This is a small guide to How you can start a small web-hosting company by investing as little as possible.
For starting up a Web-Hosting Company, you have to note down a few easy steps :
1. You can start with by looking for a Master/ CPanel Reseller Hosting Account. Many hosts provide it for an affordable price. For the best prices you can check the web-hosting forums, the biggest of them being www.forums.digitalpoint.com
There you will find many Reseller offers at a cheap price. But before buying always keep an eye on his ITrader. Be careful so that you don’t lose your hard-earned money as some new-people run away after a month or 2.
Therefore, another point to be noted is that – Always buy the account for 1 month & not more so that you can shift to another hosting if that host does not satisfy you.
What I find from my experience is that a good cheap Reseller account costs $5 to $7 per month. Some have promotion offers & you can get lucky.
Point to Note : Reseller Hosting Accounts will have WHM (Web-Host Manager), I will explain about it and other scripts in another article.
(2) Now let us take the second step. Its time to buy a domain. The cheapest domain available in market is the .info domain. Its just $1.07 including ICANN fees at Godaddy.
But my advice will be not to go with a .info domain if you want to survive in the long run. For businesses, the .com domain is always preferred. It is close to $8 after using a discount coupon at Godaddy. You can also buy the domains from Name.com which provides Free Privacy at a price maybe $1 greater than the Godaddy Price.
(3)Now another big step. You have to set up your Web-hosting site for showing your Plans and also a script for Auomatic & Safe Billing.
Now the problem arises is that the Billing & Support Solution script – The best in the market is WHMCS. You have to buy a license to use it.
But its little bit costly. Almost $15 per month.
Now you may not have the funds to support this. My preference is always WHMCS but sometimes its really required to go for Free Scripts.
I found a good Script with both Free and Paid Plan Support. It is CP Creator.
You can download it from www.cpcreator.net
Now you are ready with the Billing Script. You can start up just with the billing script or else if you want you can add a Start (Home) Page to your Hosting.
You can make up your Home Page with anything, there are thousands of free Scripts & Templates available in the internet. Just browse it in google. Search for Hosting Scripts, Themes, etc..
Now you are ready with your Hosting Business. Start advertising at Webmaster Forums starting with Free and Cheap offers and I promise your Business will grow.
Maximum Total Cost Involved :
Reseller Account ($7 maybe cheaper) + Domain .com ($8) = $15
Optional Addition (WHMCS license) = $15(approx)
Total Cost per month =$15 + $15 = $30 (Maximum)
I guess finding right offers can lead you to $20 /month
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s a well-written article.
thats a clean little guide,Nice work
What about the Hardware cost involement?
Like a Dedicated Server on which the hosting would be done.
Thanks for all of the above info.
it is second or third party hosting.
how to get or what are tge license need for first hand own data center..
Hi,
Can you give me some idea about the different/best/most affordable payment gateways in India apart from ccavenue, ebs and paysignet.
Coz, after a lot of research this is what I found out.
1. Paysignet – Does not respond in time. Although, 24X7 chat support is mentioned on their website, it is always in Offline Mode. I had emailed them twice in a span of 4 days. After the 20th Day, I received a reply…..that too no answers. It just asked me to give them my contact number. Still no reply from them.
2. CCAvenue-May be the best/biggest in the Indian Markets. But have heard that they don’t care much for the small business start ups. As they have grown and roped in big companies, they have started to ignore and evn answer phone calls.
3. EBS – May be my next priority. But the overall charges seems higher with Rs. 2400 paid annually with a 6%TDR.
I would like you to tell me one more thing. What do I need to open a current bank account. Do I need to register my company’s name or do some sort of formalities before I get started with a current bank account, then a payment gateway and then start accepting money from people?
nice post thanks,really it will help me.
@Deejay : You dont need to register your company from day one, all you need to do is get a letter head printed… a computer generated one will do it and get a rubber stamp made and you can just go to your bank and ask them to open a current account for you if you already have a savings account in that bank and if not you would probably need a guarantor.
I appreciate the work that you have put in, in this page. Great article thanks a lot!
I have started a hosting company… But i have not got a current account till now. Where do i Register my company. and under what category. do i register under small scale industry or a simple business license, so that company is not regarded as fraud.