GoDaddy Reseller Alternative or any other ideas?

August 11, 2010 11:58 AM

Anyone Know of an Alternative to GoDaddy's (domain/hosting) Reseller Program?

I design Websites and have found myself telling some clients to purchase hosting at GoDaddy. My heart sinks when I do so because I despise their advertising that objectifies women. But I do so because invariably my client has already purchased a domain with GoDaddy or they just feel comfortable using GoDaddy since the name is familiar.

Today I stumbled upon the GoDaddy reseller program and am rather enthralled with the idea that I can magically become a Web hosting company and make a couple bucks along the way.

My issue is, as much as I like the idea of being a reseller of domains and hosting, I would prefer to do it with a company that doesn't use scantily clad women in their advertising strategy. The other issue is I've noticed that sites hosted with GoDaddy tend to load very slowly.

Does anyone have any recommendations as to a good reseller program for domains and Web hosting? One that might be focused on the little guy, since I probably won't be selling a huge amount.

Thanks so much!

posted by hellodonna to technology (15 answers total)

Many hosters do have such programmes. Where in the world do you want them to be and what other service / pricing scheme do you require?
posted by oxit at 12:02 PM on August 11, 2010

From my guitar playing, web-designing husband:

icd does a reseller program. they don't have the name recognition of godaddy, but their ervice is superior by orders of magnitude. and their control panel is simple to use, as opposed to godaddy's which is just horrible. it's taken me up to 45 minutes to find features on the godaddy control panel

posted by kellyblah at 12:06 PM on August 11, 2010

I resell from A Small Orange. Not the cheapest, but the reliability and tech support are killer.

Also, it's not godaddy. Godaddy makes me want to drown kittens in a pool of shimmery glitter.

You can also just co-opt hosting elsewhere, buying a fresh account for each client and letting them pay you instead of the host. Most people do this.

You can also buy hosting that allows add-on domains, and then put multiple clients on one account, having them pay you as well. This is fine as long as you don't need individual clients to each have their own Cpanel.

But seriously, godaddy is the devil. The DEVIL. If you ever have to do anything besides raw static HTML, godaddy is evil. Between the over charging, the constant upsells, the goddamn ridiculous menus, the awful support...it's all evil.

When I do a site, I host it as a sub account on my Small Orange master account, that way if they ever hire anyone else, he/she can access the cpanel w/o damaging other domains. If they've already purchased from godaddy, I transfer the domain.

I have made two exceptions to this rule, both were wordpress recreates of static sites that took less than 5 hours total.

For me, it's namecheap+small orange. Every time. namecheap has just started their own webhosting service too---and it's CHEAP and uses cpanel, which I prefer. I cannot vouch for it though, haven't used it. Yet.
posted by TomMelee at 12:11 PM on August 11, 2010

Hi, I seriously recommend asmallorange.

They are fantastic with customer service, have a great reseller program and everything works.

Loyal customer and recommend to international customers in the Nordics all the time.
posted by Funmonkey1 at 12:19 PM on August 11, 2010

Forgot to add they are US company based in Atlanta.
posted by Funmonkey1 at 12:20 PM on August 11, 2010

People say good things about Gandi. They have a reseller program too.
posted by schmod at 12:21 PM on August 11, 2010

Site5, based out of Denver is owned and managed by some really good people. When I was at my last company we had lengthy discussions with them about having them provide our hosting services before deciding to go it on our own. I was impressed with them all along.
posted by FlamingBore at 12:26 PM on August 11, 2010

bluewho.com has been my choice for about 5 years, $20 to start, cpanel, unlimited domains and solid support. space is rather small but cheap to add more.
posted by bobby_newmark at 12:47 PM on August 11, 2010

I've been with HostGator for years. Inexpensive and robust.
posted by geekyguy at 4:12 PM on August 11, 2010

Dreamhost. They basically give you $97 when someone signs up through you and then a few bucks when someone signs up through someone who signed up through you.

That's what I like about their reseller program, but that's not why I recommend them. I use and recommend them because my sites have been reliable as hell there. I used to swap webhosts every year or two until I found them. Also, since I freelance web design, I've worked with other hosts and had plenty of bad experiences elsewhere.

By the way... who the hell designed GoDaddy's website? My god, it's awful. It looks bad and is far worse to actually use. SHEESH!
posted by 2oh1 at 4:15 PM on August 11, 2010

Oh. Wait. You might need to be a Dreamhost customer first? I don't know since I am... but like I said, I'm really happy there.
posted by 2oh1 at 4:16 PM on August 11, 2010

Get your own VPS and you can make even more. I use Linode. It's very cloud-like and has been long before people started talking about it, so you can scale up and down quickly. And I find it to be cheaper than Amazon.
posted by Brian Puccio at 6:13 PM on August 11, 2010

I actually am a Dreamhost client and love them to bits. I am aware of the affiliate program but haven't had anyone sign up yet. More often than not I add customers to my account and have them pay me. Maybe that route really is the most efficient way of doing it.

There was just something about having my own "storefront" that GoDaddy's reseller program pitches appealed to me.
posted by hellodonna at 7:03 PM on August 11, 2010

phpcoin or several other options will tie into your reseller account at most hosts and let you automate the sales process if you so desire.

I do not recommend this route.
posted by TomMelee at 5:05 AM on August 12, 2010

Ohhhh, totally misunderstood what you were asking for.

You can get a storefront with eNom or Tucows. Let me know if you need contacts.
posted by FlamingBore at 9:30 AM on August 12, 2010