Web Hosting Business: Returning to Profitability

For those with 1 month+ experience in this industry will know, web hosting it isn't easy. Many hosting companies enter the industry everyday and likewise, many exit.

Most people exit because they struggle to obtain customers and stay profitable. However, there are basic steps you can take to maximise your profit margin..

When your hosting business isn't doing so well, you would be surprised how beneficial it is to get rid of some costs.

One way I have noticed smart companies doing is by consolidating and downgrading. What's the point of having your own dedicated server for just 20 or 30 customers? You have license fees to pay, server security to handle, server management to handle, support for the web hosting customers and much more. Spending $400 a month while only bringing in $180 a month (under the assumption each customer pays $6 per month) is an absolute waste of money.

Put it this way, if someone came to you and offered you another 20 or 30 customers, would you be happy about it? Sure you would, that's another $180 a month. What if they doubled that, offered you 40 to 60 customers overnight? Yup, you'd be over the moon with that amount.. Well, you have the power to do that at any point.. Rather than increase income by that much (while increasing your costs), why not decrease your costs? Why not make a saving equal to you acquiring 40 or 60 customers? Downgrade that server into something more appropriate for your customer base. Not just to a VPS, but downgrade to a reseller hosting account.

We have some customers hosting 300 to 400 accounts with us spread across multiple servers using multiple reseller accounts. The same server that would cost you $400 a month to run and maintain, our customers have been able to reduce it to just roughly, $100 a month. And what if you factor in the support costs? If you outsource, you're looking at at least another $350 a month.. So a total of $750 a month to maintain a full server. With an InnoHosting reseller account, the support is included. We handle the support questions your customers send you under your brand name. Better yet, the option can be switched on and off instantly at anytime. You can handle support yourself, or let us do it.. Or mix & match it..

Total saving: $650 a month!

They don't need to worry about backups, pay license fees or any of that.. It's all managed and maintained. They don't need to do any worrying about the server being up, nor are they alone in the situation. They are rest assured knowing they can fall back on us. They know we are here with them and helping them through any disaster or downtime they encounter. They feel comfortable knowing they have a team with various skills & expertise which they can ask for help and come up with solutions.

Some may say there is a lack of control...This does have some truth. But you need to consider what control do you actually need? The software you need is installed, configured & set up, the features are included at our expense and popular scripts work fine.. Things that are disabled are things you will end up disabling yourself due to the security risks..

For a while now reseller web hosting by some has been perceived as not serious..But many look to the masses. The ones offering unlimited everything for next to nothing. Those environments aren't suitable for a web hosting business. You can't reliably run a web hosting business with a company offering large amounts of space etc. for $8 to $10 a month. It isn't viable.. You're going to be trusting your business with this company, is $8-$10 a serious amount for that company to even take their business seriously nevermind yours? They don't have a viable business model, they won't be in business for long.. They may be the flavour ofthe month, but that's as far as it will typically go. Good news is with InnoHosting, things are realistically priced, already managing thousands of reseller web hosting customers and have been in business for 6 years with a track history to prove it.

Especially with our reseller hosting accounts, we've included the bulk of what you need to get up and running quickly. Whether you're looking to sell web hosting as your main business or you're looking to offer it as an additional revenue stream. We have it all bundled in. The SSL certificate (RapidSSL) is included free, the support desk software is included free, the legal document side of things (terms of service etc.) is included, web site templates, support infrastructure, cPanel web hosting control panel, website builder, billing software (WHMCS and ClientExec) & much more. Things which would initially cost you hundreds and hundreds more to maintain are all bundled - free.

Let's look at costs you will have if you do it alone:
- Support costs (assuming you will outsource) - $350 a month
- Server costs - $300 a month
- License fees - $100 a month
- Server management - $150 a month
- Server backups - $150 a month
- Additional 3rd party software - $100 a month (ball park figure, it really depends on what you decide on).
Total monthly cost: $1,150 a month
It will cost you $1,150 a month for a decent web hosting set up. And that's not even including your time.

That is the bulk of your web hosting costs. In majority of cases, it is all of your web hosting costs.

So let's look at the things you cut down on by moving to an InnoHosting reseller web hosting account.
- Support costs (assuming you will outsource) - $0 a month
- Server costs - $26.95 a month (assuming you purchase a Professional reseller hosting account from InnoHosting)
- License fees - $0 a month
- Server management - $0 a month
- Server backups - $0 a month
- Additional 3rd party software - $0 a month (ball park figure, it really depends on what you decide on).
Total monthly cost: $26.95 a month
You save: $1,123.05 a month!

Imagine having an extra $1,123.05 a month to spend elsewhere or a treat for yourself. You can actually have all of this done within a few days.

Interested? Get in touch with us today.. Schedule a phone call and we'll design a migration strategy for you detailing how everything will be handled (we'll manage your server migration too).. Contact us at https://support.InnoHosting.com