Another reseller question thread

[Bviper]

I can see tons of these are posted, but gotta learn somehow right?

So, I plan on setting up a few websites for family and friends. Nothing big, not really over 10 sites at this point, looking at just the basic package. Primarily I plan on being a website designer, I'm not planning on reselling and making a large profit. This brings me to my first question.

Will Host Gator's system allow the end customer (whomever I design a website for) to pay on their own? As in they will get reminded of when they need to pay and use the checkout system to directly pay me. As well as I can set this to intervals such as yearly, quarterly, etc.

Because I'm going to be the webmaster for all of these sites will I have complete control over them without having to ask for all their passwords? Will I be able to setup X feature, upload Y file to their sites using my own control panel or will I need to log in as them.

Finally, how are domains handled? If they register a domain domain is it straight through Host Gator, does it pass by me?

Thanks for any answers, I've setup a few sites before and trying to manage all the different web hosts / making sure the clients keep up with their payments can prove to be, well, frustrating. I'm looking for something that gives me a more streamlined control system than separate accounts on seperate web hosts, and that does not require the time self hosting would.

[Goddess Dix]

Originally Posted by Bviper

Will Host Gator's system allow the end customer (whomever I design a website for) to pay on their own? As in they will get reminded of when they need to pay and use the checkout system to directly pay me. As well as I can set this to intervals such as yearly, quarterly, etc.

no. either you handle the billing to the clients and pay hg if the sites are on your resller account, or you could just get an affiliate account and let them have their own hosting plans through hg seperately. that would give you a small comission without having to deal with the billing yourself.

Because I'm going to be the webmaster for all of these sites will I have complete control over them without having to ask for all their passwords? Will I be able to setup X feature, upload Y file to their sites using my own control panel or will I need to log in as them.

as a reseller, you will be setting up their accounts, and therefore will set their passwords. you can also do most things by accessing their control panels through whm, which is the reseller software connected to their individual cpanel accounts.

Finally, how are domains handled? If they register a domain domain is it straight through Host Gator, does it pass by me?

if they register it directly, then you are not involved, no. or you can register it for them. the domain registration is not directly tied to the hosting; whoever registered it will need correct nameserver info to make the hosting work properly, of course.

hth.

[slapshotw]

And just to expand on what Dix said-- many resellers here use WHMCS, which is free with your hostgator plan, to handle all the billing for their domains.

[Goddess Dix]

i also believe you can set up auto billing and auto suspend in whmcs, so that might allieviate some of your billing concerns. i know i'm terrible about putting off manually suspending slow pays, and if we're looking at friends and family, that would be even worse...

gotta get whcms set up myself.

[xtel]

Once you get hands on with WHMcs, you'll see how it all works. I recommend this over AutoPilot ... it's much more user-friendly for new beginners.

[jaily]

I think that you can access your users cpanel by logging in to your own main cpanel.