start reseller web hosting business

Have you thought of starting your own reseller web hosting business? More importantly, can you make money with reseller web hosting?

The short answer is “yes” and the longer answer is “yes but it takes a lot of hard work”.

In this article, we will go through the steps needed to start your own reseller web hosting business; from getting the right hosting provider to getting more clients.

Ready to dive in?

BONUS: Want to save more money during startup? Here are 10 tips to help you save more money during startups.

start reseller web hosting business

1. Understand your targeted customers

This is the most crucial part of any web hosting business. You need to know who your clients are and what will attract them to your business.

Sure, existing business owners may disagree with this but if you are just starting up, always aim for a niche market first before heading over to the bigger markets.

Why you would need to understand your targeted customers?

There are many advantages for this. Several data you can collect from understanding your customers are:

  • Spending limit
  • Requirements
  • Support and services (that they are expecting)

Need more example? Here’s one you can digest.

Imagine your targeted customers are students within the age of 18 to 24. For starters, they would have a lower spending capabilities and you need to scale your business accordingly based on their needs.

You could even create smaller packages to fit their needs. And when you do that, make sure that you are providing enough room for them to scale up within the shortest time period.

 

2. Knowing your competitors in the hosting environment

start your own reseller hosting business

The second part is pretty clear cut. Having a good grip (understanding) on who are your potential competitors will prove to be extremely useful.

Most of the time, you wouldn’t want to provide a web hosting service which is much cheaper or more expensive than your competitors as this will effect your revenue. Instead, you are always focusing on the best value-for-money and being competitive at the same time.

What you should look for when it comes to understanding your web hosting competitors?

Again, let’s make this as simple as possible using bullets form:

  • Features offered
  • Additional services (if applicable)
  • Performance
  • Pricing structures

Allow me to stress that it is extremely important not to undervalue or overvalue your web hosting services (by a bigger variance) as this will create a lot of strains in your revenue.

 

3. Finding the perfect reseller web hosting company

Make no mistakes. You can have your own servers if you have the budget but if you are just in the startup phrase, I would always prefer outsourcing the service. And in this case, it means that you subscribe to a reseller web hosting services. Also, outsourcing is a great way to reduce cost during startup.

I am well aware that there are many reseller web hosting services out there. Choosing the right reseller web hosting is definitely a tough job, right?

No, not really and here’s why.

How to choose the best reseller web hosting provider?

This is where the earlier stage of gathering data on your potential customers comes into play.

  • Would it be the location of the data centers?
  • Maybe, the amount of support you will be getting?
  • How about the additional features such as WHM and billing features they would provide?

Trust me, the list goes on and on … and on.

The key factor for me would be:

  • Simplicity of the web hosting management system
  • The ability to scale up (or down) your business
  • Customer support and services provided
  • Pricing structures
  • Uptime and SLA (even though we know most of them are unreliable information)

I am sure the above doesn’t sound that complicated after all. Yes, you would require some time to scout for the best value reseller web hosting but trust me, it will be worth while.

And if you are in a rush, have doubts in your decisions or just looking for some guidance, head over to the end of this post where I share a few reseller web hosting providers which I use personally.

 

4. Setting up the reseller web hosting business

how to setup a reseller web hosting business

The process of getting a reseller web hosting is slightly different from a normal web hosting but don’t worry. It is pretty clear and simple.

When you sign up for a reseller plan, you (usually) need to provide several information such as:

  • Login and passwords
  • Location of the data centers
  • Any additional features which you require (which may cost additional money)

For the reseller web hosting providers which I personally use, they provide me with several guides which more information for geeky ones. If not, it is safe to keep them in your Dropbox or Evernote.

Once the setup is complete, they would provide you with NameServers and IP’s to use. Now these information are vital and keep them safe at all times. You would need to provide these information to your web hosting customers too.

Setting up a new account on a reseller web hosting account for new clients

Do you love the hear the sound of ‘cha-ching’? I sure do!

After your customer has paid you, you need to create their web hosting account and provide them with the needed information such as NameServers and IP’s. In some cases, you may also ought to provide them with migrations.

In a nutshell, here are the steps you need to do:

  • Create an account in WHM for your customers
  • Allocate the number of domains, bandwidth etc
  • Send them details of their cPanel for them to start the web hosting services

Yes, that’s it folks! Pretty simple, right?

 

5. Must-do marketing efforts for reseller web hosting business

You want to succeed in the reseller web hosting business, don’t you?

After completing the creation of cPanel (and all the good stuffs), your job is yet to complete. Take a moment to collect the details of your customers and add them into your mailing list. Of course, get their approval in advance!

Why do you (seriously) need a mailing list?

For starters, you can use the list to promote your future products (upselling) and even keeping your web hosting customers in the loop.

There would be downtime and maintenance from time to time. With a mailing list, you can easily inform your customers in advance to avoid any lost of sale and unwanted inconvenience.

The value of a single email subscriber could be as low as $1 to over $10. So, always remember to grow your email list especially in the reseller web hosting business.

 

Question: Can you make money with reseller web hosting business?

Yes you could and that’s the fact.

However, it takes time … a lot of time to be exact. When you start a reseller web hosting business, you are literally building your business on shaky grounds. Starting up will definitely be a hard part, considering that you need to focus in performance, customer service and marketing — all at the same time.

make money from reseller hosting business

You won’t really make much money during the early days of reseller web hosting business. You may even just be able to spit even when you have less than 5 customers.

When you build a mailing list and the number of customers increases, that’s when you will earn a bigger income from the business.

 

BONUS: The best reseller web hosting providers for beginners

It is important for you to understand that I have used (and currently using) these reseller web hosting providers. They are the best in various segments; value-for-money, performance and customer service.

Also, the links below are my affiliate links where I would get a small fees if you click and decide to buy for them. Rest assured that there is no additional cost will be charged to you in anyway.

Best value-for-money reseller web hosting provider: HostGator

All of us want cheap and reliable reseller web hosting, right? This is where HostGator comes into play.

For a starter plan, it comes with a huge 50 GB space, 500 GB worth of bandwidth and unlimited domains. 

Right now, you should be thinking “Why HostGator?” or “Is HostGator reseller web hosting plan suits me?”

Here’s what you’ll get when you sign up with HostGator:

  • Unmetered domains, subdomains, emails and FTP accounts
  • Easy to use control panel (cPanel and WHM)
  • 99.9% uptime guarantee
  • Private name servers based on your domain name (extremely important)
  • Free WHMSC or WHM AutoPilot Client Management (billing software)
  • Free website transfer up to 30 websites
  • Automatic weekly data backup
  • Phone, live chat and email support (24/7)

If you are thinking of making even more money, you can resell over 70+ gTLDs and ccTLDs as well to your customers.

HostGator starts at $19.96 per month and they offer 45-days money back guarantee too in the case if you are unhappy with their services (which I highly doubt so). Click here and get the latest HostGator discounts!

 

Best customer service support reseller web hosting provider: HostWithLove

If you are looking for a reseller web hosting provider that provides top notch customer service, look no further. HostWithLove is a mid-size web hosting company based in Singapore.

HostWithLove provide unlimited domains transfer, SSL certificates and best-efforts-basis (they could even fix your website if you are ‘kind’ enough to them — you get the point!).

Here are some of juicy features you will get when you have a reseller account with them:

  • Cloudlinux and Litespeed features
  • Unlimited transfers (extremely useful and cost efficient)
  • Daily backup (again, this is godly)
  • Unlimited SSL certificate
  • Best-effort-basis customer service support to help you grow your reseller business
  • Fully whitelable for branding purposes
  • Ability to choose location of data centers

HostWithLove reseller web hosting package starts at $12.68 per month and it is extremely worthwhile for entrepreneurs who plan to start a hosting business from scratch.

Start your first reseller account with HostWithLove!

 

Best performance reseller web hosting provider: FlyWheel

They call themselves as “simple WordPress hosting and management”. And yes, they are managed WordPress hosting provider.

If your aim is to serve customers with high volume traffic with security in mind, FlyWheel is the only choice for you.

Here are some features when you sign up with FlyWheel’s reseller program:

  • Easily manage multiple domain hosting with their custom dashboard
  • Collaboration features which maximize work performance and productivity
  • Transfer bills to your customers in just a few clicks
  • Your customers only pay you when the site goes live (to avoid overbilling)
  • Highly flexible staging area (important for web designers)
  • Daily backup (super important)
  • Pretty much guaranteed for blazing web loading speed
  • Built-in caching system (so you don’t have to worry about those hair-pulling configurations)

If you are running an agency or a web development company, get FlyWheel as it provides performance, security, billing and collaboration under one roof. Trust me, no other web hosting company provides that.

The smallest reseller web hosting plan for FlyWheel starts at $100 per month and if you would require a custom plan, you could reach out to the sales team for further negotiation. Click here to try FlyWheel for FREE!

 

Are you ready to start your own reseller web hosting business?

Starting a reseller web hosting business isn’t (really) a walk in the park. It takes a little time to master the backend systems especially when you are newbie. However with the help of the above hosting companies, rest assured that you’ll be on a smooth sail all along.

Do you own a reseller web hosting business? Maybe planning to start one? Leave a comment below and tell me all about it.

The post Reseller Web Hosting Business: How To Start And Make Money appeared first on Editorial Sumo.



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