Starting as a reseller
Reselling infrastructure is a real business with real obligations. Here is what it involves, including the parts that are not on anybody's pricing page.
What we provide
- Capacity at reseller terms, with your customers invisible to us and ours to you
- API access so you can provision, reinstall, power-cycle and read traffic from your own panel
- Reverse DNS delegation, so your customers' records read as yours — see reverse DNS
- Engineers who answer when you escalate, at any hour
We deal with you, not with your customers. That boundary is firm in both directions: we will not discuss your account with them, or theirs with anyone. See who may act on your account.
What you take on
This is the part people underestimate.
- First-line support
- Your customers write to you, and they expect an answer at the weekend. Decide your hours and publish them honestly.
- Abuse handling
- Complaints about your customers arrive at you, and you must be able to act on them — quickly, and on a specific item rather than by switching everything off. See abuse notices and the AUP.
- Billing and dunning
- Chasing payment is its own job. Your invoice to us is due whether or not your customer has paid you.
- Being the controller
- For your customers' data, you are the one with the GDPR obligations. See who is responsible under the GDPR.
Margin, realistically
Your cost is not just the server. It is the server plus support hours plus unpaid invoices plus the odd machine standing idle between customers. Price with that in mind, and be wary of competing on price alone against people who have not done this arithmetic — they usually stop trading, and their customers come looking for somewhere stable.
Longer contracts with us cost less per month, which helps when you are selling annual terms yourself. See contract lengths and payment terms.
Automate early
The second machine is easy by hand; the fortieth is not. Use the API from the start for provisioning, reinstalls and traffic figures, and keep your own inventory — see naming and labelling. Nothing kills a reseller's margin faster than manual work that should have been a script.
The customers worth having
We prefer long-term business over churn, and so should you. A customer who stays three years is worth many who stay two months, and the second kind generate most of the abuse complaints. Know who you are selling to, keep records, and be willing to say no — both for your own sake and because, under the AUP, what happens on those machines is ultimately traceable to you.
Still stuck? Mail support@novogara.com — an engineer answers, at any hour. Back to the knowledge base