Are resellers a thing of the past?

[MMiz]

Two or three years ago the **** reseller didnt exist. Now everyone is requesting a **** reseller account. Two or three years ago it was rare to find a server that included 40 GB of bandwidth for under $200, and that was the bare minimum price for a dedicated.

My point? It seems now with the $99 server everyone has skipped over the reseller package and went out and purchased a server. What is the future of the reseller account? Do you think servers will eventually be so cheap and easy to manage everyone will have one?

Just wondering :)

[Chicken]

I think that there will always be a market for a fully managed solution, which is smaller than a full server. Reseller accounts are great. You get all the good stuff and don't have to deal with the bad stuff (assuming someone is dealing with the bad stuff it's good!) -confused yet?

:confused:

[markblair]

I agree. Reseller accounts won't completely disappear as long as there are people like me that don't have the time or the complete knowledge to own/run my own server. Plus, people just starting out may feel intimidated with running a server. Times may change, though, and anything is possible in the future.

[Karen]

I don't think that they will disappear. A lot of my clients own 4 or 5 web sites which only use 10 G per month in total. It is more cost efficient for them to pay a reseller price than a dedicated price, even at $99 per month.

As well, if they upgraded to a dedicated server then they would need it managed, which would then increase the cost from $99.

Just my $1.02

Karen

[RADiSTAR]

**** resellers existed in 1997; of course the cost was high.

[Living Media]

I agree with everyone else: us resellers aren't going to completely vanish.

For one thing, while I futz around on El Crap-Box ( a friend's rented server: he's playing with Perl, I'm learning server admin ), I use my reseller account to build up a client base. Once I have not only the client base but the knowledge to administer a dedicated box without compromising the quality of service that my clients receive, I'll migrate - but not before then. It's kind of like an internship without all the dippy corporate politics. Or web hosting with training wheels.

[Chicken]

Also, web hosting isn't the core business of some people. Running servers and all that goes along with it (well, not 1/2 donkey'd) takes time (time to admin and service, not to mention learn about it in the first place). If you're prime service and expertise is building web sites (design), then you'd most likely want to spend your time building sites, not dealing with servers. Same goes for people who sell other related things, and for people who simply want to deal with the sales end of hosting.

It's all about priorities. If you make money by selling web hosting packages, then don't waste your time trying to build a web site. Hire someone to do that for you. If you want to be a server admin, then spend the time learning it so you can do it. Otherwise, it makes more sense to align yourself with people who already know how to do it.

In other words, the owner of a web hosting company does not need to know how to get gum out of the carpet, they pay someone to clean the offices who knows how to get gum out of the carpet. Don't sweat the petty things, (nor pet the sweaty things) ;) :D

[jvn]

For me its a combination of niche marketing and outsourcing the technical stuff. I prefer the sales side, providing a product that meets a need for a client who has his/her own biz to mind. I get to see daylight and fresh air, meeting new clients, etc. They get solutions to common problems from an "In-Person" rep.

When I first started as a reseller, I envisioned the great pie-in-the-sky of easy $$$ all automated. It wasn't long before the reality that you can't be all things to all people set in. Nor do people come knocking just because you have a business online. Most of my clients were from personal contact. They knew of & were interested in a website, but had no idea who to turn to. They were also interested in more than a free sitebuilder or similar offer.

My guess is that many resellers are either just starting out as mentioned above, or are designers who need to manage a few clients, etc. Its additional income rather than primary. As such, Reseller accounts should be around for awhile.

[vivehosting.com]

Host resellers don't make much money. Some hosts create reseller plans for personal uses such as 1 gig space reseller plans which is nothing to anyone who is going to host others.

Resellers are seperated between a reselling host or a reseller for a more personal use. I still think resellers have a future, but some hosts don't offer the type of plans that it takes to benefit both sides. I found that as an automatic problem with several of my future competitors ;).

When I decided I wanted to enter the hosting industry, I did the math and the research and it's very hard to profit on a reseller account plus you are under the parent host's restrictions which will result in making your own service poorer than it could be.

I plan to change that, but I'm not going to talk about it just yet hehe.

[john826]

I agree, I think more people/companies will start using their own servers, if they become a lot more cheaper.

The main reasons for this is that we will have more control over what we can do, which will also give us more security.

[proxy]

I certaintly do beleive the shared market is more stable. Most people looking to start a webhosting company will skip over the reseller plan these days because server prices are so low that reseller packages almost dont pay off. However there will always be a market for individuals and small businesses looking for a simple cost effective shared hosting solution.

regards,

[Matt]

Originally posted by vivehosting.com:
Host resellers don't make much money. Some hosts create reseller plans for personal uses such as 1 gig space reseller plans which is nothing to anyone who is going to host others.

Resellers are seperated between a reselling host or a reseller for a more personal use. I still think resellers have a future, but some hosts don't offer the type of plans that it takes to benefit both sides. I found that as an automatic problem with several of my future competitors ;).


What makes you think that host resellers don't make much money? We have some extremely profitable resellers.

You should realise that space and bandwidth in a hosting plan are not everything - infact they become a much smaller aspect of it as people become more educated about hosting.

[john826]

Reseller hosting can make a lot of money! It depends on how you go about it!

Don't make much money, where did you get that from?

[Webbase]

They definitely aren't.

We provide hosting for resellers, the majority of which aren't hosting vendors nor ever will be, they are web site designers, webmasters and people with existing business contacts that would normally outsource hosting.

So long as your reseller plans solve problems their will be a market for them. Dedicated servers certaintly aren't for everyone and take a great deal more work (and stress!) to run than a reseller account!!

[johnallen]

It's easier to start off with a reseller account and generate income to move up to a dedicated server.

[octagonhost]

no onne mentioned co-location, do you think that will be big?

[Ted S]

Reseller accounts work great for people just starting or individuals like myself who run many sites. Personally I've got all sorts of accounts, private servers for big sites and all that but for the majority of my sites and clients a few reseller accounts do it all.

If I was to get into hosting now I can't imagine why I wouldn't start as a reseller again -- it's cheap, quick and easy and while $99 many not be a lot, a $19.95 reseller account would be 5 times less which means I can invest slowly and let a few clients trickle in before getting serious.

[john826]

Nicely put Ted S, and have a great day!

[hlh_nospam]

Originally posted by john826:

Reseller hosting can make a lot of money! It depends on how you go about it!

Don't make much money, where did you get that from?
I certainly haven't made a lot of money at reselling (yet). Care to enlighten me about how it's done? I mainly got into reselling as a sideline to have another resource to offer my clients (my specialty is insurance agencies, since I am a licensed agent).

[hlh_nospam]

Originally posted by Ted S:
If I was to get into hosting now I can't imagine why I wouldn't start as a reseller again -- it's cheap, quick and easy and while $99 many not be a lot, a $19.95 reseller account would be 5 times less which means I can invest slowly and let a few clients trickle in before getting serious.
I found an outfit that looked like a pretty good deal for reselling -- they don't charge me anything at all for the reseller account, although I did go ahead and get one of their low-level webhosting accounts for myself, mainly to test them out. However, I have some doubts about how they can offer their account for less than $5/month and stay profitable -- the specs look like the bandwidth alone would cost them more than $3/month, and they give me a generous percentage. They do seem to be serious about the business, and the support really does respond to my questions (as an end-user, not as a reseller) within about 10 to 15 minutes, and they appear to know what they are doing.

I use a 2nd reseller account that I pay $100/year for simply because they are more flexible about how they handle domain names -- the one weakness I've found with the free service. I pretty much break even on that one just by having a cheap place to register my own domains (last time I checked, I had over a dozen of them). Between the two reseller accounts, I have pretty good flexibility to handle the needs of my clients (insurance agencies, mostly).

[john826]

If you can get a cheap enough reseller account in which you can nearly double the price of the hosting to what you paid for it, then you should do quite well.

I personally have not gone into purchasing any reseller hosting for myself, but I do now two people who claims that they had made some good money out of it.

[Essentials]

Reseller hosting isn't going anywhere soon :cool:

We have customers that actually have left their dedicateds because a reseller account is easier to run and manage, and for the same price of a dedicated they can get multiple reseller accounts and spread them across a couple different datacenters and servers. Unless you have very much space/bandwidth needed this really makes alot of sense.

Managed dedicated server prices would have to go very low (lower than profitable could afford most likely) before reseller accounts will be affected much.

[alex042]

Managed dedicated server prices would have to go very low (lower than profitable could afford most likely) before reseller accounts will be affected much.
Semi-managed is already really low especially when you can get a $59 server with 80gb or $59 reseller plan with only 5gb. It would basically come down to whether that person wanted to actually deal with running the server or not and how much that was worth to them.

[Greg]

No, i don't think they are, Resellers are good for small hosting companies to start off then when they have more money anda steady income they could buy a dedicated server, I know lots of companies who started out on a reseller place and move on up to a dedicated server.

[john826]

I guess that people can agree and disagree on this one!