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Web developer - do I need a reseller accout?
| Posted by abrax, 11-30-2004, 04:45 PM |
| Hello everybody!
I saw the previous thread where someone was asking if it's worth taking a reseller account.
Maybe some of the replies there would cover my questions, still I'd like to ask and would like to get brief response:
I am a web developer from Hungary, running a small company and working for several clients. So far I pay for a single domain and webspace at a company, and pointed all my clients to this company.
I was thinking about reseller account because:
- It would be very useful to have all my sites existing and future sites I work on, on the same account, thus using easily the same common code libraries.
- I thought that it would be a good idea to pay a little bit more initally, but instead of pointing my future clients to some hosting company for a domain and webspace, allocate their website at my reseller hosting space and make some extra profit on it.
So, I wouldn't like to "sell" accounts in the classic way - to strangers, just to gather my clients on one server and make some profit. And of course, to have hosting for my own website.
Do you think it would be worth taking a reseller account? If so, are there any pitfalls? I mean, I saw at some reseller hosts that they take some provision on the sold domains and web spaces. I wouldn't like that hassle - most of my clients wouldn't bother anyway with administration. I would just need a server, where I can point more domains, and where I can manage those domains email addresses, etc.
Thank you in advance!
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| Posted by Arny, 11-30-2004, 04:54 PM |
| In these way you can sell 'complete solutions', for example a complete web-site + space/domain + administration and support.
In these way you can charge more, since you will be taking care for all of the aspects.
If I were you, I would try this out, go with a reseller plan that is not expensive.
The idea is great though it is not new
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| Posted by abrax, 11-30-2004, 04:58 PM |
| Thank you, I think I will give it a try!
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| Posted by soluhosting, 11-30-2004, 05:56 PM |
| Go for the reseller account, you can increment your sales offering a complete solution.
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| Posted by VER-Mo, 11-30-2004, 06:13 PM |
| Yes, I definately think a reseller account is the best way to go for you.
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| Posted by ldcdc, 11-30-2004, 09:13 PM |
| Many web developers use reseller accounts to host their customers' websites. The steady revenue from hosting should prove to be a very nice thing.
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| Posted by joshuayip, 11-30-2004, 09:20 PM |
| Agree. Reseller account is the most cost effective and scalable in this industry.
Joshua
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| Posted by Priyanka, 11-30-2004, 10:13 PM |
| Hi Abrax,
Have a look at this thread http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...hreadid=347161
Gist of that is web developer can be successful web hosting resellers.
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| Posted by UnifiedNet, 11-30-2004, 10:26 PM |
| I Agree!
Stop giving money away that you can keep in your pocket!
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| Posted by abrax, 12-01-2004, 06:55 AM |
| That's exactly what I was thinking about
Thanks to everyone for replying!
I promise I will write a review later on the reseller company I've chosen.
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| Posted by niyogi, 12-01-2004, 09:51 AM |
| Web developers that are looking for a way to consolidate the maintenance of their clients' website into one easy-to-manage account. It allows for greater control and the possibility to add value to your monthly services (and mark up for this as well!)
It's surprising how much a local web design client is willing to pay monthly for regular web hosting if they already have strong relations with the "owner" of the web hosting company. Since most web design clients are businesses, you can take a $15-20 reseller account and recover fees on one client paying $24.95/month for their little chunk of space.
I would *not* recommend, in anyway, running your own dedicated server unless you needed the flexibility of compiling in special modules for development purposes. While you might get that flexibility, you'll run the risk of getting compromised not having the time to stay up-to-date with security bulletins that might affect your server.
All this being said, if you are going to trust a reseller hosting company to house all your accounts, it better be a good one! You don't want to be in a position where *all* your clients' sites go down because your hosting company went out of business too soon or doesn't have a strong track record of responsiveness or uptime. That's sort of like putting all your eggs in one basket. :-)
In all honesty, I think the best resellers are web developers (they've been our best customers for sure); not those that are looking for ways to oversell on their space and cram accounts into their space so as to maximize profits this way.
Roj
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| Posted by abrax, 12-01-2004, 12:13 PM |
| Thank you for your answer - I will definitely go for a reseller account.
Concerning the question of reliabilty - I'm aware of all the risk of relying on one provider. But if I think it over - So far I also pointed my clients to one same provider - most of my 'dummy' clients didn't know, neither wanted to hassle with registering, making email addresses, administrations, so I just told them whom to pay and I did all the administration they wanted on that server.
So, in that way, it was also all on the same provider with the same risks - the only difference was that the money went to the hosting company, and not in my pocket
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| Posted by abrax, 12-01-2004, 12:16 PM |
| I read it in the meantime, thank you. You're concise overview, along with the replies were really helpful!
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| Posted by abrax, 12-01-2004, 12:29 PM |
| Let me ask one more thing, experienced people
Since I haven't seen any reseller account "live", just some descriptions, I'm wondering how easy or complicated is to create new domains and accounts under one reseller account.
At some reseller hostings I saw that there are systems for creating packages, pricing, billing etc. for customers, with the rule of giving percentage of the income to the host company etc.
As I described two postings earlier, I don't need this - my usual scenario is that when I get a new customer, he asks me, along with the actual creation of the web page, to find a domain name, webspace and email addresses on his/her domain.
So I wouldn't need package offers, paypal, whatever paying etc. for my customers - just the ability to register a domain on my own, linking it at some point in my reseller account, and make the necessary administration - and taking the money directly, by my agreement from the customer, without involving the hosting.
Can it be done so easily, or are there any pitfalls like the provision etc. what I wrote about?
Thanks in advance!
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| Posted by UnifiedNet, 12-01-2004, 03:09 PM |
| abrax,
Its good to see your doing your homework and following recomendations.
WHM/cPanel is a control panel that allows you to create hosting packages and then by entering some domain information and clicking submit your clients are set up on the server and ready to go. After that all you would need to do is point their domain name to you nameservers (ns1.youdomain.com/ns2.youdomain.com).
It looks like you have the billing part of this figured out! So the rest is up to you!
Good luck!
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| Posted by abrax, 12-01-2004, 07:38 PM |
| Thank you, I already figured out the idea by reading the documentation of HELM. My question was mostly concerning the billing, but I suppose I can do the way I imagined and described.
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