Hosting Reseller

[escaped_light]

I have recently decided to try and make some money from making websites. I figured, why not? I will have a very specific target audience, which will be artists (actors, photographers, etc.) and filmmakers.

 

The way I currently plan on doing this is to charge them a flat one time fee for setup and the first year hosting and maintence. and then subsequently charge them for each year of hosting they choose to continue with.

 

I was looking at the hosting reseller accounts, and they seem to me to be the best choice in this situation, however, I want to retain control over all the sites, as I will be maintaining them (unless specifically asked otherwise), and doing updates.

 

I'm just curious as to how I would control the domains on this account. I'm also wondering if I can manage everything from one cPanel or the like, instead of having a seperate one for each of the accounts.

 

In anyone elses opinion, is this my best choice to do this? or is there a better way?

 

Thanks

 

Robert

[HCSuperStores]

Hi EL!

 

You and I have similar types of clients in the way we manage them. Instead of creating hosting packages, we pretty much do everything for the clients.

 

I actually have a few different types of clients. And I group them together, which relates to what you might think of doing.

 

Instead of creating a separate account for each client, I create a separate web hosting package and area for each class of clients. Each package might contain 3-30 separate clients, but I manage them all under 1 Cpanel and I also retain complete control.

 

 

The short answer is that with the WHM (Web Host Manager) and Cpanel you really can do anything you want and can retain control over everything. If you have a particular client that wants to put up some or all of their information, you can make something special for them too.

 

It's really the ideal situation for people who offer a more fully-managed web hosting arrangement.

 

Good luck!

[escaped_light]

Thanks for that.

 

I figure that it is my best option. Now I just have to work out the whole making money thing as a self-run business, and I suck at that stuff.

 

Robert

[MikeJ]

In my personal opinion, you will be much better off handling each account separately. When you get a reseller account, you will have access to WebHost Manager which gives you complete control of setting up each account, and then can login to each cPanel to maintain them.

 

The reason I highly recommend separate accounts (therefore separate cPanels) is that's the only way to maintain account quotas (disk and bandwidth usage), and it's easier to suspend account if it comes down to that. And if any of your clients decided to do more of their own maintenance, all you have to do is give them access to their cpanel. I also like to keep sites in their own playground, so to speak.

 

However, with that said, you can manage multiple sites in the same account if you choose, through Addon Domains. They would be created as subdirectories off your public_html, and you can still create ftp and email accounts for them if needed, and it would all be in the same cPanel.

[DarqFlare]

I would suggest separate CPanels as MikeJ has.

[vengavenga]

Yeah, me too - all my clients have their own account, although there's only two or three of them that actually have access to cpanel as everything is fully managed for them. It just seems "tidier" really.

 

Ali.

[HCSuperStores]

Hi Guys!

 

I realize I'm out-voted in my opinion. That's OK!

 

The Cpanel management is a very cool thing. Being able to set up each account under a CPanel is a nice option.

 

The reason I think my solution works more for me is that I am pretty sure, 95%+, that my clients will never want control over their own accounts. They wouldn't know what to do with a Cpanel! They've never heard of Cpanel!

 

In addition, I have a global script library that I use to add features to my accounts. I do this via a symbolic link. These are my own home-brewed add-ons that I pass on to my clients.

 

Also, every account get's there own "mini-Cpanel" but just with the stuff that they care about, like e-mail addresses, account traffic and hit stats by month.

 

If I had a seperate CPanel account for everyone, then I would have to duplicate my code every time. Updates to my "mini-Cpanel" would be a real pain.

 

So I do have my reasons. But my situation is probably just very unique.

 

The great thing about TCH is that everyone has so much flexibility that they can do their own thing and manage their accounts as the see fit. It's a great thing!