship" that several web hosting companies have erroneously stated.The facts of bandwidth are simple to apply and use even for the newbies or beginners.
    3 major factors to take into account:
    1. The amount of traffic you receive
    2. The size of your site
    3. The types of files offered on your site
    The Formula:
    Page size x page views X 30 days=Bandwidth Transfer Page size
    Suppose you have 10KB of text,60 KB of gifs would equal a per page size of 70K. Page views: you have 60 vistors that look at 4 pages per day equals 240 views a day. 70x240x30(days)=504,000 kb or approximately 504 mb, of bandwidth each month. Well within the limits of most hosting plans.
    So whats all this mean to me the beginner reseller host? 10-30 GB is more than enough for anyone to get started with,as using the above formula, the adverage website would use .5 to 1 GB per month.
  • What about support for my customers
    There are several good outsource support compnies out there that offer starter plans of 1o-20 tickets per month,(or every other month)That cost $35 to $XXX.XX You can use them after you get some customers,if you are just starting out and on a shoe string bufget then by all means supply the support yourself or maybe your reseller hostuing provider will for a few extra dollars man the support desk for you.You need to know and find out as much as you can about simple task such as setting up email,MySQL databases,how to insall a simple script,file permissions,ect. This is just basic support questions that you will face each and every day with your customers. What about prices how much should I charge?
    This is where you need a good business model to start and pattern yourself after. You can go for the ultra cheapie prices and get customers that will move at the drop of a hat (not all but most). Or you can price your web hosting plans where you can actually make some profit.
    Cheapie example:
    If you sell 15 plans that are 1gb space and 40GB bandwidth for $3.95 then you get to supply support for 15 customers for $59.25 month less your operating cost.(your cost for your reseller acct. and you personal time,among other things)I can tell you new customers require time and attention to get them settled in to the new space.I have had new customers email support almost everyday for the 1st 30 days or so.If you answer 20 emails and apply a fix how much of your time is this taking and or if you are out sourcing your support how much is each ticket costing you?
    Normal Pricing for web hosting accounts
    Profit making normal Example
    15 plans @ 14.95 each 500 MB space and 15 GB bandwidth. #1.You get a better quality of customers,folks that have been around,some have been abused by the cheap web hosting companies and do not care to pay for quality service.These folks usally know how to set up the auto configure feature for outlook express and can not only install a script but can set up a database,ect.There are usally not high maintaince customers.Good payers,non spammers.If you want better customers than show the customer that you can and will be around months from now because you charge enough to be professional in your business.
    Both examples must be taken into consideration before setting you prices per plan.The lower cost plans draw more customers but are more costly to keep.This is a "rule of thumb" and not perfect advice.
    More about starting your own reseller hosting company will be coming later

    If you have any questions please go here and let us know