Website Hosting Business

In a Nutshell

There are always new people and businesses looking for a web presence and that requires web hosting. You don't have to be a computer geek to run a hosting business. Many large hosts offer reseller plans, where you can resell their plans to your clients and make a profit.

The Longer Version

There are several ways to start a home based web hosting business. A large hosting business can rent out a dedicated server and share the web space among the clients.

You can actually start on a smaller scale and open a reseller account with a big hosting company.
As a web hosting reseller, you are allocated disk space and bandwidth by the host and get access to a web hosting control panel. You then setup your own hosting packages and put a price tab on each. You have your own hosting website which you then promote to gain new customers.

Some reseller plans allow you to pay for your web space only when you set up accounts. In essence you are receiving a significant discount for every hosting account you bring in, so you can keep the profit.

Once a customer signs up, you set up their account via your admin control panel and send them an email with their login and FTP information. Make sure you choose a hosting company that offers user-friendly control panels to both reseller and their clients. Offering good control panels to your clients (such as Cpanel), not only increases the value of your hosting packages, but also means your clients can handle their web accounts on their own, reducing your support time to a minimum.

Technical support is provided by the main host. Most large hosting companies handle any server problems immediately (they have special alarm systems to let them know when a server is in trouble). From time to time, your clients might ask you for other types of technical support, which you will then forward to your host.

The web hosting business is very competitive, but there are always new niches to explore. You may be able to find many clients by targeting your local business community or some other professional or regional niche. Once you get a client, they usually stick for the long run, providing you with a steady revenue stream.

What Do You Need?

A reseller account can be purchased for under $20 a month. You will also need your own website and if you can't design your own, you can probably buy a turnkey hosting website for under $200. This should get you going for the first six months of running your web hosting business.

So... How Much will I Make?

A reseller account costing you $20 should be enough for you to sell 50 accounts at $10 each. If you manage to find 20 new clients every month, at the end of the year you should have well over 200 clients and a profit of more than $2000 a month.