Should I host on same the same server with my clients?

[SpartanX]

Hi guys

I started a web design business sometime late last year. I already have 5 clients, I'm hosting their websites with a certain web hosting company. I'm busy with a 6th client now and I decided to buy a reseller package and host all my clients my self and cash in that recurring income.

My question is, to those of you who have been doing this long, how do you do it. Do you host your main (business) website on the reseller package? Or do you host on a separate package on the same hosting company OR do you host on a totally different hosting company?

I feel, hosting on the same reseller package will save me the cost of having to pay hosting for my main website separately. Off course hosting fees are not that expensive, but still.
But, I foresee a disadvantage that if the server happens to go down, both the clients and my website will be down, meaning the clients wont be able to reach me. And IMO, that spells "unprofessional".

So how do you guys normally go about this?

 

[envo]

First off. Hosting email and hosting websites on the exact same package/server will spell disaster. Lucky for you, web hosting companies usually separate the 2. So if your website goes down, your email should still work.

If email goes down, then tough cookies. But it's usually very stable since you won't be the only client on their email servers and it takes very high priority.

Having said that, I've had my own dedicated server where I hosted my own site including all of my clients and their email. It was a pain in the ass, especially with email, so I eventually switched to a managed solution for email at Rackspace which works pretty cool, and you can even pay $1 a month to white label it and have clients contact their support directly if they have any email issues.

I'd go for the 1 reseller account though.

You can also set them up behind Cloudflare's CDN (it's free) to help with any downtime that might come around.

 

[SpartanX]

First off. Hosting email and hosting websites on the exact same package/server will spell disaster. Lucky for you, web hosting companies usually separate the 2. So if your website goes down, your email should still work.

If email goes down, then tough cookies. But it's usually very stable since you won't be the only client on their email servers and it takes very high priority.

Having said that, I've had my own dedicated server where I hosted my own site including all of my clients and their email. It was a pain in the ass, especially with email, so I eventually switched to a managed solution for email at Rackspace which works pretty cool, and you can even pay $1 a month to white label it and have clients contact their support directly if they have any email issues.

I'd go for the 1 reseller account though.

You can also set them up behind Cloudflare's CDN (it's free) to help with any downtime that might come around.

Thanks Envo, I'll take a look at Rackspace. I've heard of cloudflare before, but I did not know they also provide their service for free.

About email switching to Rackspace, did you move only yours or your clients' email service to?

 

[envo]

I moved my clients as well. I also have my DNS with them instead of my hosting company (they provide that free). 10 POP3 mailboxes costs 1 GBP each. I usually setup aliases for the non-personal mails (like support@ and contact@ or sales@) to save on POP3 accounts.

Their mail service in terms of spam etc is also comparable (if not better) than GMail. Which brings me to another option you have, using Google Mail services. Might work out cheaper for you and they get a familiar interface etc.

I also register my domains in my own registrar, in fact, I usually register any client's domains on their own name, so they always maintain full control of their own registrar and settings.

Having the DNS / Registrar separate from the hosting company means I can switch hosting at a drop of a hat without having "engineers" be involved or the hosting company holding me or my client ransom for any kind of fees they might be charging.

 

[SpartanX]

I moved my clients as well. I also have my DNS with them instead of my hosting company (they provide that free). 10 POP3 mailboxes costs 1 GBP each. I usually setup aliases for the non-personal mails (like support@ and contact@ or sales@) to save on POP3 accounts.

Their mail service in terms of spam etc is also comparable (if not better) than GMail. Which brings me to another option you have, using Google Mail services. Might work out cheaper for you and they get a familiar interface etc.

I also register my domains in my own registrar, in fact, I usually register any client's domains on their own name, so they always maintain full control of their own registrar and settings.

Having the DNS / Registrar separate from the hosting company means I can switch hosting at a drop of a hat without having "engineers" be involved or the hosting company holding me or my client ransom for any kind of fees they might be charging.

I see. Ayt, thanks mate!