Hosting For A Client?

Hi I Hope this is the right thread. I'm new to all of this hosting and such, but if I have a client, is better to get hosting in their name, or in my name and get them to pay me the monthly fee? Same with the domain name, should it be registered to me or to them.

Thanks in advance

It does not matter whether you signup hosting package with your name or your client name, however, for domain registration always use your client details.

Goldrush,

I can see the appeal to markup the hosting service however it would be a better practice to set up the hosting account in your client's name. If your client decides to do something else with their website later (such as have another development company work on it or move work in-house), they will hit a road block when they can't make changes to hosting because it is in your name. Putting the hosting account in your name effectively ties them to you when really they should not be.

Best,

Shawn

This could be an excellent earning opportunity for you. I started out doing web design and I still do some web design for a select few local companies and I provide them hosting and make a nice profit. I recommend setting up a hosting service as a part of your business. You can get a decent vps for like $50/mo and then resell premium (no unlimited) web hosting packages for $20-50/mo for businesses and $10-15/mo for personal sites.

What I found is that if your service is good, most companies/individuals will keep your service for as long as your available. I have 41 businesses that pay me $49.95/mo for business web hosting and have been with me for almost 5 years. Support tickets are minimum and I have not touched their sites in years and they also provide some decent referral business. Do the math and that is $2047/mo recurring income for the last 5 years.

Now, I could probably scale this up, but I am full time affiliate now and I prefer to play golf and hang with the kids than design pages. If IM starts dropping, I will probably get back in to the design business, but until that happens, I am happy with my easy $2000/mo.

Depends on what they want. If you have the option of you being the one who manages their hosting then do that. Like the person above me pointed out, there are affiliate and other other benefit options.

If the service you are doing with your client is a one time thing then put it under his name.

Otherwise, if you intend to get several clients, you could use a reseller hosting account so it is under both names actually. As he would be able to manage his hosting through his panel while you can add others clients to your reseller hosting account.

I always have my clients sign up for everything in their own name.