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HOSTGATOR Reseller Account - Anyone using this here?

by eshber
13 replies
Hey guys

Anyone using the Hostgator Reseller Account at the moment? A friend of mine told me about this service and I wanted to know whether this was a good service to use so that I can charge offline clients for hosting?

Thanks
#account #hostgator #reseller
  • Profile picture of the author TheCopyGirl
    HostGator is pretty good - I use their shared hosting, and had a reseller account for a while, but gave up because I didn't have anyone to resell to

    I found that their customer support was quite responsive, and if you are confused about setting anything up, they help you out a fair deal. You can also view their support forums for customer feedback (and they have a subforum for reseller account holders that should give you a feel of what reseller package users are up to with their accounts).

    Note that although you can host unlimited domains with even shared hosting (their advanced plan), you cannot - to the extent I understand - charge for hosting in this situation. Just saying, in case you feel tempted! Besides, reseller accounts have clear indications of bandwidth and space you are using up, so in case one of your clients experiences a sudden burst of traffic, you can reallocate bandwidth to handle it
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    • Profile picture of the author eshber
      Originally Posted by TheCopyGirl View Post

      Note that although you can host unlimited domains with even shared hosting (their advanced plan), you cannot - to the extent I understand - charge for hosting in this situation. Just saying, in case you feel tempted! Besides, reseller accounts have clear indications of bandwidth and space you are using up, so in case one of your clients experiences a sudden burst of traffic, you can reallocate bandwidth to handle it
      Thanks for your response...

      So would you suggest I use the Reseller account as long as I can get the client to pay for hosting? Is £20 a month a good price for hosting their website?

      Thanks
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      • Profile picture of the author cagwatson
        I've had a hosting account with them for years and their service is excellent, the tech support is great too and have on many occassions assisted me with script configuration etc.

        i'm just about to sign up for the reseller account too, to help my offline adventure.

        good luck
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      • Profile picture of the author TheCopyGirl
        Originally Posted by eshber View Post

        Thanks for your response...

        So would you suggest I use the Reseller account as long as I can get the client to pay for hosting? Is £20 a month a good price for hosting their website?

        Thanks
        Oooh... depends on how web-savvy your client is If they can buy a shared account with HG for themselves with unlimited space and bandwidth for $7 a month (with unlimited domains), why would they chose to host with you? Of course, if your instinct is that your client won't go down this line, or if you can persuade them that your hosting is value-added (comes with maintenances services), then it makes sense to charge between $20-30 for hosting.

        On the other hand, if you have ten clients paying $10 each, you have covered your investment four times over, so if you anticipate that many clients, and profit from your reseller account is not what you consider a major source of income, then this makes more sense - $10 for value-added hosting should be a no-brainer for even a tech/web-savvy client!

        By the way, I still have the domain I bought for my reseller account lying around, so if you are interested, I can transfer the domain to you (it also has a premium site design to go with it). We can have a chat over PM in case you are keen


        Cheers!
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    • Profile picture of the author WikiWarrior
      I have a Hostgator Reseller account and love it so far. Got about 12-14 of my own domains on there and local clients set up on monthly deals. Before getting into "offline" I had been using them for about 8 years and their customer support, mainly live chat that I've used, is phenomenal.

      As Copygirl mentioned, it's cool being able to reallocate extra bandwidth for yours and clients' busy sites. All the back office tools are great. I think someone else mentioned you get a free WHMCS account to automate billing, but don't hold me to that, I'm just using Paypal and offline methods for now.
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      • Profile picture of the author eshber
        Originally Posted by YOUniversityLife View Post

        Got about 12-14 of my own domains on there and local clients set up on monthly deals.
        Thanks for your response!

        I have my first telephone appointment with a business owner in a few hours...i was thinking of offering them hosting for £20 a month or would you suggest offering it for free for the first year? Then £20 a month thereafter?

        Just out of curiousity, what do you charge your offline clients? If you don't feel comfortable saying on here, pm me

        Thanks!
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        • Profile picture of the author WikiWarrior
          Originally Posted by eshber View Post

          Thanks for your response!

          I have my first telephone appointment with a business owner in a few hours...i was thinking of offering them hosting for £20 a month or would you suggest offering it for free for the first year? Then £20 a month thereafter?

          Just out of curiousity, what do you charge your offline clients? If you don't feel comfortable saying on here, pm me

          Thanks!
          I offer hosting for £80-£120 for the year which the client usually just pays up front instead of setting up a tiny DD for each month. Then I offer SEO for £30-£100 a month. For websites, the most i charge is £670 since I'm still fairly new and trying to build up a portfolio and experience quickly. It varies though, some websites I have charged £400 for and even one for £300 because they said they would paid 100% upfront + a monthly seo deal. Bottom line is I do whatever it takes to get the business, then once they're onboard i can offer them all sorts of services to help their business. And if I have some spare time then I'm more than happy to take on some work at a lower price than usual.

          Best of luck for your telephone appointment, let us know how it goes!
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  • Profile picture of the author eshber
    @ TheCopyGirl

    PM me with the details

    Thanks
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    • Profile picture of the author TheCopyGirl
      Originally Posted by eshber View Post

      @ TheCopyGirl

      PM me with the details
      Sent, thank you!
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  • Profile picture of the author Nic Lynn
    You don't need a reseller account. Just set-up your clients with their own dedicated hostagator account (that you set-up as an affiliate). You "own" and pay for these accounts directly (i.e the clients don't even need to know the details of how you have it set-up... you provide and manage their hosting for them as a part of their reoccuring service). This is a clean, inexpensive way to add-value to the client and maintain some stickiness with them (the more you do and "own" for them, the more that they need you on an ongoing basis). If you ever part ways, you can simply give them access to their hosting account details.
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    • Profile picture of the author TheCopyGirl
      Originally Posted by Nic Lynn View Post

      You don't need a reseller account. Just set-up your clients with their own dedicated hostagator account (that you set-up as an affiliate). You "own" and pay for these accounts directly (i.e the clients don't even need to know the details of how you have it set-up... you provide and manage their hosting for them as a part of their reoccuring service). This is a clean, inexpensive way to add-value to the client and maintain some stickiness with them (the more you do and "own" for them, the more that they need you on an ongoing basis). If you ever part ways, you can simply give them access to their hosting account details.
      This is largely true, although I believe it is debatable. For most low-volume traffic sites, you don't need the full power of dedicated hosting, and setting up a reseller account works just fine. I know people who use a reseller account but don't really bother giving out the individual cpanel account details to their clients, and just keep it to themselves (and having separate cpanels for separate clients ensure that this info can simply be passed on when you part ways with your client).

      So I imagine that different things work in different settings. For medium to low volume traffic sites, I'd say a new cpanel on a reseller account makes sense, but for the power/resource-hogs, a dedi makes sense. You can do both easily - have a reseller account for the first kind, and use the affiliate link on a case-by-case basis. I don't think HostGator affiliates pay out on a recurring basis, though, and reselling gives you recurring income. Also, I believe it's slightly easier (i.e, requires less tech expertise) to manage a reseller account compared to a dedi account.
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      • Profile picture of the author Nic Lynn
        Originally Posted by TheCopyGirl View Post

        This is largely true, although I believe it is debatable. For most low-volume traffic sites, you don't need the full power of dedicated hosting, and setting up a reseller account works just fine. I know people who use a reseller account but don't really bother giving out the individual cpanel account details to their clients, and just keep it to themselves (and having separate cpanels for separate clients ensure that this info can simply be passed on when you part ways with your client).

        So I imagine that different things work in different settings. For medium to low volume traffic sites, I'd say a new cpanel on a reseller account makes sense, but for the power/resource-hogs, a dedi makes sense. You can do both easily - have a reseller account for the first kind, and use the affiliate link on a case-by-case basis. I don't think HostGator affiliates pay out on a recurring basis, though, and reselling gives you recurring income. Also, I believe it's slightly easier (i.e, requires less tech expertise) to manage a reseller account compared to a dedi account.
        I am not talking about a dedicated server, I am talking abut a dedicated account ($7 per month)... i.e. an account seperate from your own hostgator account and seperate from a reseller account. This is FAR easier than the reseller account route.
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        • Profile picture of the author TheCopyGirl
          Originally Posted by Nic Lynn View Post

          I am not talking about a dedicated server, I am talking abut a dedicated account ($7 per month)... i.e. an account seperate from your own hostgator account and seperate from a reseller account. This is FAR easier than the reseller account route.
          Arrrrgh, my bad

          I was wondering why you would (in a typical case) need a dedicated server, which probably costs over $100 a month, and get only a one time aff. commission off it

          I guess the payoff of going through the trouble of a reseller account is a recurring income (perhaps plenty of it, if you charge something like $20 for "value-added" hosting) as opposed to the one-time affiliate commission. And it's not that hard to setup a new cpanel off a reseller account, and give away control if/when the time arises. My $.02!
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