Reseller or continue free hosting for non profits

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Posted by tokyoprogressive, 06-19-2011, 12:12 AM
Hi. I am not really into developing a big business with reseller hosting. Just want to know if anyone has any opinions on ways I could expand my services to the non profit community and make a little change as I enter semi retirement. In other words, a sort of "fair trade" arrangement. I have my own site hosted on electric embers, a workers collective (you know "ethical" hosting, and that sort of thing). That site is called tokyoprogressive.org (It was designed --still in progress-- by people who know what they are doing. As a non tech person who used to design pages based on Seamonkey (the old WYSIWYG program from Netscape), I now help friends in the academic and non profit world develop SANDVOX. See examples here: 1) gale-sig DOT org hosted at Acorn host 2) wakanayokota DOT com Same 3) welljapan DOT org hosted at electricembers (Sorry, it won't let me post URLs) In all cases I used SANDVOX. In the 1st and 3rd case, the end users further add to it themselves. The first just uploads their content to the existing Sandvox page using some html program. The latter went and bought the program and is further developing it. I would like to continue to offer this service to others...maybe charging what they can afford-from free, to, well, whatever. For example, for just a bit of donated space, nothing. For a site which they maintain, just a basic creation fee of 200-400 dollars. For a site which I create and maintain (They send me a weekly update of info to change), maybe a little more. In other words, the basic creation fee, plus a monthly charge of 5 dollars or so. Plus a small charge to help them setup and attach their domain name to the site, renew the domain, etc. This is different than selling space where people develop their own sites. I wonder how many academic and non profit groups out there would like this kind of thing...depending on the answer I could stick with my current arrangement or look for a reseller. This is where I would like to hear what people think. Maybe I would earn a little more spare change if I offered full fledged reseller services. Or maybe, with the small scale I envision, it isn't worth it. (I imagine if the company offering the reseller service offered the bulk of user support, it might be worthwhile). Acorn host is like a reselling account without the CPANEL for your users. This means they can only access FTP and I can also create an email address for them if they want. I have unlimited users in theory. Acttually 999 subdomains. There is no CPANEL for anyone except me. Electric Embers sells based on what they use. They do not allow me to upload websites for other people. So I just purchase the account on their behalf and they give me a donation. My cost is to EE charges for welljapan Web Hosting 3 megabytes: well (welljapan.org) 3 kilohits 1 gigabit transferred Base fee: $5.00 each month. Acorn seems to have me on an older plan that had unlimited hosting (They do not have that now on their page). I am using for wakanayokota and gale-sig (plus some miscellaneous stuff that I have never gotten around to deleting) 756.78 / ∞ MB and bandwidth of 708.58 / 40960 MB. In any casem with Acorn I just create the FTP account and upload a site. Electric Embers works out as too expensive compared to acorn host if I donate the site, so I guess I am either looking at whether people pay the amount for me to set up an electric embers account, or I have more flexibility with my acorn account, which if I recall, prices less than 6 dollars a month. Or-- I move everyone over to a reseller account. Wonder if it is worthwhile to get a reseller account and have more flexibility, or stick with acorn host and just use the FTP. For example, if I get a reseller account, would I be able to move my people now on acorn host? And would it be worth it? I tend to think that with my target audience and my lack of interest in running a full business that it is better to stick with acorn host and give the free or cheap ftp access. Or--get the reseller account to replace acorn, bring the existing people with me, and add new ones small space only-free space and a custom made website, a bit more maintenance of the website, a bit more One reason why I think small sites works is that I hear one should not really offer unlimited space to people as a large site would slow to a crawl. IF I do go to a reseller, I wonder which is best Innohost, hostgator, or others? As you see, I am quite unclear about a lot of things,,,,any advice appreciated. thank you!
Posted by Dustin B Cisneros, 06-19-2011, 12:47 AM
Hi, Not to be rude but wow reading your whole situation gave me a headache its pure clutter yes a reseller account would suit you very well as per your interest Host gator would be good as they offer a billing system as well for free. If your looking for end user support then I would go with the other company you had in interest Innohosting.
Posted by tokyoprogressive, 06-20-2011, 01:49 AM
Thank you, SemoWeb I realize I should not have used my IPad to write (adds to my typos) and taken time to make it more compact/concise. Thanks for the reponse. I looked at the sites you mentioned, plus EZPZ hosting, found in another thread here (and your own company's as well). It does seem that it would be better to move my current accounts over to a reseller. When I see the plans around the 15-25 dollars a month pricepoint I am a bit confused. For example, one of the plans limit you to 25 customers or C-panels. But then they often say they allow overselling. EZPZ does not mention a limit in the number of customers. They have a 9 pound and an 11 pound plan, which offer 5GB/10GB respectively in the memory dept and 100/200 GB in the BW dept. Trying to figure out what is reasonable or if the others on your list would be better. I just noticed they mention the price without the hidden prices (???) is 12 and 15 pounds respectively. Have to check what the hidden prices were. In other words, what is a reasonable amount of space to allocate to a user who desires to make his/her own website and use other resources like mail? That would help me determine what plan to buy (as well as whether to go with EZPZ or one of the others. I can probably afford no more than 15 pounds a month at this stage. Or maybe it just means I choose the longest prepayment to get 9 and 11.80 pounds respectively. Looking at the Wiki, it is not clear that overselling is bad. I don't see overselling in reference to webspace--just bandwidth. so perhaps the question is not entirely important. However, since most of my websites for others so far use a very small amount of webspace, it seems like I could easily get past 25 customers. So for about 10-15 pounds a month, am wondering what the best solutin would be. I see EZPZ has white label supoprt, which appears to mean they also take care of my customers, and maybe even the billing (rather than me doing it). That would definitely be a plus! I am also a bit unclear about the difference between Master and Alpha resellers as listed on your page. Thanks again... paul