Shared -> Reseller -> VPS, too many options

[tekiegreg]

So over the holiday weekend while home with my parents they want to start a new website for their up and coming business.  Of course where else would I go but here.  After debating on the model to host them I had basically 3 options.

1) Just walk them through a seperate signup, make it look like they were doing it with me nowhere near them

2) Consider upgrading to a reseller account and making them pay part of the bill

3) Even though it's more expensive, let's see if we can persuade them to go VPS together

 

I opted for Number one for now.  However

 

1) If I change they and me change our minds, and decide to go reseller with them someday is that hard to bundle in?

2) What about consolidating my account and their account in a VPS?

 

Then "If you were me, would you have handled the signup differently?"

 

Just looking for thoughts, thanks!

[Brian]

Thanks for having them sign up with us!

The process of moving from a shared plan to a reseller is rather simple and our team can handle the entire migration for you. Even with migrating multiple shared accounts into the reseller plan it's a very straightforward process. Since you're working with multiple shared accounts what we'd do first is upgrade your one cPanel account to a reseller account (involves moving to a new server), change its permissions, setup WHM access, etc, making it the primary account on the new reseller. We'd then migrate any other remaining cPanel account(s) you have to the reseller account. All said and done it only takes a few hours to complete.

The process of moving to a VPS is basically the same (order a VPS, get it setup, migrate the account(s), update your DNS) though the only caveat there is you would need to order a cPanel/WHM license with the VPS for our team to assist with the migration.

Hope you're enjoying the holidays!

[tekiegreg]

Maybe need to open this up to a wider question :-)

Your the resident IT pro in the house and your parents want a website, what should you do?

 

 Get them their own shared plan.  

Upsides:

1) It's their own billing, their own problem, just remind them to pay yearly.  Also if you're like me you're charging nothing for your parents in building the website anyways (hey it's cool, I'll build out the Wordpress site, my parents help me out too)

Downsides:

1) You have to use their login/pass if you need Cpanel access, leads to an ugly shared user/pass situation.

 

Go halves with them on a reseller plan

Upsides:

1) No need to share logins, yours is as good as theirs on their website

Downsides:

1) The billing for the hosting is between you and your parents, leading to issues if your parents are late (usually not a problem, but it's probably better for peace in the house if the parents pay your host as opposed to paying the kids for hosting)

 

Go VPS

Similar to re seller, but hey a greater pool of resources to draw from, you can even make your parents re sellers themselves and invite their friends in...start a family hosting company :-p but of course my parents are attorneys with no interest in web hosting.

 

 

 

[Cody R.]

I don't think there is a right answer on what you "should" do - just what fits your scenario the best! I personally would opt for what you did - I like keeping things separate and it makes things a bit "cleaner" that way.

The perks of a reseller is ease of management (although once you get their logins for their account I don't think it'll be a big issue) and the ability to spin up more accounts whenever you want (does this suit your business / needs)?

I would not recommend a VPS coming out of the gate. It's far more expensive and requires a lot more knowledge to run it well. There are also things that add up you may take for granted on a shared server (IE: CloudLinux, LiteSpeed, fully managed, etc). VPS aren't for the faint of heart ;).