Confused with Pricing

[thdrought]

I have just signed up with a reseller account, and am now formulating my pricing for my plans. I have a few questions that I seemed stumped on.

First is this disk space/summary. What does it all mean to me? When I create a plan, and give the client 100MB web space, 50MB of email with 2 email accounts and 100MB database, is that client taking a whopping 300MB from me? What does it mean "Space Summary"?

Next, is each additional IP address really only $1.00 a month. No setup?

Email space...see above. When I give the client 10MB email space with 2 email accounts, does that tally up to 20MB of space given? Or, is it just 10MB between both email accounts?

Database space? I can give them mySQL space, but again, is it part of the web space given above? Part of the summary? What are the meanings of the SQL overage .05/MB a month charges shown on the plan page?

What is the costs of SSL? This is really confusing me!?! Arghh!! Do I buy the SSL cert and resell them? Do you offer them to my clients to resell? What are the costs associated with all SSL.

Thanks in advance for your patience on getting me straight.

[jmbeach]

based on your plan numbers, that customer has access to up to 300mb. Your account is only dinged for 300 if that client uses all of it, since space is now based on usage.

each additional IP over your free ones are $1/month, no strings attached, no setup fee.

email space is based on (space x accounts), so if you offer 10mb, and 10 accounts, they have up to 100mb of usage.

db space is now also part of overall disk space pool, so again if you give 10mb, and 10 accounts, they can use up to 100mb just for db. Overage is just that. If you go over your overall limit, you are charged $.05/mb - that goes for all disk space, so it's redundant that it says that on the reseller website.

you can buy the ssl cert and resell it. You can get it from many sources - most have been getting theirs from ev1servers.net, but I see they are no longer $25 bucks, so shop around. Basically their is an annual fee for an SSL cert, and that cert is good for one domain, unless if you get a much more expensive "wildcard" cert which can cover all subdomains within one domain. Not typically necessary for most users. Matrix also offers certs, but I don't know their pricing. I get mine from suressl.com

Note: If there is one piece of advice I can offer, it's to set "hard limits" for all of your plans. This keeps your customers from wildly raising their limits manually, because if they go over their limit, you're on the hook for those overage charges. In the end, unless if you feel you can trust your end users to pay for these overages, it's better to cover yourself in the beginning.

[thdrought]

Thank you for the information. It really helped.

Oh, and thanks for the tip. I was planning on doing that. Makes sense. And, if they need more bandwidth or disk space, that is why we offer higher plans. But, I suspect most will not need it.

[jmbeach]

you can either make users sign up for a larger plan when they need it, or set hard limits that are higher than the plans free limits, and set overage pricing. So long as your customers are willing to pay for overage, you're still making more $

[thdrought]

OK...next newbie question. I went ahead and made a plan with Disk Summary Usage. I like this idea for allowing customers create unlimited mail boxes and databases on a high-end account.

When I create the account though, it asks me for the Summary Disk Usage...and then again for disk, mailbox and database quotas along with pricing for each. And, it tells me I must enter something.

What gives? If I say the customer gets 100MB to share accross all resources, then why ask for these other numbers?

In the Windows Hosting, where are the CGI scripts to add? I looked all over the control panel. Nothing.

Thanks.

[jmbeach]

yeah, good question. I've long believed that HSphere is has one of the worst user interfaces out there, and that the plan setup is a bit confusing at best. Just put the same number for Summary as you do for space.

As for CGI - do you mean the ones that are preinstalled by default? If so, under windows it's http://domain.com/cp/scripts/index.html - I'm not sure on the unix side.

[Brangwyn]

The interface will be improving a little with 2.4 (well the skin will be at least, underneath no doubt it's still just as confusing)

http://www.psoft.net/HSdocumentation...esign24b3.html

[thdrought]

Originally Posted by jmbeach

Just put the same number for Summary as you do for space.

When I do that, then if the customer makes his way to my CP and selects to Compare Plans, the plan that I setup for 100MB in Disk Summary shows that I'm giving them 100MB for Disk Space, 100MB in Mail Space and 100MB in mySQL and MSSQL Space. Thats a total of 400MB.

I can see my business having to pay out that space if someone looks there. It's very confusing. Why can't it show just 100MB for Summary Space, which including: Web, Mail and db space?

Probably should post this on the PSoft site.

Also, with Paypal, I didn't setup a credit limit and whn a customer adds something, even when it's free to add to their account, it says they have no credit. What do others put in. I am thinking if I have to add a credit limit, I would go, say, 3 times the cost of the account for a cheap plan, and 2 times over for an expensive one. Any thoughts?

Last, is there a way to specify defaults on all accounts that will get setup once the account is created, for example, a redirect URL like www.yourdomain.com/mail that point to the webmail. Or, would I have to manually do this for each account that gets created. I didn't like the fact that the new account homepage became the login page for their control panel. I would reather have a Coming Soon page with my logo. They get their CP info for the email that gets sent out in the Account Created email. Can this be automated?

I really appreciate everyones help. I am an experience web designer and network administrator, having been in this field for over 12 years. But this interface is killing me.