How do you host your clients websites?

[Fuqit]

I've been thinking of the different ways I could host my clients websites and thought I'd make a topic about it, here are the four different solutions I've thought of:

1) Hosting them on shared hosting (Through an affillate programme)
2) Hosting them on reseller hosting (Charging them for it)
3) Hosting them on a VPS
4) Hosting them on a dedicated server

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My question to you offline marketers, which do you use? And why?

 

[Cas87]

i choose Reseller Hosting for various reasons,

VPS and Dedicated are probably better if managed but more expensive, if not managed then you just need to know what you are doing.. too much hassle for me if your designing websites as well during the week.

I presume through a shared hosting affiliate you only get paid once? where as Reseller you can keep the customer for years & set a price that you think they will be happy with.

 

[danthuluri]

I use Plesk. and i Think CBM is the best . Every thing is automated and my business is running in a hands free mode. i have about 70 customers and things are looking even better now with dedicated server..

 

[Fuqit]

I use Plesk. and i Think CBM is the best . Every thing is automated and my business is running in a hands free mode. i have about 70 customers and things are looking even better now with dedicated server..

I've been considering changing from cPanel to Plesk, thanks

 

[Zak_A]

I'm using reseller too.

HG reseller account Aluminum: $25/month (that is, $300/year) for 50Gb space & 500Gb bandwidth + unlimited domains, cpanel, mysql etc.

My offline clients don't need more than 1/50 of this package, e.g. I five them 1Gb disk space and 10Gb bandwidth (which is actually more than what they need already).
So I can host up to 50 clients with this reseller plan, and I'm charging each of them $150/year for hosting + support.

I'm offering hosting only to give them a "complete service". I don't really try to make money with hosting, as my main business is around design and development.
But at 150/year/client, I'm breaking even with the 2nd hosted client, I start to make profit with the 3rd and then profit is only increasing up to the 50th client.

The math is quickly done

50 x 150 - 300 = 7200 pure profit per year with hosting.
Not that bad for an "additional" service that wasn't meant to bring too much cash, isn't it ?

 

[outsidethesquare]

I use Reseller Hosting. I charge my offline clients a premium for hosting so the markup is fantastic and I find that having reliable reseller hosting makes everything so simple. I chose servers close to my geographic region and they are lightning fast. It's also really useful to have someone from the hosting company to talk to if anything ever goes wrong or I have any problems. And I use WHMCS to manage everything. All in all, a useful, profitable, reliable, and relatively hands-free solution.

 

[pokerjk]

Go for reseller until you reach a certain threshold and then go for a VPS and maybe one day go dedicated. It all depends on your business plan money coming in money going out and what you offer to your clients. I see your from England so if you want to go for UK servers give me a shout and I will advice on where to go.

 

[Tangy]

We have all of our clients websites on a dedicated server - that is dedicated to client websites! Pretty straight forward.

We do it this way as it ties them in to using us for hosting. If they want to leave, there's a fee involved with transferring everything out.

We use CPanel to manage everything, and it works just fine.