Starting Webhosting.

[Ash-Bash 0]

Hello Trapper : D,Well since I am getting older I feel I need an insight to my own business I am therefore willing to make my own Web hosting company. I want to ask this question... Do I have to buy a reseller account for my business? As it doesn?t seem to work with the cost?s I would much rather buy the normal linux packages I don?t see how that is illegal or breaking the Terms of Service.Please give me some ideas on how I can make it cheap and successful. Regards,-Ash

[rvalkass 5]

A reseller account is designed for selling on to others, while the normal packages aren't. Reseller gives you access to WHM (Web Hosting Manager). This is a software package that allows you to setup and create user accounts, manage limits on the accounts, etc. etc. This is much harder (if not impossible) to do with a normal account. Normal accounts also place limits on you to start with, which means you are very limited on what you can offer your potential customers.

[jlhaslip 4]

To start off your Web Hosting experience, you might consider using the Xisto Affiliate program.Check out the possibilities as detailed at the Xisto - Support.com site.It is as simple as having your 'clients' purchase Hosting using your Affiliate link.Xisto sends you payment each month.Good luck with it.

[freenrg 0]

Another option is to go for VPS.
http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Right now there is an offer with
VPSmini @ $20 with 128MB burstable to 512MB RAM

11 GB SPACE (including Operating System, CPanel etc. files)
300 GB BANDWIDTH

192 MB Guaranteed RAM
256 MB Burstable RAM
1 IP Addresses allocation

But, you do need to know Linux, and you have to use Webmin Cpanel, not the CPANEL Cpanel, or you will have to pay more.

The question I have about this is SSL.
You need an SSL certificate to capture your customer's details in a secure web connection.

With a reseller account, this SSL certificate may be provided by Xisto, am I right?
How does this work?

[Ash-Bash 0]

Well ok I can see your points on how a reseller account would be useful or this however just buying normal accounts for people would be easy for me + I can make more profit I think. I think first I will start with normal accounts then if my hosting company becomes more popular I would get a resellers account. Thank-You for your support and tips for getting me started .

[freenrg 0]

Sorry, this I wrote earlier was misleading:

But, you do need to know Linux, and you have to use Webmin Cpanel, not the CPANEL Cpanel, or you will have to pay more.

Webmin is not a good choice for webhosting.
These can work for webhosting:
- ispCP
- SysCP
- ISPConfig

Well ok I can see your points on how a reseller account would be useful or this however just buying normal accounts for people would be easy for me + I can make more profit I think. I think first I will start with normal accounts then if my hosting company becomes more popular I would get a resellers account. Thank-You for your support and tips for getting me started .

But a normal shared hosting account does not give you the tools you need to manage your customers.How are you going to give your customers a CPanel to control their accounts for example?

Notice from jlhaslip:

Merged posts

Edited June 6, 2009 by jlhaslip (see edit history)

[harrison858 0]

I would advise to you that it would be more wise and of ease to just open a reseller account and make them register through your affilates link, as jlhaslip has mentioned above. If you're going to offer cPanel to your customers then you might as well get reselling unless you're going to have your customers go through your own cPanel to access the foler of which their site is contained on, which is not a good thing to do.

[TheDisturbedOne 1]

Another person for the affiliate idea. I think that if you run a hosting company you should own the physical server, seeing as not owning it has closed down a bunch of hosting providers. The only bad thing about owning your server is power outages, and the bandwidth. Oh, and the actual cost of the server, which is a bit expensive.

[Ash-Bash 0]

Hmm Ok, Well Thank-You for all your advice and everyone, I didn't relise how big a job it is just to start something like this. I am still wondering if I am going to make the Hosting due to Exams and other stuff I have to do :/ Once again thanks and watch this space .- Ash.

[fermin25 3]

Hi I recommend you that you buy a full webhosting because a business selling hosting on reseller plans is not a really webhosting business. That?s affiliate marketing....Of course to do that you have to buy a lot of software and hardware, in other words it?s a big investion but it could be great if your webhosting have success...Because is a very reduitable business.

[freenrg 0]

I think if Ash-Bash is interested in giving hosting business a try a reseller account is a good way to start.

He would learn a lot of the things he needs to learn with a modest investment.
He could then graduate and move to a dedicated server, but that requires solid knowledge of server administration.

In any case, I would recommend anybody interested in going into the hosting business to learn as much as possible about linux and control panels before going "live", or you will have a bunch of unhappy customers.

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Just wanted to add to my previous posts about freeware reseller control panels that the Xisto/Xisto - Web Hosting VPS offer comes with the option of VHCS preinstalled free of charge.

That's not bad to host unlimited* domains:
http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/
http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

* careful with unlimited