Reselling Reseller plans

[watermelon]

Exactly. My original question was about how to allocate disk space and bandwidth (e.g. how does the reseller limit his client's resources) in this situation, and if there's a slick way to manage billing.

Thanks!
Paul

[PeterD]

We provide a flat rate multi domain plan capped at ten domains with gobs of space and bandwidth. Billing is no different than with any other plan type, just up the resource allocation for domains.

[Brangwyn]

Originally Posted by watermelon

Exactly. My original question was about how to allocate disk space and bandwidth (e.g. how does the reseller limit his client's resources) in this situation, and if there's a slick way to manage billing.

Thanks!
Paul

Unfortunately Paul the reseller won't be able to manage resources period at "his" customer level. I guess you could even say how he worries about his customers isn't really your concern providing he doesnt exceed what you've allocated him, much like our customers aren't Vortech's concern, of course we do at least have a greater ability to limit their usages etc via HSphere.

[bocosoft]

I see my statement got a lot of input

As some of you mentioned, our "resellers" are othing more then smal webdesigner that host more than one domain with us.
On H-sphere we give the a package with limited domains, space and transferr. Thay host all their domains under one account. 95% of their clients do not need control panel and any of the features that come with it. Since these web designerd manage all their clients websites, that is not a problem.

Perhaps it would be better if we wouldn't call them resellers, since thay are very limited compared to us (ie. thay cannot limit disk/traffic usage per domain). We should call them clients with multiple domains, but as far as marketing goes, "resellers" gets more attention.

On cPanel we give them seperate accounts and discount for multiple accounts.

I don't see the problem with that. I sounds like some of you are suggesting that we cannot have a client with more than one account?! Should we say: "We cannot host your other domain, since only one domain per user is allowed."

We do not have any automated script or. anything like that. We setup everything manually. So it's far from what a true reseller reseller should/will look like.

[Garreg]

We do and always had a 'type' of reseller here.... (as Brangwyn says discussed a long time ago) however it is not reselling 'hosting' in the direct sense of term.
We have web designers that design and host 'thier' clients web sites on their (my clients account) - no CP or FTP access... the 'designer' looks after the site.

In fact Vortech may not have realised it , but they have had 'Team Bentley', Smirnoff' and Celador Productions (UK makers of Who want to be a millionare / Big Brother) web sites all on their network whilst one of my clients who designed and produced them etc...

[gene0]

As a developer hosting for clients is some time a must do some clients don't want any thing to do with there site other than check email.

[mresell]

As long as the 'reseller' understands what he is getting...should be okay. I am alittle baffled as to why they would go that route, since they can't manage resources and can't be getting as good a price unless you sell at cost for some non profit reason ...seems like that would be handy, but don't see anything wrong with it either.

[cambodia]

as i ever done with brangwyn before i have sign up one account for myself and when customer need i just add brangwyn add me one under my account mean one login but have multi account that the way i ever done with brangwyn

[bocosoft]

Originally Posted by mresell

I am alittle baffled as to why they would go that route, since they can't manage resources and can't be getting as good a price unless you sell at cost for some non profit reason ...seems like that would be handy, but don't see anything wrong with it either.

From my experience:
1. In Slovenia there are only a few high-priced true-reseller providers, with very questionable support teams (24/7 is a joke).
2. Most of these sub-resellers are classicall designers who also offer web design for their existing clients. Their technical knowledge is limited. So is their english language, which is a must since everythign is english-based in this web bussiness. I know that few clients don't host over-sees (US) because with us they get support in Slovenian (over phone, mail, fax, in person...).
3. Most have limited knowledge/experience with PHP, ASP, JS... (we get clients asking "Is server down?" only to find out that they missesed "}" in their PHP script.
4. Most don't care how much resources a clinet uses (the sell their services as a package - Web design with web hosting and domain registration - their client's knowledge of web related stuff is even more limited).
5. Our prices are competitive to begin with. We give sub-resellers an extra discount for multiple accounts ot account with multiple domains. But price itself is not a major factor. Only a few (if any) of these sub-resellers offer web hosting to make money of it. They offer it so that thay can give their clients a full service (they make real money by designing/printing their bussiness cards, envelopes, posters, leeflets etc.).
... (I could find a few more points, but I guess you get the big picture)

With true sub-reseller bussines we could attract new group of client... those who wanna offer hosting to make money

[cjmelhorn]

This is a very interesting thread. I had never thought about all this. I came to Vortech to be a reseller, but never actually thought about doing any reselling. I actually had someone approach me about it, and I was going to give them some info on where I was. However, another interesting post in this thread details getting to 2nd and 3rd levels of support. Sometimes it can be frustrating enough (if not scary) to have to find my support when the "pooh" hits the fan. (Vortech, you do a great job, but no matter what, waiting and wondering when the resolve is coming, is a very tense time.)