To Resell Hosting or Not to?

Do you know anything about hosting?

Why not let the professionals who specialize in the industry continue to do what they do best?

Building a successful web hosting business is not as easy as it sounds.

It's a tough sell these days. So many competitors, and pricing is basically through the floor.

Why not just be an affiliate and promote it on your site or whatever way you want?

As Kay says, support. You'll get newbies who don't know how to switch servers, don't have a clue as to how to use C Panel, set up email, set up Word Press, etc. So a lot of these people will be looking for a lot of help. And they'll expect you to provide it, day and night. Good luck.

I am HG aluminum and not happy with the service. People might want to make some money. However, I would use a service that is less expensive. Also, one that has a lot more support for me. Hard to rec a service if it is not reliable mon ami. Please stay on it and be sure.

reselling hosting is a great business model that has made me high six figures for many years.

the key is to be a niche host and develop competitive advantages for smallish group of clients that the big boys just can't do as well. Then you charge more for your services. like $30+ a month for most of my hosting sites i have setup. I never target a group of clients where i am going to be forced to compete for business mostly on price.

Never compete on price alone. Thats a fools way to make money in business.

as mentioned earlier, support will be your biggest problem. However, its pretty easy to outsource much of the support. There are lots of companies that do that as a service with varying prices and quality.

As long as you are providing a niche hosting solution of some sort and charging more for it, you will easily be able to afford quality outsourced support.

But rest assured, it is work. You cant just signup for a reseller account and start making a ton of money.

Unless you know how to admin a server and like to put up with sometimes questionable clients, I'd say no. There are way better ways to make money than resell hosting.

actually, at this point i am more of an investor and consultant to small (usually individual) hosting startups. Basically, i provide a some cash and knowledge, but do very little actual work.

hosting sites for your clients is a great way to go about starting to build a residual income. although that method usually keeps your hosting business smaller and ultimately keeps you more tied to your "main" business more than starting a reseller hosting business as your "main" profit or business plan.

also, different reseller programs offer various different degrees of support and freedom. HG is a solid program that does most if not all server admin stuff for you or for very reasonable fees. then you have guys like resellercluster.com which is a whole other type which gives you less control and freedom, but also means you do none of the support stuff at all. you don't even do the billing. It operates more like a percentage based affiliate program, but you do have a good bit of freedom to make your services geared towards a niche better.

i personally like the HG program about as good as any on the internet for most people. the resellercluster.com is a decent service for those on a budget and just looking to start from nothing and turn a small profit quickly that they can then reinvest. Then you have the full blown "all in" options where you just rent a bare server and do all the stuff yourself. Thats a tough way to go.

personally, if i found myself in a tough financial situation tomorrow with no longterm plan for financial freedom, i would be seriously looking at resellercluster.com. Its fast and easy. It gives you some options to play with, but they handle all the "hard" stuff.

its not a perfect business, but in my opinion its is a very solid business to be a part of.

just remember to never follow the fools gold of competing to get clients on price. You can't beat HG, bluehost,... and all the other big boys at that. Un-avoidable economic principals like "economics of scale" will be the death of your business if you go that route.

Starting a hosting business requires a big investment. You need strong servers, fast internet connection and of course knowledge required to run your company.
When you are using hostgators resell system you do not need much money, but there are other problems: When something goes wrong your client has to contact you, and you have to contact HG.That could create a big delay. Your clients stie will be down for a while and you will lose costumers.
I think that hosting resell is not the best way for earning. You should use your resources to earn with something else.

For me the major drawback on HG reseller hosting is the shared email service. It was causing my customers to be put on RBLs. This can easily be avoided by using Google Apps for email.