This is the 3rd part in my series of how to start a web hosting company. If you haven’t read the first two articles you can read those here:

Starting A Web Hosting Company - Part 1

Starting A Web Hosting Company - Part 2

Scripts

This post is for the people who decide to go with a dedicated server instead of going the reseller route.

To run your new hosting company you are going to need a couple different scripts to cover all your bases.

Hosting Managment / Control Panel

These are the scripts that are going to allow you to create and setup hosting accounts, both manually, and automatically. They will also give your customers an interface to make changes to their hosting accounts, setup emails and etc.

WHM / cPanel
By far one of the most popular script of its kind, it does its job extremely well. Although maybe not one of the most intuitive systems of the competition, it is incredibly stable and robust. Also because of its popularity, there are no shortages of themes, and plug-ins for it. And many people are already familiar with it, so you just might get less questions for your clients. Price wise, this is just about the most expensive scripts.

Plesk
Probably the second most popular script used, Plesk also has a big following with many themes and plug-ins available. In the price department, this is a much cheaper alternative than the former.

Billing

After setting up your server with the management scripts, your going to need a script that is going to automate the signing up and billing end of things. There are quite a few of these scripts out there and I will list a few of them here.

WHM Auto Pilot

WhoisCart

iHost

So this concludes this post, be sure to check back for the 4th part of this series soon.

This is part 2 in my series of how to start a web hosting company. This will probably be the longest and most extensive post out of the entire series.

If you haven’t read the first one, start by reading it: Starting A Web Hosting Company - Part 1

Where To Host

This is it. You have your new domain name picked out and registered, and you are ready to go.

Now what?

I’ll tell you what. You need to decide where and how you want to host your customers. There are a few different ways to do it, but really there are only 2 important ways to worry about.

Dedicated Server or Reseller?

This decision is a major one. It will define how much control you have over your clients accounts, how much profit you make, and essentially what your whole system looks like.

I’m sure I will get emails suggesting that Virtual Dedicated Servers work too. And yes, they do. But its almost like a half breed of the two and I suggest going either full dedicated, or reselling.

Below I will list the pro’s and con’s of each of the 2 methods. Be sure you understand as much as possible before you make your decision. When I speak about reseller hosting, I will be using GoDaddy for the main example since they are one of the most popular services available.

Dedicated Server

This is how I currently host my clients, and I find it to be the most profitable and fulfilling of the two choices. I did start out as a reseller though, and I will explain more about that in the next section.

Pro’s
You have full control of your system. You don’t need to send in an email support request to make simple modifications to your server and/or control panel.

After paying your monthly server fee, every penny earned after that is profit. As opposed to reselling when the parent company continually takes a part of each sale you make.

You can install any type of server management script, billing script, and additional scripts you want to help run your business.

Real brand labeled design. Many of the reseller companies out there talk about how you can customize their branding to be your own. However, in my experience, the theme-ability is very limited and still looks like all the other resellers pages.

You and your company looks much more professional when all the phone numbers and email addresses are your own, and not some far off area code that is going to cost your clients money to call.

You can create new accounts on the fly without having to pay a dime. Personally I have a few different websites that I host on my dedicated server, and when I used to start a new website, I had to pull money out of my own pocket for a new hosting account via my parent reseller. So if you need to split off a small piece of server space for a friend or relative, you can do so without spending a thing.

Con’s
You are responsible when something goes wrong with your hosting. Your clients will be calling you and complaining, and much of the time they are not going to be very happy about it.

You are responsible for every script that is installed on your server, and if one of them gets hacked, breaks, or whatnot, your ass is on the line.

At 3am when a client decided they wanted to upload something via FTP and couldn’t figure it out, guess who’s phone is going to ring? That’s right, yours, so you better get rid of that sleepy voice when you pick up the phone.

You are responsible for everything, any small problem your client has, its up to you to fix.

Reselling

This is how I started out my hosting career. It worked well for me for about a year, and then I got tired of paying 30% of my earnings to the parent company. It’s a nice way to get into the game, but its really not what I really consider having a hosting company.

Pro’s
Almost no worries about server upkeep. Your parent company will take care of everything for you.

Your client’s will usually have a direct number they can dial to call your parent company directly when they need help at 3am.

Your billing, control panel, and scripts are pre-installed and working for you. If you don’t know how to install php scripts, and mysql databases, this method might be for you.

Con’s
20% - 50% of all your sales will go straight to the parent hosting company. At first it might not bother you, but trust me, it will start to.

Full branding is nearly impossible. Even though many reselling companies list their plans as fully brand-able, they are not. I’m sure there might be 1 or 2 out there that might possibly be, but for the most part they are not. You are usually given a very few options to customize, add your own logo, catch phrase, but that’s about it.

Every hosting account must be payed for up front. You have no control over payment methods, or giving accounts to friends or family if you need to. Or if you want to start a new website for yourself, it will have to be paid for.

Some reselling companies make you pay a yearly fee, on top of taking a percentage of your earnings.

Many of the reseller control panels suck ass. I mean they are really really bad. By far the worst one of them all is the GoDaddy panel. It is just about the biggest piece of crap I have ever seen.

So in the end, its really up to you. How much work do you want to put in. How much potential profit do you think you will have? If you expect to have a high profit business, reselling might cut too much into those profits for your liking. If you are just a web designer and want to make a couple extra bucks, reselling might fit in to your plans.

Check back soon for my 3rd part of this series

This will be a multi part series on how to start your own web hosting company. I was going to list how many parts it will be in the end, but at this point I really have no idea. I do know that it will be a minimum of 4 parts.

Check back soon to read part 2 of the set - Where To Host

Choosing A Domain Name

A domain name can possibly be one of the most important decisions you will have to make. It will dictate so many different parts of your new web hosting company. Everything from color scheme, logo design, slogans and so much more will rely on the domain name you choose.

For example, lets say you choose a domain name that is something like Green Host (its already taken, but just for example), then you have pretty much defined at least one of the main colors of the website, and more than likely colors of the logo.

Now lets go across the color wheel and say you chose Red Host for the domain name. Not only have you defined the color red as having to be a major design factor, you may have screwed yourself at the same time. There are many studies out there that have proved that the color red makes people feel uneasy, and less trusting.

So you can see now how the smallest things can have a major effect on your whole business.

When you think you have found a name that you like, try to imagine colors that will work well with it, possibly logo designs, and before you go and buy the name ask some of your friends what they think of it. Do some of your own market research, because after you pick a name your gonna be stuck with it for a long time.

Resources

There are many domain name resources out there to help you come up with a proper name. I will list a few of them here that might be able to help you find the name that fits you.

Bust A Name
Enter a combination of words that you want your domain to contain and it will search for you. You can edit the search parameters to include or exclude different tpes of TLD’s (Top Leve Domains aka .com, .net, .org)

123 Finder
Similar to the link above, just enter some keywords and it will find domain names (both registered & unregisters) so that you can research them. This is actually a pretty good website to use.

WhoIs.Net
A tool to find out the registered owners, date of registration, date of expiration and much more of a domain name. An invaluable research tool.

Being a web and graphic designer, it was only a matter of time until I also started hosting my own clients websites. With this came a whole new set of problems and learning experiences that I would have to cope with to get to the promise land.

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