Every web development company or freelancer web developer is looking for ways to increase the revenue while helping their clients at the same time. For many people, it is hard to manage web servers, especially if they do not belong to a technical background. So many web hosting companies offer their services to fix these issues for their customers. This way, you will not only be helping your clients but also increasing your income. And there are two ways through which you can offer hosting services for your clients, i.e., reseller hosting and providing web hosting affiliated programs. The question here is which one to choose. Therefore, we have brought up some pros and cons of both these ways, so it will be easier for you to decide.
Reseller Hosting
Reseller hosting means that you rent out your services to your customers in exchange for profit. You are the hosting provider for your clients, and you will pay a monthly fee to a third party depending on how many resources you have utilized. On the other hand, you can charge as much as you want from your clients. But, reseller hosting requires a lot of dedication because the clients depend on your support. And the quality of the hosting you provide depends on the quality of the third-party hosting provider you choose. Let us have a look at some of the advantages of reseller hosting.
Advantages of Reseller Hosting:
- Reseller hosting allows you to decide the prices for your clients as much as you want.
- It provides you a chance to upsell services to your clients with domain registration.
- It provides extra value for your clients.
Disadvantages of Reseller Hosting:
- The quality matters. You can not control the quality of the resources you provide to your client. They depend on the quality of the third-party hosting services you choose.
- Moreover, the bad third-party hosting can end up sucking your profit as you will lose your time in fixing the problems that emerge from the bad services and resources.
- Deciding the price you want does not mean you do not have to maintain a balance. You have to make sure that the prices you offer are not high enough that will force your clients to look for these services somewhere else.
Now let us have a look at the pros and cons of web hosting affiliated programs.
Web Hosting Affiliated Programmes
Web hosting affiliate programs are helpful for people who want a hands-off approach to their hosting and do not want any private-label hosting services.
Advantages of Web Hosting Affiliated Programmes:
- These affiliated programs give you more freedom to choose more reliable hosting providers as you like.
- You do not have to be always up and about, as the hosting provider will take care of everything.
- You do not have to spend any money to get started.
- You can establish a trusting relationship with your client by providing honest recommendations about the hosting provider to your clients.
- It is a highly scalable approach to expand your business because the hosting provider deals with all the problems, and you do not have to worry about anything, even if a thousand people sign up at a time. This is something not possible with reseller hosting as you have to solve all the problems yourself.
Disadvantages of Web Hosting Affiliated Programmes:
- According to our research, the only disadvantage is that you only get credit on each sale. This credit varies from scheme to scheme. So you should do your research and compare the credits to decide the perfect referral scheme for you and your business.
So our conclusion on subject is Reseller hosting is better for webhosting startups, and Affiliate programs are better for webdevelopment and web design agencies.But still, you are the judge and should decide according to your needs and business model.