Shared hosting, Reseller account or rented server?

5 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
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Hello everyone!

In about 3-4 days I will be putting my new offer to sale. The product is ready, the marketin is ready, only one problem is left - hosting.

The product is a CMS with graphic management system (colors, images etc.) that is targeted for small companies and people who want to start a website fast.

I want to make the purchase & installation 100% automatic. The process will consist of:
- CMS Installation
- Subdomain configuration
- Onlywire submission
- Search engine submission

After each purchase is made and paid these 4 steps will be initated on auto-pilot.
The only problem is that I don't know what kind of hosting would be optimal for me because:
- If I go with buying a new account for each customer I have to make installation by hand or make pre-installations for all the customers and then when someone makes a purchase he will get the data of one of the available installations. This has 2 disadvantages - one, there is work to do by hand. Second, when I will do pre-installations the hosting accounts will be valid for less then 12 months.

Also - buying hosting accounts is the only solution I know. I have been working as a designer for about 2 years and I have never used dedicated servers or reseller accounts. But this time the solution I know seems to be stupid.

So my question is:
- If I get a reseller account from one of the hosting companies how does it work? Does the customer buy hosting from me or from the company. Can I setup new accounts on auto-pilot. Can I have a script to pre-install certain files on every new accout ?

- If I get a dedicated server is it hard to configure it and setup limitations for every account. I know little about linux - I work on Windows on have only used WAMP for all of my design / CMS work.

My goals are to:
- Provide quality hosting for all of my customers
- As the CMS is not demanding I do not need 1 GB space - evern 100 MB will be enough - I want it to be cheap
- Have the possibility to auto-install scripts on each new account
- Protect myself from 1 person using all of the bandwitch if it will be a shared account (for example sharing warez on his site or giant movies).
- Make it easy to manage all the accounts
- (OPTIONAL) When I release an update make it possible to update certain files on all of my customers accounts

Any help will be apprecieated.
Best regards
Michael
#account #hosting #rented #reseller #server #shared
  • Profile picture of the author Steve Diamond
    Originally Posted by CaffeinatedWorld View Post

    So my question is:
    - If I get a reseller account from one of the hosting companies how does it work? Does the customer buy hosting from me or from the company. Can I setup new accounts on auto-pilot. Can I have a script to pre-install certain files on every new accout ?

    - If I get a dedicated server is it hard to configure it and setup limitations for every account. I know little about linux - I work on Windows on have only used WAMP for all of my design / CMS work.
    Hi, Michael. You'll have a lot of details to sort out in a few days!

    I'll answer briefly and in general terms. The vendors of whatever solutions you choose will be able to help with the details.

    When you get a reseller account, the customer buys hosting directly from you, and it's up to you to set up each new account. This can be done manually through the reseller control panel (usually WHM - look it up), and there are scripts available to automate the process. Here are two - PhpHostBot : Automatic Cpanel WHM Web Hosting Account Creation & Paypal Billing and :. WHM.AutoPilot .: Welcome! :. Automated Billing Manangement System. That configuration would probably work just fine for what you're planning. You could always upgrade to a dedicated server when you needed the extra power.

    As for configuring a dedicated server, it all depends how much management you buy from the hosting company. Some companies offer choices of management plans, ranging from "you do all the setup and management" to "we do all the setup and management" with steps in between. Be sure you know what you're signing up for. If you get a dedicated server with all the required services (Apache, PHP, mail, etc.) pre-installed, plus WHM and cPanel, you would have essentially the same setup as I described for the reseller account.

    HTH. Good luck!

    Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author RyanCoisson
    Michael,

    Steve gave some great advice there for you. When I hosted stuff for customers before it was always through a reseller account at host 9. You might want to look into that.

    Ryan
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  • Profile picture of the author CaffeinatedWorld
    Hi guys!

    Thank you for all the quality content - Steve - amazing information, thank you so much!
    I'm thinking about the reseller account as if the project won't work as I plan I will be able to pass the customers to the hosting company without them loosing the accounts.

    I will check out host-9 and if anyone else could recommend some quality hosting with reseller options I would be really thankful.

    Once more - thank you for the information.
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    • Profile picture of the author BizWebMan
      Hi Michael

      I have just opened a reseller account with HostGator. After doing a great deal of research they came across as being well respected and I know that many well known internet marketers use them.

      They have several pricing choices, I went with the aluminum option and what I really like is the help videos they have to set yourself up.

      Regards
      Grahame
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  • Profile picture of the author Angel Anderson
    I give to all wso 50% off at dataviking.com just use wso for coupon code
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