Hello there people. I'm looking for some advice for a newbie self employed web designer (me ) trying to close a deal for a website.

 

I agreed a quote with a client which included the domain and the charge for the work. Which was fine.

 

Today I ordered the domain from Heart Internet, believing (and this was my fault) that the domain would be available for me to add pages via FTP to the domain there and then. Of course it's not that easy as the package I'm on only allows me to add one site domain on, which of course is my portfolio.

 

So my only options are to upgrade my hosting to include a new domain. I can either buy a new starter hosting package for each new domain I buy, which means countless packages to manage, buy a business package to include my portfolio and this new domain or the reseller package (which is obviously expensive) meaning I wouldn't need to worry about new hosting packages in the long term.

 

So that's the background, but this is my question. How do designers out there cover their hosting fees in their charges. As I said before the original quote I made was for the domain and the design work, but I should have know there were increased charges for hosting. I'm already paying for one hosting package. How do you factor this into your site fees for clients?

 

Many thanks,

 

webDesignerJon

Hiya Jon

 

What a lot of wise designers will do is simply help the client to buy their own hosting, and explain what to expect, like hosting is renewable every {x} amount of months or per-year, and current hosting price is based on {x} amount of traffic a month, if site gets very busy, then an upgrade to the next level is likey to be needed etc.

 

{Unlimited doesnt exist, so lets not get started on THAT old chestnut}

 

Then you let the customer get on with it and concentrate on what makes you you REAL money, rather than dealing with your clients support questions for pennies.

 

Depends if you want to be their designer, and charge them for your creative work, or get tied up in supporting them 24/7, even when your on holiday..

 

1 Man designers often find it better to let the host deal direct with the customer, and they just do the design work, thus any work they do is being paid for, at their hourly rate, not a pennies rate if the customer is very "needy" so to speak...

 

If their are a few of you in the same firm, then a reseller account can be great if you have several hundred customers, or even your own dedicated server{s}, but if your on your own, and new to it all, then its likely that having a great host behind you to look after your customers directly might be wiser...

Edited September 19, 201213 yr by wesh.co.uk

At the moment I have one client who lets me FTP onto his hosting server and another client who is expecting (I haven't really discussed it with them yet) me to host it myself and we didn't even discuss hosting rates. I'm going to have to go back with a new quote I suppose and discuss this. A new annual rate. I'm quite happy to host it, if the client can afford the host themselves and late me say, FTP the pages over across.

 

I keep forgetting this is all so new to me. But yes, I am a one man band, who sits and codes in his own room. I guess I'm going to have to be extra nice and say... "Well... actually guys....."

Pretty much what Wesh said.

 

Personally, I prefer it if clients pay for and manage their own hosting account (obviously giving me access) but if they dont want to, then it becomes billable time if I manage it.

 

I know with some companies that you can buy more appropriate packages that are not as expensive as reseller packages, but allow you to use addon domains. So you could have one single account, and under that account anything from 2-100 websites can be hosted depending on the package you have bought.

 

Good luck

What we see some of our clients do is this which is clever: Buy a reseller hosting service (costing around £3/£10 a month for starting) using cPanel/WHM, then they charge a percentage of the hosting service for instance they will charge 100% of their monthly charges for each client so they make 100% profit after the first client. Domain names normally are up charged by around 25% from what I have seen designers do.

 

Hope this helps but what the other above have said is pretty useful and helpful!

I think this is where I need to tread carefully. Because if I host I'll obviously want to pass that cost on. I can't afford to host too many packages without covering that cost, but unless I insist on one package per customer, I can't exactly ask multiple clients to each pay hosting costs, or one client to pay hosting costs and the rest go scot free. So it's a balancing act.

 

But many thanks for your advice all, it does make it clearer for a new kid on the block.

I think this is where I need to tread carefully. Because if I host I'll obviously want to pass that cost on. I can't afford to host too many packages without covering that cost, but unless I insist on one package per customer, I can't exactly ask multiple clients to each pay hosting costs, or one client to pay hosting costs and the rest go scot free. So it's a balancing act.

 

But many thanks for your advice all, it does make it clearer for a new kid on the block.

 

Personally by the sounds of it you really need a reseller account, start small (nice and low cost but always make sure to go with a good provider) and then grow as you need. Having a separate hosting account from a provider is going to make things harder to keep track off and more payments coming from them. With a reseller account using something like cPanel/WHM control panels you have 1 invoice to pay the hosting company and can setup as many accounts for your clients as you wish

 

Hope this helped a bit more than my previous reply. good luck!

Right, so sorry to bring us all back to this topic but I need to be absolutely sure what I'm thinking is right.

 

I want to go down the reseller route and will be finally choosing one over the next few days but all I want is a place to host multiple sites and to cover that by charging a fee for hosting. Obviously I want to be sure I make a profit. Is it fair to charge all clients the same fee baring in mind i'm paying the same annual fee to one hosting company? To clarify I'm not interesting "selling" hosting of my own, rather just offering a space for clients to host sites via my reseller account.

If you are going to host pretty identical sites in terms of bandwidth and size of sites etc, then just charge your clients the lowest you can. Say your reseller account costs 20 a month, and you have 2 clients - split it, then when you get more clients on board, the cost for the previous clients can go down. However bear in mind you can get some really good hosting packages from £2/3 a month - My clients pay £14.99 a year, so if others are offering hosting a £10 a month, that can seem expensive compared to other hosting accounts available.

Yea I really want to stay with Heart Internet but I simply can't afford their reseller. Their only other option is a business pro package which will only allows me 3 websites one of which is my own domain! Also since I charge for domains annually (or twice annual) I'd like to charge hosting the same way. At my current rate, with my second client on board that's like a £59 hosting charge for the year which I could knock down to £50.

 

So Unlimited hosting remains high on my list. It's cheapest reseller I've found at £10p/month and at the moment, price is high on my priorities.

If you are going to host pretty identical sites in terms of bandwidth and size of sites etc, then just charge your clients the lowest you can. Say your reseller account costs 20 a month, and you have 2 clients - split it, then when you get more clients on board, the cost for the previous clients can go down. However bear in mind you can get some really good hosting packages from £2/3 a month - My clients pay £14.99 a year, so if others are offering hosting a £10 a month, that can seem expensive compared to other hosting accounts available.

 

Very impressed with TSO site and their terms james. I'm putting together hosting prices for a client, their prices seem very reasonable and great value for what's available in their plans.

Yeah their prices are really competitive and I have never had anything but respect for them tbh. Like I say, when they answer support tickets regardless of time or day, then thats a huge plus imo.

 

Have you signed up with them then? If not I have a 10% discount code you can use - jamesosix (I will be credited an affiliate commission, but it wont cost you anything extra if you do use it)

 

Also another option for you is you have your own account, and then just charge clients £14.99 a year, but use your own affiliate code when you sign them up, crediting your account with money, but it really just depends on how you wanna handle it.

 

Good luck, and if you have any more questions or whatever, feel free to pm me

Edited October 16, 201213 yr by jamesosix

Just remember, you get what you pay for!

 

/repeat