How to Make Money becoming A Web Host Reseller

A web host reseller is someone who buys web space from a wholesaler web host at a cheaper rate and sells the domain to customers who need to start a website at a higher rate. It is as simple as a cloth merchant’s job. You buy large amounts of commodity (web space in GBs) at the rate of say 50 cents per GB per month from a wholesale host who owns huge amounts of web space in his/her server.

You on the other hand, divide the GBs and sell it to your customers along with other features such as emails, high bandwidth, customer service, etc at a competent rate that is not too high for the customer and yet enough for you to a decent profit. This is what web host reselling is all about. You buy, sell and be there for your customers 24X7X365 for any help they might need.
Before you jump at this seemingly lucrative money making scheme, there are highly specialized requirements for this job of being a web host reseller.

Your skill requirements

You have to be a computer savvy. You have to be jack of all trades with knowledge about HTML, MySQL, PHP, CMS, FTP and bit about SEO if possible. You need to know all these because if you are to run into any problem with the server or permission, you can at least do some troubleshooting. You need not depend on the customer care of the real host all the time. Moreover, only if you know all these can you sustain interest in your business.

If you are aiming for e-commerce niche, you have to have an idea about marketing, finance and other such business strategies. If you wish to provide personalized attention to individual clients, you need to have interpersonal skills for that as well. You can hire people for such stuff, but if you are trying to manage it all on your own, try to stick with customers you can actually manage properly.

Equipment required for web hosting

A computer with good internet speed (fastest possible) to act as the server. You can use windows or Linux, whichever suits your needs. Your needs are to provide smooth error free experience to your clients and client management.
Once you purchase your reseller account, plan your business strategy and advertise to attract clients.

Investment

This is a fairly well paying job, if you know how to play your cards well. However, buy web space from a real provider who has good reputation and has been around for some time. A good host to buy web space from is Hostgator or Godaddy.com. They have variety of packages that will suit your budget, starting from $25 per month. You can also choose other reputed hosts to buy from. Your investment per year will come around $ 300. You can split that web space to many customers and sell the portions of web space at $10 per month. For starters, your income per month might be $500 but it will steadily rise as your reputation as a web host increases.

What to look for while buying web space from a real host

You should look for a package that is cheap but has good features in it. Some good features that you need are unlimited domain names, subdomain names, multi language WHM cPanels (user accounts that can be distributed as single client account), billing systems, email accounts, MySQL databases, templates and themes for web designing with excellent customer support.

The reason to have unlimited domain names is that, you might need to create 10 domains for the same client and if there is a restriction to create a maximum of only 5 per client, you lose potential business. Unlimited bandwidth is necessary because, bandwidth is what keeps a website fast and quick in uploading. We often say ‘the server is low’. That refers to the low bandwidth that cannot accommodate huge traffic. Unlimited bandwidth gives you the freedom to get more traffic at peak hours

A typical account will have 50 to 100 GB of space with a bandwidth of 500 GB with the above mentioned features. And you will be paying just $25 – $100 for this, while you might be earning as much as $500 – $1000 per month. Buying each of these features separately will cost you a fortune.

Test run

If this is the first time you are starting this business, you need to do pilot studies and test runs. Study on what packages people require and what they are usually prepared to pay. Once you have obtained your reseller package test run it several times to detect flaws with the features and designs you intent to provide your customers. Once it is error free for good, go live and advertise.

Running the business

Create a policy on updates, services provided, payment modes, etc to connect with your customer. Create different packages with different features with the right price. Offer flexibility with the packages for customized needs. You can charge for features outside the package, but sending an exorbitant bill will lose you the client.

Businesses requiring e-commerce such as sales and billing in their website require features pertaining to that. In that case, you need to have larger bandwidth and web space with specialized features to accommodate their needs. If the client needs blog, then you need to go for a package with unlimited web space.

As your business grows, you might need to purchase more web space to keep up the demand, rent servers and outsource your client management and customer care section. Sell at a competent price to keep up your expenses and to capture good clientele. Provide good features at a reasonable price. This is what will build the third factor for a good business: your reputation.

Success stories

Here is a list of web host resellers who have found this business highly rewarding and profitable. Read their success stories to inspire yourself!