Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Business

Posted by Daniel Widyanto
Daniel Widyanto
5,626 Points

Freelance Newbie: Should I put all clients website under single hosting or reseller hosting ?

Hello,

I want to start my web design freelance business from home. I wonder what is the usual practice for hosting the customers website.

Do you host all of your customer websites into one hosting account (Say: FatCow and HostGator account can host unlimited domain) ? Or do you have reseller hosting (Something like $30 / month for 30 accounts) ?

As far as I know, reseller hosting has multiple license for cPanel, which makes it easier to transfer the customer's website once they don't want to use my service.

And oh, if you want to know why I need to quote my own hosting to customer, it's because my customers usually non-technical people. They can't differentiate the problem with the server, their office / home network or the website problem. I did freelance web design for a friend before, and he called me near midnight saying his MS Outlook doesn't work (totally unrelated, but for these people anything related to IT will end up at my side). Therefore I'm thinking of taking the extra service at extra cost.

Thank you very much for your help

Best Regards, -daniel

8 Answers

Gareth Borcherds
Gareth Borcherds
9,372 Points
Gareth Borcherds
Gareth Borcherds
9,372 Points

Host for clients, you'll make a lot more money. We try and host every client we get and we now make a little over $40,000 a year just in hosting fees. If you find the right host (don't go cheap, invest in a good host that manages everything for you) then you hardly have server related tasks and then it's just updating and keeping your sites free from security things, which if you build in wordpress, there are lots of plugins to help with that, then you just need to keep it updated. We host and manage over 100 sites and only spend about 5 hours a month in maintenance tasks. My recommendation to anyone is figure out how to get recurring revenue, it's how you build a business rather than have a side-job.

Last bit of advice, don't try and compete on price in your hosting with the shared hosting providers. You won't make much at $10 a month. Our minimum we charge is 45 a month. People like paying for you to do all the work and you should charge for that.

Dustin Matlock
Dustin Matlock
33,856 Points

That's a great idea for a pricing scheme and service. There are a lot of people who want it all done for them. Most times if your website gets hacked and you have no backups, or really any knowledge about that sort of thing... you're out of luck.

For Wordpress you do need high-quality hosting as it takes up resources and extra memory from plugins. I wouldn't recommend skimping out on hosting ever and even Google thinks your site should rank well based on that, and how fast your load times are; it's a better user experience.

Gareth Borcherds
Gareth Borcherds
9,372 Points
Gareth Borcherds
Gareth Borcherds
9,372 Points

Yeah, we have a daily backup of every site, but yet again, if you set it up right, it's all automated. You need to spend some time learning all the ins and outs, but if you can automate most of your life, it really makes you a ton of money, more than straight freelancing.

Daniel Widyanto
Daniel Widyanto
5,626 Points

Thanks a lot @Gareth Borcherds =) That's really inspiring me a lot.

jsdevtom
jsdevtom
16,963 Points
jsdevtom
jsdevtom
16,963 Points

Hi Gareth Borcherds, I don't want to use wordpress for my clients because of its slowness which is just a big no-no in my opinion. Do you have any good alternatives that also streamline the development process? I will be focusing on new small/medium businesses, that mostly need a basic website.

Sorcha Porter
Sorcha Porter
649 Points

Gareth, just curious, my husband and I are starting our own Web Design business and are currently looking into hosts. We thought it would be a great way to generate passive income and are glad to hear that that's what it is doing for you! What host do you recommend?

Dustin Matlock
Dustin Matlock
33,856 Points
Dustin Matlock
Dustin Matlock
33,856 Points

You would most likely want to go with reseller hosting. However, many freelancers would recommend against providing hosting to the client; it's one more thing on your list of things to do and it's much easier to direct them on how to go about getting their own web hosting.

Dennis Eitner
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Dennis Eitner
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Graduate 25,644 Points
Dennis Eitner
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Dennis Eitner
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Graduate 25,644 Points

I am running my own webdesign business and I don't recommend that you host the client's website. It's just less responsibility. Since your business is creating and designing websites. How ever if you make an agreement on hosting and support you can charge for that.

I usually recommend a hoster and send them an affiliate link. So I get a little bit of money from the hosting company.

Hope these thoughts help you.

Daniel Widyanto
Daniel Widyanto
5,626 Points
Daniel Widyanto
Daniel Widyanto
5,626 Points

Thanks to both of you. (Dustin Matlock and Dennis Eitner).

I understand that having own hosting service is equal to more problems, but hosting itself could also make a steady income during tough times when there's no client available, or when you need some holiday from designing websites. Do you guys think the same way ? Or there's other way to handle this issue ?

Thanks again for your sharing =)

Cheers, -Daniel

Dennis Eitner
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Dennis Eitner
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Graduate 25,644 Points
Dennis Eitner
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Dennis Eitner
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Graduate 25,644 Points

That's actually true. But if you want to generate passive income I would suggest that you offer a hosting and support contract. That's actually a good idea. After a certain amount of clients you don't have to take new business becuase you'll be busy maintaining the clients. However you have to make sure that your clients websites are running 24/7. If you are alone in you business that can be tough from time to time. Best. Dennis

Thiago de Bastos
Thiago de Bastos
14,556 Points
Thiago de Bastos
Thiago de Bastos
14,556 Points

Thanks for all of the advice guys, I have opened a re-seller account with Site5 and will let you guys know how it goes!

jsdevtom
jsdevtom
16,963 Points
jsdevtom
jsdevtom
16,963 Points

.... how's it going?

Froi Nunez
Froi Nunez
12,133 Points
Froi Nunez
Froi Nunez
12,133 Points

Hi all, I was wondering about this same question recently. I've been able to build some websites for small businesses but when it comes to hosting options for them I'm not 100% sure of which path to take. Any update from you guys on this ??

Thanks.

Ramon Villarreal-Leal
Ramon Villarreal-Leal
4,764 Points
Ramon Villarreal-Leal
Ramon Villarreal-Leal
4,764 Points

Yeah can someone please elaborate on their experiences with this? I'm using Hostgator shared hosting and launching my freelance web developer/design enterprise in a week.

Thank you