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Web Host Startup

Web Hosting Business Training

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Ever wanted to start your own Web Hosting Business, but did not have all the information you need? The Web Hosting Resource Kit now offers a unique web hosting business startup training program. As far as I know, this is the one and only training program where you can learn how to become a web host starting a web hosting business from the ground up. This training program offers exclusive content not found anywhere else. [Read more…] about Web Hosting Business Training

The Skeleton directory feature of WHM

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Many new web hosts are working hard to make money from web hosting. To work efficiently it is important to automate as many business processes as possible. One of those things you can automate is the setup of a new site for a customer. No, I am not talking about the actual process of creating a new account, but to customize and automate how the new account / website shows up afterwards. Every time you set up a new account it comes with an empty root folder and shows the default Apache Web server information. That is a) not very pretty and b) are you revealing critical information to strangers who eventually use that knowledge to hack your server.

It is good business practice as a web host to prestage an index file inside your cpanel account structure that gets deployed when a new account is created. You can either use a blank index file or use it to advertise your own services.

Example: “Future home of xxxx – proudly hosted by XYZ Web Hosting”

How do you add such an index file to your cpanel account structure so that when a new account is deployed this gets setup automatically? The answer is to use the skeleton directory feature in WHM. This directory is what will be used as a skeleton for new accounts. For example if you place an index.html file in /root/cpanel3-skel/public_html, and then setup a new account on your server, that new account will have a copy of your index.html in their public_html directory.

If you are a reseller web host, talk to your web hosting provider on how to do this in their environment. If you have SSH access on your reseller account or your server you can do it easily yourself.

cd /root/cpanel3-skel/public_html
touch index.html

Then just edit the index.html file or upload your own copy that you created on your computer. If you just leave it as it is, you have a blank index file which will protect you from directory browsing and from revealing server information to 3rd parties.

Reseller Hosting: How to Earn good Money

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Reseller Hosting: How to Earn good Money

What is reseller hosting? The main idea of reseller hosting is to be a web host who sells reseller web hosting to other (usually smaller) web hosting businesses. Reseller hosting accounts are also used by webmasters who operate more than one website. Lately reseller business prospers, because more people want to be online with their own website and their own domain. For many a hobby turns into a (part-time) business. So, there is a steady stream of people needing more than just a single domain web hosting account.

There are two types of reseller hosting.

1) Traditional reseller hosting
2) Private label hosting

Traditional (bulk) reseller hosting is like a wholesale business. The reseller host buys in bulk aka an entire web server and splits it into small, but medium sized chunks. A smaller web host buys one of these chunks (reseller accounts) and populates it with single domain accounts of normal consumers. The benefit for the reseller host is that he has only to support one customer while the smaller web host deals with each singe domain customer. The smaller web host who buys the reseller account has the advantage not to worry about the technical side of the business as the reseller web host is responsible for the server health and maintenance.

Private label reselling is a step on top of traditional reseller hosting. With traditional reseller hosting the reseller host’s identity is not hidden. Everyone can easily identify the real web host. With private label the identity of the reseller host is hidden and the reseller (smaller web host) appears to be owner of the server. This tactic is often used/needed/required to make a different impression marketing-wise. Many consumers do not want to deal with small web hosting businesses. Web hosting businesses know this and disguise the fact that they are using a reseller account.

So, where is the money in reseller hosting? Is it on the side of the reseller host/server owner or is it on the side of the smaller web host? It depends on the business model and overall pricing scheme on both sides. For the actual reseller host the bigger profits come in when the cost for system administration and co-location are spread out across more servers. For the smaller web host the big profits (on a smaller scale though) come in if he can add as many single domain accounts onto a single reseller account. Hereby is to consider that if the smaller web host aims at the bottom end of the market in regards to price, it is much more difficult to become profitable. I have been able to use a $35/month reseller account and load it up with 8 single domain customer accounts paying me a combined $320.00 per month. And I am sure that this is by far not a record.

Check out Lunarpages for (currently) $5.00 reseller accounts. This is a great and almost risk-free way to get your hands wet in the reseller arena and make money on the Internet.

How to Start a Web Hosting Business with $50,000.00 USD available in funds: Server Hardware

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How to Start a Web Hosting Business with $50,000.00 USD available in funds: Server Hardware
 
You are at the point buying your own hardware. Here are some items to put into consideration before ordering parts or fully configured servers. Are you experienced enough to build your own servers or do you feel more comfortable with buying fully configured servers and don’t worry about what parts you will need. If the second option sounds better for you, you should look at Dell, HP, or maybe IBM for your purchase. If you are technically savvy enough to assemble a server from pieces, you can choose to go a different route. Buy your servers at Newegg.com as an example. Pick the parts and pieces you want and need and assemble the server yourself. The SuperMicro servers seem to have a good reputation and you can customize them easily.
 
Importance should be put on the CPUs, memory, and storage. While dual CPUs are nice to have, for your first servers you might not necessarily need them. From your leased servers you should have experience by now how many websites a specific server configuration can hold. A single powerful CPU with adequate memory and SCSI drive will get you going quite Ok. I just configured a Dell PowerEdge SC1425 real quick with a powerful Intel XEON CPU, 2 GB Memory and dual SCSI disks in a RAID 1 configuration for less than $3,000.00 before shipping and tax. For this case let’s assume that you pay a total of $3,600.00 in the end before the server gets into the data center cabinet. This kind of hardware should be able to last 3-4 years just fine. The support contract I decided to go with covers 3 years and that’s what I am going to use for this example. 3 years = 36 months. Server price = $3,600.00 / 36 months = $100.00 per month actual cost. So, by spreading out the cost over the amount of months you want to use it, gives you a much better idea of how to calculate your services and your prices. It tells you if a server purchase is affordable to you or if you are going overboard. Does a more powerful server for double the price can also hold twice as many websites? Calculate it out before making assumptions. Important: put into consideration things like rack space, switch ports, rack power, support contracts, administrator contracts, and so on.
 
Get a large disk array, storage appliance, or even a SAN once your cash-flow justifies the expense. Reduce your disk in servers and shift the cost around. This provides you with more flexibility and options? Options? Yes, a non-server storage device can be used for backups of websites. It adds an additional layer of protection in case a server gets hacked.
 
Add more redundancy to your setup once you can afford it. Redundancy should start on a disk level (RAID 1 or RAID 5 or RAID 10) and then expand to power supplies and network connections in the long run. The additional cost however will pay off in regards to server uptime and stability. And these qualities are what customers are looking for. Less downtime means better reputation for a web host. Better reputation means more customers as well as customers who might be willing to pay a premium price for quality web hosting services.
 
These things should give you a couple of ideas on what to consider when you get to the point of actually buying your own hardware. Keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with staying on leased hardware and to "outsource" this piece.  Let somebody else worry about pricing, hardware maintenance, and all the related pieces. However – no matter which way you will be pursuing, you should plan for hardware rotation in recurring intervals. If you know that the server you got was fairly new and not used, you are probably safe looking for 3 years of usage before replacing the hardware. You will need to plan for this and also start communicating this early enough to the customers on those servers. I know it is early to talk about that yet in the first year, but these are things that can cause you a lot of trouble and problems and it makes a lot of sense to keep them on the radar. Microsoft Outlook’s calendar is a great tool when it comes to schedule things for the future. Set a reminder for sometime in 3 years and you have one thing less to worry about.
 

How to Start a Web Hosting Business with $50,000.00 USD available in funds: Reviews & Adjustment Phase

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How to Start a Web Hosting Business with $50,000.00 USD available in funds: Reviews & Adjustment Phase
 
As with many things in life you will need to review your actions as you go and make adjustments. This is especially true for the marketing section. Our marketing tips should not be your only marketing efforts, but marketing for a web hosting business could fill an entire book by itself. So, be creative on top of what I suggested earlier. Anyway – reviewing your business efforts is a critical piece for success. Find out what works and what does not work. If something does not work, research "why" and either fix the problem or come up with an alternate plan. Be considerate when making changes. Pulling the plug on an effort too early can hurt you more than to be patient. Unfortunately there is not existing schedule or time table that will tell when something will absolutely not work. You have to find that point in time yourself.
 
Adjustments are sometimes necessary and helpful. Discuss them with others to get feedback and ideas. Communication is important and you should do plenty of that – always. Monitor online forums for related discussions and changes in trends and customer behavior. Document what you are doing, why you are doing it, and what your expectations are. Only with detailed documentation you will be able to go back in time and rate your efforts. I recommend to create categories and put items set for review into the different categories. Categories should be based on time. Some things will not need to be reviewed on a daily base, others do need to be reviewed and adjusted almost daily (example: pay per click advertising). Newspaper ads might need a weekly review. Link advertising campaigns can be reviewed monthly for success or failure.
 
At the end of the day you will find yourself wearing many different hats and you will find yourself working a lot of times you never really expected to be so time-consuming. But working mainly online is a different kind of business with different requirements. If you cannot adjust to those requirements, you might be in the wrong industry.

How to Start a Web Hosting Business with $50,000.00 USD available in funds: The Growth Phase – Part II

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How to Start a Web Hosting Business with $50,000.00 USD available in funds: The Growth Phase – Part II
 
So, we are still having approx. $18,000.00 in the bank from our startup fund. If your planning, budgeting, and marketing plans work out, you will not need to touch these $18K to build your business. You could put them into a money market account for rainy days or you can use the money for strategic investments. If you see the business heading the right way and you think an office and more local employees would help for further growth, you could use this money to plan for that move. However – personally I would not recommend this at an early stage as signing a lease and furnishing an office is not a small expense and you will still need a loan in most cases. I’d rather recommend to use the money to eventually acquire some smaller web hosting businesses. At least one web hosting business is started almost every day and at least one seems to go out of business per day. There will always be opportunity to pick up some customers and therefore more income. Watch some of the deals to see how it is done. Set yourself a limit of how much you want to pay per customer. A good value is 9-11 months of income per customer. What does this really mean? If a customer brings in $15.00 revenue a month, you calculate out how much this adds up to over 9 months. There would be your 9 month value. Be cautious and rather step away from a deal if you something smells fishy. Rather safe than sorry.
 
A second thing the remaining funds can be used for is the expansion into co-location. I mentioned this earlier already, but want to go into more detail. Leasing a server rack will set you back – let’s say – $1,000.00 a month. That does not include a single server or network equipment of any kind. Buying quality server hardware and network equipment (switch) will set you back another $5,000.00 (1 server / 1 switch). Those numbers may seem a little high for the beginning, but it is easier to work with a higher number and to eventually enjoy some savings as you go and not suddenly being surprised by a bigger price tag. The initial step of leasing a full rack is expensive. Filling the rack with servers is less and that’s where the savings will come in (soon). Being able to make this initial investment from available funds and not having to cut into an existing stream of income or even take out a loan is a very nice luxury to have. You might think why did I not do this in the very beginning. The reason for that is to build income first and then grow when you see your business model working out. It is easier to adjust your business model with less contracts and less recurring expenses under your belt. Ease of mind and flexibility are also to be considered.
 
Spend the money where it is critical and don’t go cheap. Quality will pay off and keeps your resources available for more important things. Don’t spend money on something that you cannot exactly judge at the time of the purchase. Leasing a rack and starting with co-location with no customer base is risky and not necessary. Spend the money for the right things to allow for growth and to improve your infrastructure.

How to Start a Web Hosting Business with $50,000.00 USD available in funds: The Growth Phase – Part I

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How to Start a Web Hosting Business with $50,000.00 USD available in funds: The Growth Phase – Part I
 
After running your business for a few weeks you will see orders come in and slowly see some numbers. Keep good track of the data that is available to you. Keep track of how much disk space and bandwidth customers really use. It is an important piece of the game to see how long your first server will take, before you reach the threshold for performance and disk space. Go back to your numbers of how many customers you want to put on a single server. Once you reach 50% occupation, I’d recommend to order your next leased server and to bring it online within a week or two. Put some of the new customers on it, but then continue to fill up server 1 to your self-set limit. This will assure availability of hardware for your growth and also test out that server after the initial setup. Putting a small number of new customers on the server early helps you to find problems, before the server hits full production. You have to judge which clients to place on the new server and you should keep an extra eye on them to make sure their experience does not turn into a nightmare – for you AND them. I would recommend to follow this path for the first 6-10 servers of your growing business. Once you reach 6 servers you can slowly evaluate how much co-location will cost you, what equipment you need/want and which provider in what city/state to go with. Remember that if you live close by a data center that you will not need "remote hands" to do work on a physical server. You can do this yourself and save money.
 
Keep a close eye on your support queue. Sooner or later you will need help to cover the helpdesk and you should rather act early than too late. You also need to keep an eye on 24/7 coverage. Up to a certain degree you will eventually get by with monitoring the queue yourself from 5.00 AM to midnight, but the lack of sleep and stress will catch up after a while. Start early to find one or two good employees/contractors.outsourcers that can be utilized as you go. There is no problem having employees/contractors/outsourcers in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, or a different part of the US. Train them properly and make sure they understand your business policies. Evaluate them often and early on to make sure your quality of service does not drop below a certain level. You can pay them per ticket or for time worked. Do your research and ask around. There are enough web hosting forums to find the information you need. You can also use companies like Bobcares or others (this is not an endorsement!) to outsource support for a while. Keep in mind that you might not always be able to maintain the high quality of service you want to have when doing this.
 
With more customers and more servers you will also have more administrative work to cover. Get an accountant and outsource that piece. You do not have to be a "Jack of all trades – Master of none". Concentrate on running the business and hand off stuff to experts in their field. By the way – good book keeping and being organized will save you many headaches. Start early with keeping these things under control.
 
At one point you will reach the level of where more money comes in than what you spend. Income will slowly cover the expenses and there is less need to touch your initial funds. Put money into a dedicated account and pay your taxes from it. Start to build a new, a second budget. Your monthly cost and income will need to be matched against each other now that you "in production". Start charting your cash-flow and make sure that you always have enough cash available to move to the next level. As an example – maybe you want to hire your first real employee. Until the employee generates value and profit he or she still wants to be paid after 2 weeks of work. You will need to be able to pay for the salary as well as the hidden cost (social security, unemployment, maybe even benefits, etc.). Plan accordingly. Don’t start giving yourself a salary yet. Don’t spend money on things that are not considered business related. Be frugal. Remember that we assume that you have outside funds/income to cover you for the first 12 months. The reason for that is that you want to build value and a business that can pay for itself (and your salary soon). If you follow this plan and things go as anticipated you should not have problems reaching your goal.

How to Start a Web Hosting Business with $50,000.00 USD available in funds: Marketing – Part II

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How to Start a Web Hosting Business with $50,000.00 USD available in funds: Marketing – Part II
This is the second part of our new marketing guide for new web hosting businesses. Getting a new web hosting business of the ground requires superior marketing skills. Make sure to read both parts of this article series.
7) Link Building and Advertising
Text links are an important piece for online marketing. They can be used for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) only or they can be used for advertising purposes or for a combination of both. Be careful that you only buy text links on websites you consider valuable. Just because a link is cheap to buy, does not mean it will provide you with the value that you need. Build your link buying advertising strategy around industry and service related websites. The closer the topic of a website you can buy advertising on is to your own, the better the value you get. Be careful when buying text links in general. A large jump in links to your site in a very short time can be seen as "SPAM" by search engines and might raise some flags. It is better to start slowly and then to increase the incoming links over time. What is a good ratio for a brand new site on a brand new domain name that has never been used before? Personally I would recommend to start with like 10 links for the first 4 weeks and then slowly increase the threshold to 15-20 links per week for the next 6 weeks. After that a threshold of 25-40 links is appropriate. Keep in mind that we plan for the long term and that we want to make sure search engines do not punish you for link building.
 
If you buy links there are three additional items to consider. Google Page Rank is important as it gives you a hint of how good your search engine marketing efforts are working out. Don’t become obsessed with Google PR. But – don’t ignore it either. Try to buy link advertising on sites with PR 3 to PR 6 – with an average on PR 4 or 5. Don’t go too high (= too expensive) or too low (= not enough value). Also, pick the right keywords for links to your website. The keywords should match important search terms that customers might use to search for web hosting services on a search engine. The third item to consider is the period of time a link will be up. Forget about anything less than 3 months unless the linking sites offers huge traffic and your link is in a highly visible spot. Buy long-term (3-12 months) or even buy permanent links. The longer a link is pointing to your site, the more value you will get. It also protects you better against price increases.
 
8) Incentives
Offer your customers free stuff to increase loyalty and to motivate new signups. I’d recommend to stay away from offering free hosting or free domain names. Too much hassle and the wrong kind of customers get attracted. Use the incentives to build your brand maybe. A good example would be to offer a free T-Shirt and Baseball cap after 90 days. Of course the T-Shirt and the cap should wear your logo and URL. Customers will wear them and give you free advertising. Use incentives often in the beginning when starting a business and less often when you are established and word of mouth advertising drives sales (the ultimate goal).
 
9) Word of Mouth
You might have heard this before, but word of mouth is still one of the most effective ways to promote a business or product. Why? People trust people. You trust a friend who recommends "product A" more than if a sales associate at a store would tell you the exact same thing in the exact same words. And this is true for many things in life. Word of mouth advertising is one of the most powerful tools to grow a business and it is very affordable. Affordable as in "free" is what we are talking about. Got a customer? Treat him or her like a King or Queen. Go the extra mile, step up to the plate where needed, provide world-class customer service, and word of mouth will come naturally. You can motivate customers to recommend your services, too. Do it in a polite and conservative way though to make sure they do not feel pressured.
 
10) Banner Advertising
Get a few flash banners designed for your website and hosting packages. Pick at least a 468 x 60 and a 728 x 90 banner size + maybe a 120 x 600 banner to start out with. 3 banners should cost no more than $100 to be designed. Find some websites that offer banner advertising and book some campaigns. Make sure you are picking the right audience. You will probably have to pay by number of impressions. So, be prepared for that and budget accordingly. Keep in mind that a customer has to see an advertising up to 9 times to get the message and to check out the offer.
 
11) Local Advertising
Local advertising can be very effective. For the start, join your local Chamber of Commerce and become an active member. Maybe even find the opportunity to be a speaker and present a helpful topic. Don’t pitch your services too much. Maybe talk about eCommerce security, SSL Certificates, abd website security. If people see you to be an expert, they might associate that with your business and sign up. It is a very effective tool. 
 
Pick the smaller, local community newspapers for business card size advertising and save money. Run at least 3-4 week campaigns. These smaller newspaper in local communities can often be much better to reach customers. There are usually less ads compared to larger newspapers and your ads might be more visible. See if any competitors are doing the same. Get feedback from friends and neighboors on those ads to see how they appeal to Joe Average. Then design your own and fine-tune them for better success.
 
Sponsor a local high school sports team or a band. Your name will be on stadiums, tickets, flyers, and other places. It’s less about pitching the product, but to build a brand name. Show up at some games, cheer for the team, build up contacts (parents, etc.) and create a "network". This has proven to be a great tool for marketing. Have the team’s play schedule print on a calendar or a refrigerator magnet. Make sure your domain name / business name is visibly placed on the final product, but not too pushy. Hand them out to the team and they will happily distribute them to family and friends.
 
These are just some marketing tips for you. Be creative, don’t be too pushy, but be persistent. Some marketing efforts will pay off immediately, others will take weeks or months. Keep in mind that you plan for the long-term. Over the time of 12 months you should expect to spend $20,000.00 of your existing funds + to re-invest some of the money you make from sales. I recommend to allocate 10% to 15% of each sale for future advertising. Plan your advertising actions for at least 6 months in advance and make sure you have sufficient funds in the budget to go the entire year. Review your marketing efforts at least once a month and make adjustments. Having the 6 month plan does not mean you should wait 6 months before you correct a mistake.
Find Part I here.

How to Start a Web Hosting Business with $50,000.00 USD available in funds: Marketing – Part I

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How to Start a Web Hosting Business with $50,000.00 USD available in funds: Marketing – Part I

 
Building the infrastructure of your new web hosting business was the easy part. Everone can swipe a credit card and buy some stuff with a shopping list in one hand. But getting the first sale and customers, that is the hardest part. To start from scratch good marketing needs to be involved. There will be short-term marketing steps and long-term marketing pieces. You are looking at online marketing options and offline marketing opportunities. Finding a good mix that gets you going quick, but builds marketing and brand value in the long term needs to be found. It is almost an art to do this and many web hosting startups fail to succeed. The most important rule is: do not start while your website is under construction. Nothing hurts a business more than turning customers away due to the website looking like a large construction zone. Be patient, but build your plan of action.
 
1) Yahoo Directory
You will hear different opinions, but overall getting your website listed in the Yahoo Directory (not the search index) is an important piece when it comes to marketing an online business. Even Google pointed this out (inofficially though, but Google does not give away any keys to the castle that easy …). So, check out other web hosting listings in the Yahoo Directory, write your own description, submit your site, and pay $299.00 for a one year listing.
 
$299.00 one-time (every 12 months, but for this project we consider this a one-time expense)
 
2) Link Building via Forum Signatures
Viral marketing has several forms. One is to become an active member in forums. You are not going to SPAM the forums with a link to your website. Make normal, but content rich and useful postings. BUT – setup a signature first. Check the forum rules to make sure links are allowed in signatures. Use a conservative approach with the signature text. Remember – your postings shall catch the attention, not the signature. Once people see you as a member that provides value and makes good postings, they will check out your signature link because they might trust you. Make it a habit to visit 5-10 forums each day and to make about 10-20 postings per forum. But what forums should you use? Well, you can visit forums like Web Hosting Talk, but it’s like selling pregnancy tests to pregnant women – it won’t be that effective. Visit webmaster and web design forums instead. Those people have websites and are always in need of web hosting. Make friends and maybe get referrals that way. Using forums for marketing has shown to be very effective if done right. Spend about an hour or two per day doing this.
 
3) MySpace.com Marketing
You think that MySpace.com is only for teenagers? Think again. MySpace has become much more than a meeting point for teenagers. Check out the groups and see if you find some that match your target group. Join MySpace, design a nice looking profile, join groups, and be active. Don’t SPAM just yet. ;-). MySpace marketing is another viral form of marketing and you should be treating your "friends" as such. Remember that you want to build long-term success.
 
4) DMOZ.org
This one is quick and will probably not help you in the first year. Still – submit your website to the appropriate category at DMOZ.org. Then walk away and forget about it.
 
5) MSN and Yahoogroups
Very similiar approach to the MySpace.com marketing. Join groups and become an active, but valuable member. Check out how others present their websites and links, profiles and homepages. Then carefully implement a similiar system. Again, do not SPAM. Treat this as a long-term marketing tool. Spend about 1 hour a day for MySpace, MSN, and Yahoogroup marketing.
 
6) Target Group / Niche Market
The marketing approach so far has been cheap (cheap as in affordable) and time was your main investment. It was also kind of broad, but that is alright. The goal was to get going and to build long-term value. We are now at the point to better define a niche market and then to start advertising towards that niche. Define your niche market. But how? Do you have any special interests that eventually build a good foundation? If you are already an expert in a certain niche, you can use that knowledge to cater that niche and use your reputation and knowledge as a bait. Do you want to go local and mainly work with local businesses that you can visit in person? Build upon those kind of things and identify your niche. Something you feel comfortable with working.

How to Start a Web Hosting Business with $50,000.00 USD available in funds: The Pricing Game

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How to Start a Web Hosting Business with $50,000.00 USD available in funds: The Pricing Game
 
In our new series of articles on how to become a web host, we are covering the basic pricing of web hosting packages and how it needs to be put in comparison with how much a server costs per month. The numbers look very appealing and it shows one more time how lucrative web hosting can be. Here is an introduction to the numbers game.
 
Pricing
 
Before you can start marketing your business you will need to come up with web hosting packages. Define features and prices. Put a fair value on your services. We do recommend not to compete with the low-price web hosts. First of all you cannot compete on price and expect good margins. It also attracts customers that are more difficult to deal with. The low price market segment is filled with bad web hosts and the few that are good will crush your efforts unless you already have good cash-flow and more cash than just $50,000.00. Don’t outprice yourself either. Check the market and pick a value somewhere in the middle. Make sure you can justify the price and offer competitive features.
 
You will also need to come up with a plan for how many customers per server is a good ratio. We recommend to go with a conservative number. Even if disk space and bandwidth would carry you much further, leaving room for spikes (CPU, memory) and customers in need for an upgrade (disk space, bandwidth) is critical. A stable server not being max’d out to the limit is also a good sales pitch. Customers will recommend your services if they experience excellent uptime and server performance. With that in mind calculate out how many customers you will need with your hosting packages to a) break even on the server and administration cost and how much profit you can make per server. Now chart out how much profit you make at 50%, 60%, 65%, 70%, and 75%. Don’t greedy, because those numbers can look very attractive and are maybe overwhelming. If you get a fair and good profit out of a server at 60%, go for that number. Why not higher? Stability and performance are the answer. Stability and performance will be a major piece of your success or failure. One server down for 12 hours is bad. The more clients you put on it, the more angry customers will yell at you. The more clients you put on a server, the more administrative work needs to be done. One bad written script on a server already running at 85% can put you over the thin line you are walking and server performance suddenly sucks and affects everyone on the server.
 
You get the idea. Be moderate and careful in your approach and earn the success you deserve. Don’t try to compete with the big guns or join the craziness for who offers the lowest price and the highest bandwidth allowance. It’s not worth it.
 
To better illustrate how profitable web hosting can be, we are showing two price calculation examples. Example 1 is very conservative in regards to how many accounts are on a server. The second example is a little more aggressive, but still considered conservative. In the end it really depends on how many static or dynamic websites will be on a server. However – the examples are really just to better illustrate the number game.

Example 1

Example II