HostGator & monthly billing

[Milen]

You're welcome!

[sylvainross]

Monthly billing

I am sure that company managers know about HostGator offering monthly billing, as they are watching the biggest companies in the web hosting industry pretty closely. However, as I said before, monthly billing for shared hosting plans is currently not a viable option for Resellers Panel.

Resellers Panel already offer monthly billing for services, where we feel it is possible to offer it, in particular for cPanel reseller plans, VPS, semi-dedicated and dedicated hosting plans.

How funny reseller panel is not offering monthly billing on share hosting when you know liquidnet is offering it on a site 100% own by them.

https://www.ntchosting.com/order/?plan=31889&script=joomla15

Here is double standard I see that

[Nova-Host]

Wait so its too complicated to implement, yet they're implementing it just fine for themselves? Would someone care to EXPLAIN to me how this is fair?

[doneritehosting]

How funny reseller panel is not offering monthly billing on share hosting when you know liquidnet is offering it on a site 100% own by them.

https://www.ntchosting.com/order/?plan=31889&script=joomla15

Here is double standard I see that

Now this is intresting and there is also a sales support id. Possibly a reseller as well? Rsp if this is a test site i would like in on the testing if this is an unadvertised paid option of the free reseller system i also would like in on that as well. Definately waiting for a response.

[Louisa]

Hello,

The NTCHosting site is not a reseller of ours, it is our own website and the monthly billing is neither a paid option, nor an unannounced one.

I did consult with our superiors and they confirmed the site is being used to test the market for monthly billing. For now our statistics show that the monthly billing does NOT have higher income than the annual, and the expenses of offering monthly billing are NOT covered by the income from plans paid on monthly basis. There does Not seem to be high enough interest in monthly billing to actually justify implementing it in our system.

All in all, this means our Management will withhold from offering monthly billing in our Reseller Hosting program until the market research shows that offering monthly billing will be actually profitable - for both us and you, our resellers.

[doneritehosting]

And it has Search Engine Friendly Urls. I've setup a thread for SEF url request for almost two years now.

Will say this. The site has great traffic rank on alexa lower quarter of one hundred thousand. Hats off to whoever is doing the seo. marketing and advertising for sure

[Louisa]

Hello,

As previously stated in my last post, the site is being used for testing and market research purposes, and, as I already notified in the thread concering SEO friendly URLs, new templates with more - tested - SEO options are already on their way.
Before making changes to our reseller hosting program, our superiors do thorough research, so that we can offer you the highest quality possible.

Adding new features without proper preparation just so we can say we did add new options, and then start finding bugs or inconsistencies later on, is not an option

I am sure your patience concerning the new SEO friendlier templates will be properly rewarded once they are ready

[Chameleon]

DoneRite and I have been discussing possible implementation methods that RSP could use in order to provide this service with minimal impact on their cashflow.

Im just awaiting his response regarding my latest variation

[Louisa]

DoneRite and I have been discussing possible implementation methods that RSP could use in order to provide this service with minimal impact on their cashflow.

Im just awaiting his response regarding my latest variation

Any feedback or ideas you may have are always welcome

[Chameleon]

Ok I haven't heard from donerite for a while now, so i'll post my later idea up and let people discuss/refine the idea further. It would also be good to get peoples opinions on my Idea to see if it's something that people would work with, even though it is only a rough outline.

Basically I suggest treating the monthly billing option in the same light as the API based resellers, i.e having a minimum wallet balance (this can be tied in with the API balance, or made a seperate one, up to you guys). This would then activate the monthly billing cycle in their stores. Im just going by the fact that people who offer monthly billing may also enjoy the use of the API at the same time to create a more custom feel to their sites than the standard order forms (assuming that they have made their own and are not using the templates).

Now, as we all know, there will be an increase in costs to RSP for processing essentially 11 more payments per year for shared hosting, so I suggest this: Make the resellers pay the payment processing fee out of their commission for each month bought by a customer, essentially it would work out as: Sell Price - (Wholesale Cost + Payment processing fee).

Obviously there would need to be verification in the back end where the Wholesale Cost + Payment fee cannot be higher than the Sell Price, so maybe RSP can put limits on the Sell Price like they do with all the other products and put a blanket percentage on the price range (which i am certain they do already).

The profit from this would go into the profits due as always, and any chargebacks will be removed from there or the resellers wallet balance if there is insufficient funds in the profits due pot. Any payments can be made in accordance with RSP's existing profit payment system.

As I said before, this is a very rough outline of what RSP could do to implement this. It shouldn't be too time consuming as it is essentially using the technology and principals that they have always been using, so this in itself simplifies the development process.

As for the cashflow easing, having a minimum wallet balance of say $200 for the sake of this idea, should hopefully help smooth out the cashflow spikes as RSP will be building up another financial buffer as I suspect that even if the minimum balance was $200, there would be an awful lot of resellers who would be willing to pay that for a lifetime of being able to provide monthly repayments. Obviously if the API access was tied in with this, and if the reseller was dealing with their own billing, that wallet balance would be used as the buffer to cover the monthly billing spikes.


So what's everyones thoughts on this, and can anyone think of any way to improve/expand upon it?

[The Stealthy One]

Yes, that sounds like a fantastic idea to me. I would also be willing to commit $200 in order to have monthly billing for my reseller account.

[doneritehosting]

Ok I haven't heard from donerite for a while now, so i'll post my later idea up and let people discuss/refine the idea further. It would also be good to get peoples opinions on my Idea to see if it's something that people would work with, even though it is only a rough outline.

Basically I suggest treating the monthly billing option in the same light as the API based resellers, i.e having a minimum wallet balance (this can be tied in with the API balance, or made a seperate one, up to you guys). This would then activate the monthly billing cycle in their stores. Im just going by the fact that people who offer monthly billing may also enjoy the use of the API at the same time to create a more custom feel to their sites than the standard order forms (assuming that they have made their own and are not using the templates).

Now, as we all know, there will be an increase in costs to RSP for processing essentially 11 more payments per year for shared hosting, so I suggest this: Make the resellers pay the payment processing fee out of their commission for each month bought by a customer, essentially it would work out as: Sell Price - (Wholesale Cost + Payment processing fee).

Obviously there would need to be verification in the back end where the Wholesale Cost + Payment fee cannot be higher than the Sell Price, so maybe RSP can put limits on the Sell Price like they do with all the other products and put a blanket percentage on the price range (which i am certain they do already).

The profit from this would go into the profits due as always, and any chargebacks will be removed from there or the resellers wallet balance if there is insufficient funds in the profits due pot. Any payments can be made in accordance with RSP's existing profit payment system.

As I said before, this is a very rough outline of what RSP could do to implement this. It shouldn't be too time consuming as it is essentially using the technology and principals that they have always been using, so this in itself simplifies the development process.

As for the cashflow easing, having a minimum wallet balance of say $200 for the sake of this idea, should hopefully help smooth out the cashflow spikes as RSP will be building up another financial buffer as I suspect that even if the minimum balance was $200, there would be an awful lot of resellers who would be willing to pay that for a lifetime of being able to provide monthly repayments. Obviously if the API access was tied in with this, and if the reseller was dealing with their own billing, that wallet balance would be used as the buffer to cover the monthly billing spikes.


So what's everyones thoughts on this, and can anyone think of any way to improve/expand upon it?

Cham
Definately apologize for being out of contact I was visiting my sister for the holiday plus vacation and there is no internet access there as of yet. I did send you a pm before I left however of Ideas how the api could be made to work with different billing gateways thus putting all billing fees at the responsibility of the reseller not RSP except for managing the wallet. However the Idea you propose sounds easier to implement than what I pm'ed you so like stealthy I'm all for it....

BTW Steathy WELCOME BACK!!! Great to see you in here again

[doneritehosting]

And Cham I have forwarded the replys I made to you for consideration a second time.. again apologies extended for the mis-communication

[doneritehosting]

Ok well my idea was this...

Everyone that has had a cpanel reseller account and used enom to resell domains knows that enom uses an API and a system somewhat similar to RSP's wallet system. The domain reseller deposits $100.00 into their reseller account. The reseller sells a domain enom takes their wholesale for the domain from the reseller account and the full billed amount (Retail) is directed to the payment gateway (IE the resellers paypal account).

Just remove RSP's provided secure billing from the process and the same can be done for RSP making the reseller responsible for all billing fees and he will have to adust his own pricing above the cost of wholsale and billing fees. If RSP wants to also charge a fee from the wallet to just manage the wallet for resellers using such a system thats fine too. At this point a monthly quarterly semi-annual and annual payment system could be added and would be feasable with no overhead cost to RSP except the wallet. Cham brought up a good point about resellers wanting to be paid only by check and there are billing solutions that do pay by check so there can be a choice for all resellers for a billing gateway The important points are (a) move money from the wallet to RSP for the billing period,their wholesale, setup the service(s) (b) Transfer the full billed amount to the gateway (billing solution of choice) (c) Make the billing on the service recurring preferably. WHMCS has made a api solution possible for every cpanel reseller account plus included support for pretty much every domain reseller api there is and alot more with an unbranded lease for bout $19 a month. With a little reflection possibly something similar could be done with the RSP api and I would sure lease it for $19 a month same as the domain cluster i already pay for plus keep money in my wallet to make things happen.

The only kickback is the reseller would have to be be fully responsible for the 30day guarantee, but as the reseller is also refunding the full amount including wholesale, RSP would have to refund the wholesale back to the reseller's wallet as well...

Cham thats basicly the PMS I sent that you didn't get. The refund system could be complicated with this idea and why your suggestion would probably be easiest to implement for rsp

[Chameleon]

My idea reflected upon the Free Resellers, however your idea could well work for the CPanel resellers although i am not too familliar with what they can and can't do already.

My idea was primarily trying to base it on current business practices from the free reseller point of view, and as it is based on current business practices it would be:

• Faster for RSP to implement.
  Easier for resellers to use and set up this new system rapidly.
  By linking in with the Resellers Wallet as per the API requirements, this would help ease RSP's cashflow spikes as a buffer would have been built up by the resellers adding in the prerequisite amount of $$'s.

But yeah, I think you're idea may be quite a good one based on the CPanel resellers.

Just an idea on the 30-day money back guarantee, Assuming that you will sitll be using RSP inclusive support, they could handle any cash back requirements through the resellers wallet. At the end of the day, hopefully the reseller will be making enough profit form the monthly sales to be able to easily add more money into the wallet as required.

On a side note though, I understand that RSP has done their research and decided that monthly payments don't appear viable at the moment, however, I would argue to bring it in and see if the resellers can turn it into a viable option. After all, there's alot more of us than there is RSP's if you get what i mean?