So, you’ve got the final draft of your start-up ready and now you are looking to invest your first bucks in a web hosting service to host your clients’ websites. You’ll have two options in such a scenario: Either buy a reseller hosting package for yourself and resell hosting into smaller packages to your clients; or get a dedicated server and sell hosting packages from there. In order to decide which one would be more suitable for you, you first need to have an understanding of each of these hosting concepts.
The Concept of Reseller Hosting
Reselling, as the word suggests, happens when one buys something from someone and sells it to someone else. Reseller hosting is no different.
You can get into a contract with a known and reliable web hosting company and sell web hosting package that you buy from the host you choose. You get to price your hosting service and also choose what features are included in the packages you provide to the end buyer.
What features you provide as part of the hosting package depends on what features are made available to you in the reseller package you sign up for. Each web hosting company offers different reseller packages.
The below are indicators that let you choose the best reseller package.
- Determine how many customers you will be providing hosting service to.
- Make a rough estimate of what types of packages you will be offering to your clients.
- Estimate whether or not you will provide customer support to your buyers.
- Determine how much you can invest and what will be your profit margin.
Based on the above indicators, you can weigh various reseller packages offered by hosting companies.
To be on the safer side, it is advised to buy a reseller hosting package from a reputed web hosting brand, as their services can have direct impact on your credibility among your prospects.
If you know about shared hosting, here is a comparison to let you understand reseller hosting better.
The Concept of Dedicated Server Hosting
Dedicated hosting, again as the name implies, is one that is strictly dedicated to your business. You have the complete freedom to manage the dedicated server and sell the space on that server whatever way you want to.
With a dedicated hosting plan, you get to choose which kind of control panel you’ll have, how much space the server contains, what software to run on the server, and what hardware goes into the server.
As compared to reseller hosting, there are a plethora of choices you get to make with dedicated hosting plans. This gives you 100% control on the hosting, unlike with a reseller package.
When to Stick to Reseller Hosting?
You’d be better off with reseller hosting in one or more of the following cases:
- You are tight on your budget (like in the case of many startups).
- You are not sure of the clientele count.
- You are OK with just being able to brand the hosting and not concerned about providing highly customized hosting package to your clients.
- You have no knowledge or experience of managing a web hosting server and also can’t outsource the server management tasks.
When to Move to Dedicated Hosting?
You may either choose to buy dedicated hosting right at the first go, or decide to move from a reseller hosting to a dedicated server at a later stage. Dedicated server hosting would be a good choice in any of the following cases:
- If you are ready to spend more instead of compromising on the user experience of your clients.
- When you can’t take chances with frequent downtime possibilities.
- When you can either outsource or have the expertise to manage the server by yourself.
- When you want to be able to customize every element of the hosting plans you provide.
- You want to be able to monitor your server performance anytime you want.
In short, going for a dedicated server is the best choice. But that comes with a cost in terms of money and time. So, whichever hosting option you decide to go with, you need to research thoroughly on the types of plans you get, your financial feasibility and availability of time. Further, try to go for cloud based hosting since it is more reliable. No matter which type of hosting you opt for, be sure to go through related sites and forums and check out some genuine reviews. After all, you will be dealing with your clients’ websites and you’ll not want to move them from one hosting to another every now and then.