If you are a web designer or developer, you probably love designing. However, all the techie stuff in the background of your website, probably not so much. This article looks at a different approach to reselling your website hosting to give you a passive income stream, without all the hassle that goes along with it.
The Standard Approaches for Reselling Hosting
In most cases, there are one of three ways in which you, a web designer, web developer or design agency can supply hosting to your clients. The first is where the client does the hard work and arranges the hosting themselves. The second is where you set up individual hosting accounts for their clients and manage them. The final way is investing in a full reseller package where you manage all aspects of the hosting and billing. Let’s look at each of these in detail.
Method 1: The Client Sets Up the Account.
The client commissions you to build them a website. In most cases this will be built on a staging platform and when the design is ready, it will need to be pushed live. At this stage you ask the client to create a hosting account at a host of their choice, under their own account name. In some cases, you may recommend a particular hosting company or hosting package. When it comes to launch, you retrieve the login credentials from the client and upload the website data.
Advantages
- You don’t have to do any of the hosting set up
- You don’t have to worry about any of the billing for the hosting
- If the hosting goes down, you are not responsible, and the client goes to the hosting company for support.
Disadvantages
- There is no recurring income stream from this method
- Your client may choose a rubbish web host or inadequate hosting package
- The Hosting package may not have all the requirements needed to make your website run as intended
- It might be difficult to perform updates in future, particularly more technical updates such as PHP version upgrades etc.
- The hosting company may be using a hosting platform that you are unfamiliar with.
Method 2: You set up the individual accounts and manage them for the client.
In this scenario, once the site is ready to go live, you will set up the account with your preferred hosting provider and then bill the client accordingly. You will be able to select the type of hosting you require on a platform that hopefully you are familiar with. Should any issues arise, you will have to deal with the hosting company to solve any technical issues. This is certainly a flexible approach, with you only paying for the hosting you are actually using. It can also generate a small amount of passive income.
Advantages
- A small passive income
- Pay as you go
- You have control over the hosting and the hosting configuration
- The hosting company will handle any technical issues.
Disadvantages
- You could end up dealing with lots of different accounts
- It is the least cost-effective way of providing sites as you are buying the hosting at retail price, so your mark-up can only be small
- Technical support is not white-labelled, so clients may find out you are charging more than the RRP for the hosting
- There are no additional hosting benefits or referral incentives.
Method 3: You have a full-blown reseller account.
Here you will be given access to the reseller software and have full access to all the reselling hosting options. This is certainly the most flexible of ways to offer hosting and is certainly the most profitable. You usually get a good wholesale rate and set the billing accordingly. Therefore, it may not be cost-effective until you have a larger number of clients. It is not always ideal for the startup business or smaller website designer.
Technically you are completely in charge of the billing system, and the onboarding software, including ensuring everything is secure. This definitely has a steep learning curve, and eats into your time spent designing great websites.
Advantages
- Good passive income – you set your prices
- There is room to expand
- You have full control over the hosting and the hosting configuration
- You have control of the hosting packages you have on offer and other products
- Technical Support is white labelled to you.
Disadvantages
- You pay for your slice of server up front. If you only have a few customers, it may not be cost-effective
- You have to administer all aspects of the hosting
- There is a high level of difficulty involved
- You still don’t have full access to the server
- Technical support is not white-labelled, so clients may find out you are charging more than the RRP for the hosting
- You handle all the technical issues, which can be quite demanding.
What if there was another way for Reseller Hosting?
Well there is! At Hipposerve we have come up with a special plan for Website Designers and developers which we call our Website Design Club.
You have all the advantages of full reseller services with our amazing customer support for all your accounts.
Because we recognise that you are doing the work getting hosting customers for us, we offer free monthly billing for your convenience and 50% off all our standard hosting plans.
Your Site on a Virtual Private Server
As a member of the Web Design Club, you get to host your own website for free on our shared server!
However, as a web designer, you will know the importance of having a fast, responsive website. This is why, we have an exclusive offer for Web Design Club members which includes your website on a VPS!
We will provide The Hippo Business Pro—Success plan for just £24.99/mo (normally £35.99/mo) PLUS a FREE web development account on the VPS too (see below).
All set up for you too!
We will set up your dev space too!
It can be frustrating developing websites on shared hosting. Shared resources mean at busy times, your work rate can grind to a halt.
If you choose to host your site on a VPS server, we will set up a staging/development area, so you can design and build at full power 100% of the time.
Key Benefits of the Hipposerve Web Design Club
A Range of Discounts
A range of amazing discounts on all our hosting products and many of our hosting add-ons. Plus our 99p domain name offer on a number of popular domain names.
Tailor Made Hosting for your Clients
Different clients require different hosting plans. With the Website Designer Club, you can choose which plan is best for your client, without the hassle of a reseller plan.
Hassle-Free Reselling
With standard reseller plans, you need to create the packages, administer billing, manage security and technical issues. Here, the Hippo is on hand to do all that!
Freedom to Design
Without having to administer any of the technical aspects of hosting and email, you are free to do what you do best, designing and developing awesome websites.
Referral Network
We have customers who need websites! Who better to refer them to, thank you! As long as you use us for the hosting, we will be happy! We work with you to learn about your design company and the types of the website that you prefer to build. We will then forward design requests on to the developers with the best fit.
Hippo Customer Support (White labelled)
Each of your clients’ accounts is supported as if they are an individual customer. Your client will come to you and you forward their support request to us, and let us do the rest.
Find Out More
To find out more about this amazing offer for website designers and developers, visit our Web Design Club dedicated page here.
