Reselling hosting
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- eb6
I want to start offering hosting to clients.
I host my site with godaddy so that is my default choice.
Any advice on others? Anyone use godaddy for multiple sites? Any opinion on MT for multiple site hosting on one account?
Thanks!
- utopian0
fatcow.com $66 buck a year. Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited server space and unlimited domain names. I have had them for a year, great customer service, quick servers, and their servers are barely ever down...
- +1 been using them for the past 9 years...they are great!Aa77
- nocomply0
I used to do this, but have decided that it's not worth the hassle anymore.
The $60/year that I can get from a client is not worth the phone call I receive from them saying "my website is down" or "my email isn't working."
Now I make my clients buy their own hosting and give me all of the login info. That way when their website is down or their email isn't working they understand it's not my fault.
- acescence0
I use a mediatemple DV to host a bunch of domains for clients. works fine, rarely an issue. they have their own login and plesk control panel to set up their email addresses and ftp stuff for their domains.
- 3stripe0
Agreed with nocomply, think carefully before doing this.
When they break something at 1.30am on a Sunday night, it's you they'll phone!
- doesnotexist0
let them set it up and give you the u/p's.
do you want that much liability on your hands?
- eb60
The people I usually deal with have pretty low traffic sites. I usually do them in html and css only. Usually not a lot that can go wrong. If that changes anyone's opinions.
- noneck0
I wouldn't do this with Godaddy, find a more reliable host. I host clients' sites on my MediaTemple space. They don't get logins, they don't need them.
If you're doing this, charge what it's worth to you, not what the market rate is (the market rate is less). I would advise against giving them login info, and I wouldn't allow a client to host more than two email addresses on your server.
- eb60
Noneck, do you use (gs) or (dv)?
- d_rek0
I will say that godaddy is reliable but as far as usability goes good luck getting a client, even one who is remotely tech savvy, to have the patience to navigate that mess.
MT is far superior on the usability front, but may not have as many powerful features.
I pick MT over godaddy any day of the week.
- acescence0
if you use GS, you have to run the show. if you get a DV, you can set things up to restrict each client to a certain set of parameters, how much space they get, how many email accounts, etc.. it's actually designed for this sort of thing, versus a single account that can host multiple domains (like GS) but doesn't have the tools to manage multiple clients or let clients manage certain aspects of their accounts.
- eb60
acescence, i read of MT having issues alot, is that mostly just on the (gs) and not the (dv)?
- yes, my experience has been poor with (gs), but (dv) is rock solid. of course it's also a lot more money!acescence
- to be honest, I haven't had a single bad experience yet with gs, actually I'm very happyOSFA
- gotcha, the extra 30 a month would be worth the reliability.eb6
- OSFA, Do you host multiple sites on (gs)?eb6
- Don't use MT (GS) - lot's of problems!alex
- nocomply0
To add to what I said, I do occasionally offer hosting for some clients when I know that they will have low-traffic sites without any email. But I do that more of as a courtesy than a service I sell. I have both an MT gs account and a dv account. I generally wind up adding them to the gs because it's faster for me to set up and easier for me to manage.
I have had some issues with gs in the past 1.5 years or so. There were 2 instances where all my sites were down for 24 hours and one instance where email wasn't working off and on for about a week. The dv has been just fine and aside from the instances I mentioned the gs has been good for the 5+ years I've had an account.
- eb60
OSFA, not sure if you saw my question in the comment box. Do you host multiple sites on your (gs)?
- eb60
Any other nuggets of wisdom?
- acescence0
OSFA, whether or not you notice, things are going wrong with (gs) pretty regularly. take a look at their twitter feed, almost all of the incidents are (gs) related, and pretty frequent.
- +1 - DV is pretty good. Maybe you had a script on there that was F'ing up and that is what caused your resource issueheavyt
- clearThoughts0
I use hostgator and it's actually fine. Never had an issue... usability wise it's the clunkiest piece of shit I've seen on earth.
Every time I go to make a change of domain name or add a new account, I'm scared shitless of pressing the wrong button and deleting 10 websites.
But I had it for two years and it's totally fine.
- noneck0
I was running DV, but switched to GS as the DV server would occasionally consume 100% resources, and would kill HTTP, and mail services. It would do this about once a month, and I could never trace the problem to anything.
I switched it all to the GS, saved a bunch of money, and have been happier with how it runs. The key, I think, is to limit the number of email addresses you have on there. Email addresses will generate about 95% of your support calls.
The GS does have problems, but I've found that every hosting provider does too.
The question is whether or not your clients need or demand more reliability than you'll find with some sort of shared hosting provider. Most of my clients don't. The few that do, pay through the nose for more reliability.
- heavyt0
you'll be rich!
seriously, do yourself a favor and don't do it. I will reiterate - the first time the email goes down, or a sever crashes, you will really regret that 20 bucks a month you are making.