Going rate for web site hosting / business model

[mikeygic]

I'm a web designer who uses GoDaddy to host all my sites, each of my business customers pay me a monthly fee. I started charging $10/mo, then $15, now $29. If my customers are savvy enough they could fire me as a hosting provider and have their site hosted by any online company for $7/mo - but so far so good. If I could get 100 sites up and hosted for $29/mo that's almost $3K coming in each month before I get to the office. But before I get excited...

1. What is the going rate for small business web site hosting?
2. Has anyone tried this model before and have any advice?

[David Bowley]

I'm going to be running with this business model in the next few months, although I'm not a freelance designer I am planning on outsourcing some simple work for cheap and concentrating on getting the hosting customers in.

The going rate for business web site hosting is variable. It's what you can get away with to some extent, if they don't mind paying $29 then charge that. Yes they might go with someone else, but if they aren't smart enough to get the hosting themselves in the first place then they probably won't. I'll probably be charging around $20/month for my service because I can.

And as you said, that's good residual income that's being left on the table there.