These are some of the most common questions resellers ask us before signing up...
If you are already a reseller we suggest you look at our Tutorials and Knowledgebase to see if your question has already been answered!
Starting a hosting reseller business - or any business, for that matter - it's important to do your homework first. Research the industry and your target market, ask plenty of questions and develop a plan before leaping into the business itself.
Begin by regularly visiting the reseller sections of hosting industry forums like Web Hosting Talk. In addition, you should read up on the hosting and reseller industries themselves at sites like The Web Host Industry Review. Make sure you fully understand both the ups and downs of being a reseller before you invest time or money in your own reseller business.
Finally, create a solid foundation for your business by learning as much about your target market first and developing a realistic and well thought out business plan. By doing so, you'll gain a head start on the challenges of getting the word out about your business, attracting customers and actually generating revenue.
Experience is always a good thing. It would be valuable to know and have experience with the technical side of web hosting. It must also be remembered that web hosting is a business and this entails many things. You need to know, or at least be able to learn about, legal requirements, accounting requirements, not to mention customer service skills.
Web hosting is a competitive business, and it's likely to seem as if there's always another provider out there that charges less for its services than you do. The challenge in setting prices, keeping competitive and staying in business isn't necessarily to always be the cheapest host around (we tried it for a while!), but to provide the best value to your chosen customer base.
Deciding what's of value to your customers first requires, of course, knowing who your customers are, what they need most and how much they are willing to pay for those products and services. You should also make sure your prices are competitive enough to provide a reasonable return for your time and efforts, after your costs. It's also a good idea to research the market and ask questions of other hosts and resellers to learn as much as possible about what does and doesn't work.
Finally, keep in mind that good service - treating your customers well at all times - can often be one of the most valuable things your business can offer, and can help you stand out from a crowded field of competitors.
BetterWebSpace will have your account up within 24 hours, the time depending on how many orders we are currently processing. You will receive an email once your account has been set up.
Since we stay invisible to your clients, we do not provide support to them. However, if there is a problem that you can't resolve, you may contact us at anytime via our client portal for advice to solve your clients problems.
We use WHM/cPanel for all of our client hosting accounts and more documentation can be found at The cPanel site.
Billing and/or support systems can greatly reduce the load on a reseller, we thoroughly recommend WHMCS which we use ourselves. As always, before you choose a system, make sure to try any demos, ask plenty of questions and seek input from fellow resellers on the web hosting forums.
Our Reseller Program provides an excellent opportunity to make healthy profits. Please refer to our Profit Example for more information on the profits made from reselling.
Many of our clients use reselling as part of their overall business strategy, whether they offer to design websites (and just add the hosting), or make promotional goods and want to offer that something extra (with recurring income) for their clients.
We also started BetterWebSpace as reseller for another company (smaller than we are today!) and have made a really good business out of it!
While it's not a necessity that you accept credit card payments from your customers, you may be limiting your potential as a host by not doing so. It is possible to only accept money order, bank transfer, and cheque payments in return for hosting, but many potential clients may be turned away by this idea. In this age of instant everything we've all grown accustomed to not having to wait for things.
If you've decided against a traditional merchant account, you may wish to consider alternative ways to collect money online. Third party merchant accounts are usually inexpensive and easy to setup, thereby allowing you to accept credit card payments without much of an investment, see WorldPay. Other services, such as PayPal enable you to accept credit card payments and pay only a small transaction fee in return.
The more payment methods you offer potential clients, the more people you'll be able to reach.
BetterWebSpace does not allow any Reseller or its customer to send out UCE or SPAM. We have zero tolerance policy on SPAM. Please do not provide hosting account(s) to bulk emailers' or spammers.
Here at BetterWebSpace you can use our domain name services as we are Nominet Registrar.
We recommend 123-Reg and NameCheap as we use them for some domains, but if you'd like to take the hassle out of ordering from them, we can administer all of your domains on our IPSTAG (our IPSTAG does reveal who we are).
Yes, we can provide you with IP's. The cost is: 1 IP = £2 Per Month
We encourage you to create Name Based Domain accounts and only proceed with IP Based Domain accounts if your client has special requirements on
their web site such as anonymous ftp, Open SSL, etc.
NOTE: All IP requests must meet ARIN guidelines
Whatever guarantees you make to customers, make sure you can actually deliver on them: hollow promises made only to attract new signups will come back to haunt you in the form of a poor reputation.
It's also important to research the market to see what types of guarantees your competitors are offering, and which guarantees are most important to your target customer base. The more effectively you can meet your customers' needs, the more likely you are to retain and build your customer base.
Finally, be sure your guarantees are clear, well written and easy to understand, and posted in an easy-to-find place on your website.
We will certainly endeavour to do so. We will never contact your clients about their account(s) or attempt to 'steal' them from you in any way. We use anonymous (non-BWS) name servers when registering or transferring resold accounts so that 'BetterWebSpace' does not appear in a WHOIS lookup of your clients' domain name records (unless you use us as a registrar). You can also set up your own aliased nameservers with us.
You and your clients have to agree with BetterWebSpace's terms and conditions. You don't have to put our policy agreement on your site, but please ensure that all accounts/domains hosted under you follows our terms and conditions.
Contact us - we may be able to help! Email BetterWebSpace
