Tutorials > Webmaster > Reselling Hosting for a Profit
Maximize your web design business's profit by reselling hosting to your clients.
The web hosting industry is huge and growing. It is easy to understand that much money can be made in the hosting industry since every site needs a host. The internet contains millions of websites and domains and continues to grow everyday. If you have some web development knowledge, you should consider reselling hosting for a profit.
By reselling web hosting you can add a valuable product to your web design business. If you develop web sites for clients, clients are most likely willing to allow you to host their website as they get to know you more. Offering hosting will also save the client time searching for a host. Because of this convenience factor, clients are usually willing to pay a little more for your expertise.
Creating Plans
To start off, you will need a small to medium size reseller account. For a basic reseller account with 5GB of space and 50GB of bandwidth from a reputable host like Host Gator, you would need $25 a month or $300 a year to pay for a reseller hosting account. You could divide this up however you would like. An account for a small business will probably use at most 2GB of bandwidth and 200MB of space. However it is a safe rule to assume that customers will only use 50% or less of their allocated resources. This rule makes it economical to sell more than you have, often called overselling. Almost all hosts oversell to a certain extent. However, you should never oversell disk space. Why? If accounts suddenly upload large amounts of files then there will not be any room left. Unlike bandwidth, which can be purchased as needed, disk space is not expandable. Although many web servers today have additional hard drives, they are only used for backup purposes.
Using the prediction in the previous paragraph, creating a plan with 200MB of space and 2GB of bandwidth is the best starter plan. Charging $5 a month or $72 a year for 20 accounts under this plan would also allow 1GB of space and 10GB of bandwidth for your own site. Your total profit would be $900 a year. That's not much for a business, but it can pay for a good amount of advertising for your business, software purchases or upgrades, or for personal expenses.
These are just rough estimates of your potential profits. To maximize profits, you can increase your rates, allow more resources for each plan, or purchase a larger reseller account.
Choosing a host
Choosing the right host for your reseller account is crucial. You will need to find a reputable host that has very little downtime and superior support. By looking for these qualities, you will feel more confident that your customer's sites with always be up and running and that you will be able to solve any problems they may have in a timely manner. If you don't know the answers to your customer's support questions you will have to contact your host. Your response time will be affected by your own host's response time and helpfulness.
When finding the best reseller host, never try to find the cheapest one. You are more likely to have problems with a cheaper host and will result in increased downtime and slow responses to support questions. Now is the time to spend a little more for quality service.
Because you are reselling, you will be the first one to be contacted when problems arise. You may have to solve technical problems for your customers. You will also need to develop an emergency plan when you are on vacation and your server has major problems.
Hopefully this article has helped you decide whether reselling hosting is right for you and your business. If you have further questions, please feel free to visit the forums. We will be glad to answer your questions.
