Hi all,

I currently hold a reseller account with a company which I have held for the last three years. In this time, hosting prices have come down across the board, and a lot more competition has entered the market. Yet my reseller account diskspace, bandwidth and cost has remained the same. Because of this, I'm finding it difficult to continue offering competitive hosting to my clients.

I am currently at the maximum of my current hosting, and to upgrade that to the next level with my current host would cost me more than that for which many other companies are offering much, much more in terms of diskspace and bandwidth.

I have been doing some research today, and thought I would put the results of that here for discussion. Specifically, does anyone have any experience with any of these hosts? Are there any to avoid? Any comments would be helpful as I search for a new host.

I'm also keen to hear people's views on the advantages of Australian-based hosting over US (ie. where the servers are located)

The criteria for evaluation below have been:
Company - Name of the company
Web - Their web address
Product - Which product I have compared (They may have others)
Cost - Cost of the ompared product
Space - Diskspace offered
Bandwidth - Monthly Bandwidth
Servers - Are their servers located in AUS or US?
Company Location - Where is the company headquarters/office?
Limits - Are there any limits on number of domains etc.?

Disclaimer: The information below is correct to my knowledge as of today, and I would encourage anybody in a similar position to me to do their own research - I was looking for certain things, and many hosts haven't been listed here, but they may suit other people better than the hosts and packages listed below. Having said that, hopefully as well as helping me, this info can save others spending as much time on this as I have today!

Netports
netportsaustralia.com.au
F-Lite
$99/month
5 Gig
50 Gig
US
Australia - QLD
50 Domains (Accounts) Limitation

Netports
netportsaustralia.com.au
Mc-AU-1
$121/month
1 Gig
10 Gig
AUS
Australia - QLD
25 Domains (Accounts) Limitation

Enetica
enetica.com.au
Standard 3
$89/month
20 Gig
800 Gig
AUS
Australia - NSW
80 Domains (Accounts) Limitation

Host Networks
hostnetworks.com.au
RAC-1000
$66/month
1 Gig
15 Gig
AUS
Australia - QLD
Unlimited Domains within allocation

HostGator
hostgator.com
Gold
US$74.95/month
40 Gig
300 Gig
US
USA
Unlimited Domains within allocation

Value Hosting Australia
valuehosting.com.au
Regular
$100/month
2.5 Gig
18 Gig
AUS
Australia - VIC
60 Domains (Accounts) Limitation

Ilisys
ilisys.com.au
Reseller
$99/month
1 Gig
100 Gig
AUS
Australia
Unlimited Domains within allocation

Small Pond Reseller
smallpondreseller.com.au
Reseller60
$69/month
4 Gig
60 Gig
US
Australia
Unlimited Domains within allocation

Net Logistics
netlogistics.com.au
Kinetic Three
$69/month
3 Gig
60 Gig
AUS
Australia
30 Domains (Accounts) Limitation

Net Logistics
netlogistics.com.au
Reseller Three
$75/month
5 Gig
100 Gig
US
Australia
25 Domains (Accounts) Limitation

Web Hosts Australia
webhostsaustralia.com.au
Gold
$110/month
3 Gig
30 Gig
AUS
Australia
Unlimited Domains within allocation

Flexihostings
flexihostings.net.au
RS-Two
$60/month
2 Gig
55 Gig
US
Australia
Unlimited Domains within allocation

Kwiklink
kwiklink.com.au
vLink
$80/month
8 Gig
80 Gig
US
Australia - NSW
100 Domains (Accounts) Limitation

Pulse Hosting
pulsehosting.com.au
Reseller 4
$66/month
12 Gig
200 Gig
US
Australia
Unlimited Domains within allocation

Hostpac
hostpac.net.au
RSP-3
$88/month
4 Gig
40 Gig
AUS
Australia
100 Domains (Accounts) Limitation

Deasoft
deasoft.com
AU R4
$60/month
10 Gig
65 Gig
AUS
Australia - VIC
Unlimited Domains within allocation

You have to question why price is an issue in the first place?

Many of the "bigger" hosting companies that are out there charge significantly more then your mid to small range companies these days, such as webcentral and destra. Meanwhile other company's battle the prices to a point where the margins on each account is so insignificant that the "care" of looking after peoples websites start to get lesser and lesser (providers with rotten support that charge $2 a month for instance).

I guess what it all boils down to what you give to your clients. Do you back data up responsibility and have an affective disaster recovery procedure in place? How affective is your server monitoring? Do you have inbound support numbers? Do you offer 24 hour support?

Now you mentioned the advantages and disadvantages of AU vs US hosting. Consider the cost of hosting in Australia can cost more then US based hosting servers, however your latency is nearly 4x quicker for customers if it is in Australia. AU vs US hosting also has disaster recovery differences behind them too, do clients feel safe knowing that their information is in the hands of a foreign company and the time it takes to action such procedures in the case of event are going to be handled quickly and effectively?

The list really never stops, I've mentioned a few things but the punchline I'm trying to make is don't follow a competitive trend simply because you see other companys "look" to be offering a sweeter deal then you. Find out why the sweeter deal exists. If you happen to loose a few customers along the way, it would of been a similar loss anyway if you had to drop your prices for them cut into your margins and lower the level of quality you provide.

Heck i know company's charging businesses today nearly $40 a month for what most other hosting businesses consider a "lite" or "base" level packages. These company's do quite well because they have the reputation behind them to do it and because a small business owner will fork out the extra $$ to simply know that every time they click that "send and receive" button on their email that its going to check the server effectively for emails and not deliver any funny errors and if funny errors do crop up they have someone to report the fault too, if it hasn't already been discovered.

You mention you have been with your current host for three years. For you to have stayed with them you must be happy with their service

This should really be your primary concern

Lets face it prices of reseller account are dirt cheap for what you get and the your potential for profit

This is why I find it strange you say that Depending on how many clients you have obviously, to host a domain under a reseller account cost $1 maybe $2 per month

This is why selection of a Reseller account provider should never be a cost based decision because the difference in price per domain is so negligible

Selection of the reseller account should be based entirely on their service levels support and reputation

I am afraid if you are concerned purely with price on the reseller account and also feel a difference of even $1 per month on your cost per domain will effect your competitiveness then I seriously recommend reassessing your market positioning and pricing

My recommendation would be that if you are receiving good service with your current host then you should pay the money to upgrade with them rather than entering the lottery of moving your clients around to other providers

I realise you are trying to do the research here to avoid problems but there are no guarantees as any feedback is generally very subjective

My advice to anyone is when you find a good host stick with them

Cheers
Angus

First of all, thanks for the replies so far.

Since both replies have focussed on price, I thought I should comment regarding this.

I agree that price should not be the consideration in choosing a host, but it definitely is a consideration.

If, given all other things, there are two providers offering an equivalent service, but one is half the price, or more to the point in this situation, may be offering substantially more "product" for an equivalent price, it does weigh in on the decision making process.

I definitely will not be choosing what to do based on price alone. But as you can see from the above research, there is a great deal of difference in what is offered from different companies at the same price level.

The other things to take note are :

i) If it looks too good to be true it usually is
ii) You get what you pay

I agree with previous comments which are to stick with your current host unless absolutley neccessary. Have you asked your current provider for a custom quote or similar?

Yes, I have asked my current host if they can do any type of deal in upgrading my account. It would be my preference to stay with them.

The other option would be to keep my current account for most of my current clients and open a reseller account with another host as well. This could still give me a lot more diskspace and bandwidth for the same amount as upgrading my current account.

Keen to hear any other thoughts...

In your search criteria i would also add :

Money Back Guarantee and for what period?
Does the Host offer Personalised Nameservers?
How fast is Support Response Times?
Will the new Host assist with moving exisiting accounts across?

Just a few extra things to consider.

Which market are you targeting?

If your going after the price focused one - you'll always lose out and will have lots of customer chun. If you go after the quality SME market you'll pick up very loyal customers so long as you treat them right.

That's a very good question regarding market. I started hosting as an off-shoot of web design, much of it (the design) voluntary for non-profit groups. I found that I could offer better quality hosting than many of them had at the time and for a cheaper amount. My client base has grown from there, mainly through referrals from those clients.

But I really only have a small client base at the moment and am not really looking to dramatically increase that, except for the fact that my current clients are requiring more space/bandwidth. Yes, I could charge them more for a higher plan, but to give them the little bit more they require would mean me paying 50% more than I am currently to upgrade to the next plan up.

Bottom line I guess is grow or die.

(And yes, I know I have been running the hosting side of my business at too low a profit margin etc. etc. I have been way too generous in what I have offered my clients in this regard. But that is why I am taking my time in making a decision on the right course to take from here. We live and learn.)

You may want to get out of the 'non-profit business' or perhaps use them for case studies which you can use against newer higher paying clients to convince you to go with you.

Having customers who can't / don't pay is no way to run a business...

It can't but be the cosideration, this is what is your business plan based on.
I don't quite understand why you have picked up SUCH expensive plans.

That's the problem though, a lot of what's on offer is actually intangible. It's intangible because you can't see it until they have an outage, and recover quickly - or even don't have the outage in the first place. What if your new cheap host didn't have an outage for 12 months then was down 2 whole days in the week before Christmas? Or a week during a holiday period because you didn't know they were a one man band? This isn't something you find out easily or quickly; it may take you 12 months to find out and by then it's too late; as after the 2 days/1 week downtime you lose 50% of your customers.

Absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, can replace 2 years of experience. I'd just advise you to think carefully before doing anything that might damage your business. If you can negotiate your current hosts down, go for it. Particularly since moving can be so labor intensive.

The other thing to be aware of is that many/most companies resell enormously these days. What that means is that they assume that most people won't use the 10Gb they sell them. That in itself isn't bad, it's just another business model, although it can lead to problems down the track if they haven't been wise. What can be bad is that some hosts advertise 10Gb space then penalize those who actually use it. Again, you won't find this out until they suspend you or kick you off. Or put you on a slow server. And, over time, what initially appeared to be a fast server can bog down as the new accounts actually start to consume disk space, disk I/O and CPU time (most new accounts sit relatively idle for the first 3-6 months).

This would be one valid way to test out the waters, though remember you may be waiting 12 months to tell the difference! Certainly it'll give you some more space though ...