Reseller Hosting – is it worth it?
I often get asked “is reseller hosting worth it?”. The quick answer is yes – it’s definitely worth it. Whether or not it makes you rich, or even any money at all, is of course down to you and how much work you put in to it.
There are two types of people who should be looking at reseller hosting – those who want to set up their own web hosting company, and those, such as web designers, who want to be able to offer web hosting to their existing customers.
Setting up your own web hosting company.
Take a look around at the webhosting market. There are literally thousands of web hosts out there offering different packages to suit different needs. Many of them are simply reselling hosting from the “big boys” and making a good living doing it.
If you are setting up a web hosting business, you need to choose a host that offers a “white label” or brandable control panel for your customers (most do), so that you appear to your customers as a totally independent hosting provider. You want to keep your customers, not have them move to your supplier. With this in mind, look for an account that either has anonymous nameservers (that is without mention of the name of your hosting supplier) or preferably custom/private nameservers so that you can use your own company nameservers.
Some reseller hosts will expect you to provide technical support for your customers; others can provide your customers with technical support direct via an anonymous support ticket system. If you are coming to web hosting with little technical knowledge, look for a reseller who offers the anonymous support.
Most reseller accounts will also come with a selection of templates for you to set up your hosting website.
Once you have got your reseller account set up, you need to start selling your services. This is where the hard work comes in. Remember to try to offer something different, whether it is smaller packages aimed at small businesses, or targeting a particular market sector via trade publications that the big hosts don’t advertise in.
If you want a really easy start in reseller hosting, where your supplier takes care of everything, including sending out invoices branded with your company logo, check out this article on free reseller hosting package
Web Designers/Developers
Providing your customers with hosting from your own reseller account is really a no-brainer for web designers/developers – it is much better and more profitable than buying seperate hosting accounts for each customer.
In this case, there is no need to worry about selling the hosting, you simply have to add it on as part of the service, and you have a nice recurring income. You can set the hosting up for your customers as and when needed and provide as much or as little space as they need.
As they will already be coming to you anyway for support, you don’t need to worry about whether or not the reseller hosting supplier provides anonymous support.
Of course, you will need a seperate domain to manage the hosting, but it is up to you whether or not to set up a full blown web hosting site on the domain, or just keep it low-key. It’s probably best not to put your main domain on your reseller account so that if for some reason the server holding your customers sites goes down, your main web site will still be up for customers to contact you.
