Getting set up to sell web hosting services is not difficult. The financial threshold is fairly low. For the equivalent of a few hundred US dollars you can be up and running. To get started you will need the following five things:

1. Web space. Specifically a large chunk web space that you can dice into smaller chunks of web space, which you can sell/rent out. Think of it as owning a building, which you can split up into units that you rent out individually. JAQQLE provides this service in the form of reseller account, available on our European and Japanese websites.
2. Domain reseller account. You want to be able to offer your clients domain names to go with their hosting accounts. A hosting account without a domain name is like a house without a telephone: communicating with the outside world is very difficult. This means you will want to sign up for a reseller account with a large domain registrar. We use Enom, because they allow our billing software to access their service, which is a big help in automating stuff. Enom does not offer resellers account directly, so you will need to sign up through another reseller. JAQQLE offers this service on our European and Japanese sites.
3. Automation software. In the previous point I mentioned automation. Doing everything by hand is possible, but if you have more than a few customers it will take up a lot of time to keep track of who ordered what, whether they paid, payment processing, etc. Fortunately there is a host of automated services available. We use AWBS, which takes care of our billing, domain registration, hosting account creation and much more for us. It basically runs our whole website. This will be your biggest upfront investment, but the $169 it will set you back will repay itself quickly. There are other options available, all with their own price. WHMCS and WHM AutoPilot are some examples of other options out there. We recommend you do some research to see which piece of software fits your needs best.
4. Some coding knowledge. While most of the above software packages are out-of-the-box solutions, you will want to customize them to a degree. Coding knowledge will come in handy too when your customers start asking you for support. Don’t get into the web hosting business without understanding a little about the back-end of websites.
5. A promotion plan. There are a billion (guess) web hosting sites out there. One of the reasons for that being that it is an easy line of business to get into. You will need to find a way to set yourself apart from the others. This means you will need to find your little nook of the market. You can start by offering your services to people that you know. That supply will obviously be limited though, so you will need to figure out a specific niche you want to service. JAQQLE focuses on providing English language web hosting services to the foreign communities in Europe and Japan. Especially for Japan this is a niche where there is not a lot of competition yet. You will need to find your niche and tailor your service to your target market.

If you don’t want to bare the burden of taking care of your own billing and server maintenance, but just want to practice your marketing skills, there is an alternative. It’s called Resellerspanel.com. Here you can get set up for free, and you receive commission for every sale you make. You don’t have much control over the products that you can offer, but if you are looking to test your skills, it is a good place to start.