Im hoping some fellow members here can help me decide on something. If i am planning to start with a reselling business how should i go about deciding on prices per account i resell? Do you usually make an estimate of how many accounts you will resell and then add a percentage of profit to each or is there some other method?

Hopefully you can enlighten me with your insights!

Thanks

can you answer the below questions?
- do you have an office? how much does it cost to rent?
- how much for your internet connection?
- do you have any other staff? if yes, how about their salary?
- how many sales per month do you think you will get? which payment method will you use? how much does it cost to process per transaction?

etc.

It's not only in hosting reseller business, but also in any business. You will need to calculate your fee, then % for profit, then you can have the price

It could be profitable, but you might not make as much as you could with your own boxes

Thats true gate2vn, i havent even looked at how much i would end up spending. I definately need to look into expenses before i just jump in.

Kylebionhosting, right, i know its not as much as i can make with my own servers, but its also much cheaper to start off.

I don't think you need big infrastructure and large investment for starting up hosting business with reseller account. To determine best price you should study the prevailing marketing condition of your target market and competitors.

If you go in knowing how much you're spending (for the reseller account, billing solution, advertising, everything), you'll have an idea of how much you'll need to make to be profitable.

When I started off, I had minimal costs, so I just figured out how much the accounts were costing me, calculated in a percentage for time to set up, and so forth. Otherwise, you're just kind of flying blind. You might end up pricing your plans so that you make sales, but aren't really profitable. Your business plan will end up being "as long as I'm bringing in money, I'm doing okay"...which is not a very good business plan.

Most people start off with a reselling account as they let their reptutation and standing build up in the hosting industry and when they start turning a profit they will usually upgrade to servers.

To determine your prices try to think of a fair number that'll help you turn profits but won't be ripping off the clients

Do you have any prior experience in the hosting business? From what I have seen in market trend prices for the hosting business, its not exactly easy. Combined with resellers and everyone else, this is a cut-throat business with rock bottom prices. It would be extremely wise to perform as much research as possible.

I have seen that many of our clients like multiple options in which country they would like to be hosted in. What keeps our prices down is that we own all of our boxes.