Selling our web hosting division

[jim_gold]

Anyone here already running a web hosting / domain registration business, and who may be interested in buying a tiny non-core division?

We’ve got 80 long-standing business customers, 30 of which we provide web hosting for (Heart Internet and Fasthosts reseller). The rest we provide domain registration (at over 100% mark-up) and some email accounts. Annual revenue around £7k pre-vat. If you have any tech questions, please message me and I’ll pass to one of my colleagues. Suit someone already in the business, as we don’t have time to educate someone who hasn’t already got web admin experience/resource.

 

[zigojacko]

How much do you want?

 

[jim_gold]

How much do you want?

As a general rule of thumb web hosting businesses go for between 1 to 1.5 times annual revenue. If you are interested in getting more detail, please DM me with your email and I'll send you a brief datasheet.

 

[ServWise]

Long shot I know but I have been running servwise.com since 2006, if you don't find a buyer but want the clients to go to a business that offers a very hands on, customer focused approach then I would be happy to talk. All my customers are web dev clients or via word of mouth more or less. No spare cash for accusations I'm afraid. Good luck.

 

[Dillon Lawrence Ltd]

What sort of hosting is it that you provide? Basic cPanel shared hosting for low resource intensive sites or something more specialist?

 

[jim_gold]

What sort of hosting is it that you provide? Basic cPanel shared hosting for low resource intensive sites or something more specialist?

Basic shared hosting

 

[japancool]

Gross profit?

And any marketing property with it (i.e. websites etc.)?

 

[Dillon Lawrence Ltd]

Basic shared hosting

What sort of contracts (if any) are the clients bound by?

I think it might be a hard sell with the small hosting customer base you have. Particularly if the clients are just on monthly rolling plans.

My reasoning for that is you’re a very small provider who more than likely has a direct relationship with the clients. They use you as you’re the person that’s at the end of the phone and someone they trust. When an email drops in their inbox stating that the person they trusted has sold up and they are now being transferred elsewhere to an unknown company many won’t be happy about it and will start to jump ship elsewhere. Not all sure but I’d say a decent percentage will.

Basic shared cPanel hosting is basically a commodity and migrations don’t really take any time at all with many hosts offering them free. If you had a larger customer base it would be less of an issue.

 

[jim_gold]

Gross profit?

And any marketing property with it (i.e. websites etc.)?

I cannot give a gross profit figure. It's not been analysed out with associated costs distinguished. We do other stuff. Anyone already in the business will see the prices we charge for the hosting and domains and assess the value accordingly. They may choose to keep the existing reseller hosting or if that's too expensive move accounts onto their existing servers where there is no additional cost involved. Domains cost us c. £5 and we resell for over £20.
The website, brand and phone number is included.

 

[jim_gold]

What sort of contracts (if any) are the clients bound by?

I think it might be a hard sell with the small hosting customer base you have. Particularly if the clients are just on monthly rolling plans.

My reasoning for that is you’re a very small provider who more than likely has a direct relationship with the clients. They use you as you’re the person that’s at the end of the phone and someone they trust. When an email drops in their inbox stating that the person they trusted has sold up and they are now being transferred elsewhere to an unknown company many won’t be happy about it and will start to jump ship elsewhere. Not all sure but I’d say a decent percentage will.

Basic shared cPanel hosting is basically a commodity and migrations don’t really take any time at all with many hosts offering them free. If you had a larger customer base it would be less of an issue.

It will sell. We don't have much of a relationship with clients at all and do not have the time to talk to any of them over the phone. They submit a support ticket if they have an issue.

 

[HostXNow]

Long shot I know but I have been running servwise.com since 2006, if you don't find a buyer but want the clients to go to a business that offers a very hands on, customer focused approach then I would be happy to talk. All my customers are web dev clients or via word of mouth more or less. No spare cash for accusations I'm afraid. Good luck.

Same here, but I'll offer £500

 

[GURUCLOUD]

Hi @jim_gold, are you're still looking for a buyer?

 

[transcom]

Anyone here already running a web hosting / domain registration business, and who may be interested in buying a tiny non-core division?

Hi , we have been an ISP since 93, very interested in your sale, what ballpark are you expecting, we can make this a quick sale, let me know bill @ transcom.net

Best Regards
Bill

 

[makeusvisible]

I have sent you a message.

 

[TBLZ]

Complete tangent, but how are you finding Heart's support recently? We have been a Heart reseller for many years. Like you, our web hosting division is a very small part of our business (circa 6k per year). Over the years, we have seen the quality of Heart's support deteriorate, especially at the more technical end. It did pick up again recently, but it's still not as good as it should be in my opinion. Is that your experience too? If so, what other reseller accounts have you explored? We also have reseller accounts with Ecohost and Krystal. I am not impressed with either. The only reason why we stay with all three of them is because we haven't found anything better yet. We too have been considering selling off the hosting side of the business, but many of our hosting clients are also using our other services and like the fact that we are a one-stop shop for all things IT.

 

[webhostuk]

Are the clients still for sell?

 

[Solve My Problem]

CWe too have been considering selling off the hosting side of the business, but many of our hosting clients are also using our other services and like the fact that we are a one-stop shop for all things IT.

I do a lot of work with clients using https://www.assetict.com/ they have a ton of stuff that supports customers on Wordpress etc.. that isn't advertised.

All our O365 accounts have gone through them, they host a few of our API's + a handful of Wordpress and Laravel sites.

Support is always strong, UK based, family run business. Guy to ask for is James.

Darren

 

[Craig Bird]

@jim_gold I have sent you a DM regarding this thread.

 

[transcom]

Complete tangent, but how are you finding Heart's support recently? We have been a Heart reseller for many years. IT.

Hi, you could try us, we have two sites, trade and retail, plenty of reseller options within the trade, weve been going since 93

transcom.net retail
transcom.co.uk trade

Rgds
Bill