How are you managing your client hosting services

Thank you al very much for your comments!

how can i add signature like you, i need it

I have been using Hostgator as a reseller for the past 3 or 4 yrs and started out just learning as I went along. (Still am!)

My target customers are small business who know very little about websites or anything ‘internet’ but need a website done from domain name, hosting and through to maintenance, all of which I provide.

I now purchase all my domain names through AustDomains and set up nameservers to my hostgator account, set up a CMA Drupal website, set auto backups within that setup and away I go.

Yes my goal, is to make money - it’s my business so I need to. (Just a small home office situation on my own - no assistance)

I charge my clients for their domain name, annual hosting and website setup plus 3 months free maintenance service to get their site set up to a level everyone is happy with. I also let them know what their ongoing charges will be and how regular.
After 3 months we discuss ongoing maintenance - have to say much of what I do from then on is a quick email from the client - “can I please add this…” and I don’t charge for those small services - any major changes or issues I think might take a while I quote on first.

I use MYOB for my accounting and have Recurring transactions setup for renewal of domain name and hosting times - have found this to be a god-send for reminders.

I also use MS Access for every client, their contact details, their domain names, usernames, passwords, registry keys, cpanel access to domains, ftp usernames and passwords, CMS Login ID’s, their Facebook and Twitter accounts etc - that is also a godsend to my business.
Once their website is setup, I have a report which I send to them outlining every one of those details - “in case I die” is how I explain it. How many times have we had clients come to us and they have no idea of their access details etc??

As said, my target are non-internet people so they do need everything done for them.

But hey - all said and done - I love this stuff , it’s been totally self taught, I spend hours on the PC but I still travel heaps with my husband and work from abroad if need be.
Bu then we all love doing this or we wouldn’t be here! True?

I use a HostGator Reseller Package. Basically for $25 / month you can host 166 small websites.

Very good information, thank you all very much!

Interesting thread… Hosting and domain registration is a little convoluted so I do a lot of the leg work for my clients in this regard so that they don’t have to deal with it. They gladly have me deal with details like this so that they don’t need to.

I have a policy now of making sure that my clients officially have me somewhere in the domain registration/hosting loop so that if I need to jump into action if there is a catastrophic event (which does happen), the hosting/domain people have me on file as someone involved with the site.

1- What was your first hosting company and what kind of service did you provide to your customers?
It was either Bluegenesis or another big one from a long time ago. I think it was Verio. Then a little later, I had a small server farm in the office that I ran for about 5 years but I dumped it and outsource all my hosting needs now.

I have a really good dedicated host I refer my clients to for hi-traffic or mission critical sites and the other lower traffic or less critical sites are hosted at Site5 or Hostgator.

2- Were you using a reseller package or were you buying individual hosting packages as needed or were you letting the customers deal with these type of services?
Individual packages as needed back when I started. I would do the leg work and then once we were good-to-go, I would transfer everything over so the client could manage it themselves. It’s similar today but a lot more streamlined.

3- Were you trying to make some money providing these services?
No, I just wanted to take the hassle out of registering domain names and finding hosting for my clients so they could concentrate on content development and seamlessly launching the sites.

4- What was included with these services, were you in charge of the backups and restores if something would happen to the site like a hacked site?
I leave that up to the hosting people.

Thanks a lot for your comments.

I have noticed that a lot of you don’t deal with hosting and domain services but what do you say if the person you are dealing with doesn’t have an e-mail and doesn’t know how to set these services by him/her self? I have seen this with small business owners.

Do you just forget about these type of clients or you simply make an exception and you go-ahead open-up an e-mail account and set up the hosting and domain services?

What if this person doesn’t check his/her e-mail and doesn’t renew these services they may come back and claim that their web site is not running thinking that is a design issue.

Thanks a lot!

That is a good question.

I believe it would depend on the size of the project.

What I would do in a case like this, is most probably purchase the domain/hosting for them under our company accounts; Then set them as the owner of the domain and us as the technical contact in the whois information.

Most importantly, I would bill them upfront for the domain and hosting cost. Then next year I would send them a new invoice for the renewal cost, two months before it expire. That way I would have received the payment from the client, before we renewed his account. If the client did not pay in time, we would not renew his account.

On a side note, you should also increase the price of the domain/hosting that you send over to the client with 10-30% to get at least something back from the time you spend on this.

In general, I would most probably consider this on a project to project basis. Ask yourself these questions:

Do I want the project?
Do we need the project? (financially speaking)

As sometimes you can afford being picky on the projects you accepts, other times you just have to accept whatever you can get to make the wheels turn around.

Very good information, thanks a lot!

On a side note, you should also increase the price of the domain/hosting that you send over to the client with 10-30% to get at least something back from the time you spend on this.

Do you tell the customer about this increase or you simply increase it without telling them? If you do this without informing the client what’s going to happen if the client finally wants to do the payments directly to the hosting and domain company?

Learning a lot in this forum, Thanks a lot!

Kaybee57

I also use MS Access for every client, their contact details, their domain names, usernames, passwords, registry keys, cpanel access to domains, ftp usernames and passwords, CMS Login ID’s, their Facebook and Twitter accounts etc - that is also a godsend to my business.
Once their website is setup, I have a report which I send to them outlining every one of those details - “in case I die” is how I explain it. How many times have we had clients come to us and they have no idea of their access details etc??

You have a very good point which I have thought about before. You are saying that you send all of their login information in case you lose contact with the client, but since you are using a reseller package how is this information help the client to continue with the hosting services since you are their direct provider?

Do you actually give them the company’s name you are using as your reseller provider in case they need to contact them?

Thanks a lot

I would not tell the client about this, its a common practice in business to increase the price of a product before selling it to a customer.

To easiest see this, think about food stores, cloth stores. All of these put a profit margin on the products and the price is increased anything from 5-500% compared to the price they purchase it for.

In the case the client wanted to take over the hosting etc at a later point, I would not have any problems with that, and if they questioned the difference in price, I would just tell that its to cover the time we spent handling that on their behalf.

Thanks a lot TheRedDevil

1-Started with 1and1, offered the full package: hosting, email, etc. Not too happy with it (poor tech support)
2-I used a reseller package, but the customer chose what they wanted. Almost like a menu…
3-My margin was small, but I was trying to make money. I do web design, so the $$ from the hosting was secondary.
4-I now use godaddy reseller and their tech support is awesome. It’s 24/7 and they don’t answer with “godaddy… can I help you?” It seems to the customer like it’s YOUR support. Nice touch.

This seems to be a recurring theme. The company I work at uses 1and1 and we’ve suffered endless problems through their hosting, to the point where we’ve seriously considered leaving and sticking everything on our dedicated server.

4-I now use godaddy reseller and their tech support is awesome. It’s 24/7 and they don’t answer with “godaddy… can I help you?” It seems to the customer like it’s YOUR support. Nice touch.

I tried godaddy on one of my sites and the only reason I stopped using it is because they don’t use Cpanel and back then I saw it as an issue because is what most of the other hosing companies use and because I thought that by having Cpanel would be easier to transfer site if ever want it too.

It looks like a lot of people are now using godaddy and I’m starting to think about it again but I’m wondering if the cpanel they are using is completely different than cpanel and this may slow me down.

Can I have a breaf comment as to why is godaddy a good choice? I know this is a different topic but I wanted to ask.

Thanks a lot!