For digital agencies, offering hosting services is often a no-brainer. Once you’ve designed and developed beautiful websites for your customers, you want to make sure they perform beautifully too – from ranking as highly as possible on search engines, to maximising conversions. Connecting your customers to the right hosting package is therefore key to delivering top-quality website and marketing services, alongside being a great revenue stream for you.
Yet, we often talk to agencies that either:
- Don’t offer hosting services at all;
- Offer hosting services at cost, or
- Miss out on the chance to make recurring revenue.
With the web hosting market expected to grow by almost 14% yearly until 2030, it’s clear there’s revenue to be made. To seize this chance, here’s how to earn money from web hosting – while also delivering the top-notch services that your customers expect.
Start by packaging and pricing your hosting well
Done right, hosting services can be a great revenue driver for digital agencies. But the way you package and price your services matters – otherwise, hosting can just become a money pit.
Here are three scenarios where digital agencies can end up losing money through their hosting services, plus our tips for getting around them.
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Scenario #1
The agency wants to price its website services competitively. So, the team doesn’t include hosting costs in their web design and development pitches.
The issue…
The agency ends up providing hosting at cost – missing out on potential revenue.
Plus, if the customer outgrows their hosting package and needs an upgrade, the agency will either need to keep taking on these costs or bill the customer for a service they’ve always had for free.
To avoid this…
Include hosting management within your website projects, with ongoing performance testing and monitoring that alerts you to when a site has outgrown its hosting package and should be upgraded.
This additional service, and fee, will ultimately benefit the customer in the long term: as their hosting needs grow, so will your capacity to respond to them!
Scenario #2
The agency finds the cheapest hosting package to save costs. These are typically unmanaged and inflexible.
The issue…
The server doesn’t grow as the customer’s business grows, which can lead to poor site performance and lots of time spent trying to tackle issues, like slow loading times or website security issues.
Ultimately, the agency ends up with an overstretched team and an unhappy customer.
To avoid this…
Work with a managed hosting company to make sure that you’re hosting customers’ sites on the best-suited server for them, and that any hosting issues are taken care of quickly.
Scenario #3
The agency tries to save money by hosting as many customers’ sites as possible within a single server.
The issue…
The server quickly becomes overloaded, resulting in poor site performance.
In this case, the agency will either need to upgrade the server at cost or invoice the customers affected – likely leading to an awkward conversation.
To avoid this…
Consider offering server instances per customer.
Consider running multiple servers to spread workloads and ensure plenty of resource is available at all times.
For high-value, business-critical sites, consider a server instance dedicated to each one. This gives each site plenty of room to grow – with the customer understanding the costs upfront.
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Typically, we’ve found that it’s the agencies that understand the value of hosting – and the need to sell their customers the most appropriate hosting package for them – that offer the smoothest site experiences. Our client Creo Design, for instance, saw a 30.89% reduction in average load times across their portfolio of high-traffic eCommerce sites, after we tailored their hosting package to their needs.
Good hosting ultimately leads to happier customers who can grow their business confidently, even if it costs them a little more to begin with.
3 ways to turn hosting into a revenue driver
Making sure you package your services appropriately is key to not losing out on hosting costs. But what about turning hosting into a whole new revenue stream – something that makes you money, sustainably?
Here are three effective strategies to this that will also benefit your customers too.
1. Add hosting into your monthly retainers
Retained hosting services are a great way to elevate your web offering while generating income.
With a retainer, clients get the hosting services they need to nurture the growth of their site. Instead of buying a website from you and being left to manage it themselves, they’ll get continuous support as part of a package deal.
2. Upsell hosting add-ons where they’re needed
Even with a retainer, you might not be able to predict and include all the hosting services that your customers will need. One way to continue scaling alongside your customers, while also earning more from your hosting services, is to create a bundle of add-ons that deliver extra value to customers. These can be upsold as and when they’re needed.
Some examples of potential add-ons include:
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- Performance and capacity testing – ideal for preparing sites for an influx in traffic, such as from a promotional campaign.
- PCI DSS compliance scanning – ideal for ecommerce businesses that need to comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.
- Managed backups and monitoring – ideal for identifying and fixing potential site issues before the customer even realises something is wrong.
For even more helpful tips: Check out our guide to knowing the right time to upsell!
3. Become a web hosting affiliate
Some hosting providers run affiliate programmes. This gives you the chance to refer clients to a hosting partner and make commission on the revenue they generate. For instance, with our new and improved Affiliate Scheme, you could earn up to 20% commission on each successful referral!
Doing this creates a direct relationship between your customer and hosting provider, so that you don’t need to manage the hosting service yourself. Not only do you earn passive income, but you also save time and resource!
Want to read more? Our blog on earning through referrals digs a little deeper into this opportunity.
Earn money through web hosting with ProStack
If you’re looking for ways to make money through web hosting, then finding a trusted hosting partner is the first place to start.
We’re proud to provide reliable, secure, and scalable hosting solutions to digital agencies across the country, with 24/7 support to keep you and your customers’ businesses running smoothly.
Explore our agency hosting solutions today.