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I Have Paid Almost Nothing for Website Hosting in Over 15 Years. This is How I Did It.
I started paying for website hosting in the early 2000s. I assumed this was the only way to get a custom website without a drag-and-drop builder with restricted templates.
I was under the impression that this was how it had to work. So, when I started a web development company, I followed the same model. I charged small businesses $20 per month to have their custom website.
I would install WordPress or Joomla on a PHP web server. I would buy a reseller plan from an established web hosting company. The company would give me a discounted price, and I would sell the plan to my customers at the full retail price.
I would also charge an upfront $300 price to create the website. After delivery, they would pay a $40 hourly rate to update the site in 0.1 increments. They could sign up for a monthly support plan that included two hours of updates.
I later realized I was overcharging my customers when I learned about a new technology.
Most small businesses would update their website once every one or two years. They were paying me for a support plan that they never used.
I started my business not to profit from my customers but to help them market themselves online.