I am looking to make some extra income and thought about starting a reseller hosting business. I am not looking to make millions or anything, just something as a supplement to my current job (lame office job, for now).
I read the article on Sitepoint about reseller hosting, but I’m not sure which one to pick.
Here are some I have in mind:
ResellersPanel - It’s free… But do you get what you pay for?
GorillaResellerHosting - starts at $95/year, which looks cheaper than others. Plus you get a pre-designed web site from one of their many templates. Though I am comfortable designing my own.
HostGator - This one seems popular, but is it any good?
Most hosting providers can offer some form of Reseller accounts with decent uptime and hopefully hosted on non-oversold servers. So the most important thing is to find a company which will provide friendly support and which can provide management services when you need them. My suggestion is to send emails to the above mentioned providers and to ask questions. When you get answers it will be easier for you to compare them.
I guess it really depends on your goals and your plans. Resellerspanel looks much more like a great affiliate program rather than reseller hosting so to speak. The problem with this is while the program is genuine you don’t have any control at all.
I’d recommend HostGator for a couple of reasons:
They have great support and well managed servers (I have used them before)
Free WHMCS - This is a big deal as there isn’t better billing/support software in my opinion.
You’re in control to an extent. You can set your pricing, plans & as you’re in control of support you can assist your clients on a personal level.
Also before you get into reselling , I would suggest to first look into your main source of traffic or your clients. Unless you have some kind of website or other free source of good webmaster traffic , you are going to have to spend money to get customers.
I don’t actually have anyone to host, so I don’t have any hosting requirements yet.
Didn’t really think of a budget, but I’d say $30/month max.
No idea what control panel, I’m comfortable working with anything. cPanel is popular though
I don’t really have any customers. I’m busy with work and school and don’t get time to work on sites. I may have one person who’d be willing to transfer his hosting over though.
I don’t have any clients that need hosting right now, but in the future it would be nice to say that I can offer hosting as well as design/developing their site.
It also looks like HostGator and GorillaResellerHosting also seem to have the same level of “control”, but Gorilla is cheaper.
@hostentic, that’s another good point, I’ll have to think of that. I might have a few clients, but not webmaster traffic.
Oh I see now. Looking over Gorilla’s features it looks like they only allow you to sell at set prices so it doesn’t have the control you’ll want if you decide to offer these services in the future.
If you plan on hosting in the future I’d say that HostGator is by far the best choice. Looking at WHMCS billing software itself if you purchase it directly from them it’s $19/month so it’s a good deal with HostGator’s reseller account.
OP should go for Linux as he seems new to the game.
I also recommend staying away from the large corporation hosts. They don’t know the meaning of quality service anymore.
Look at the core statistics; reliability, value per GB of space and bandwidth, etc
I believe that you have found good list of the companies. And I always recommend you give a try to the web hosting company if you like what they offer.