Are You Looking to Sell Your Web Hosting Business?
If you have been thinking of selling a portion of your hosting business or have decided to exit the hosting industry to pursue other opportunities, Tucows may be able to help. Tucows provides web hosting companies a straightforward option in selling their client base or web hosting business, and our team has extensive experience in migrating customers to our platform.
Ideal Web Hosting Acquisition Candidates
We are currently open to acquiring web hosting companies that match the following criteria:
- Operating System: Linux
- Hosting Platform: cPanel
- Billing Platform: WHMCS
- Customer Locations: United States, Canada, United Kingdom
- Currency Collected: US Dollars, GB, Canadian, PayPal
Your Customers Are in Good Hands
Tucows--a leader in Internet services, has been in the hosting industry for over 20 years and takes pride in providing exceptional customer service. We have successfully completed migrations for small firms with several hundred clients to larger domain registrars and hosting companies with tens of thousands of customers. We have the experience and track record to make sure your clients are in safe hands.
When it comes to facilitating a seamless transition for your clients, we understand that it’s as much our reputation on the line as it is yours. To ensure the best experience, we have carefully crafted a migration process that protects your clients from downtime, lost emails, domain name registration expirations, and gaps in billing, in an effort to provide the smoothest transition for your clients.
We take time to carefully evaluate each customer’s account, perform backups, store email settings and inform each client every step of the way. We pride ourselves in making the migration process easy and worry-free for your customers and offer 24/7/365 live North American and Canadian customer support.
Taking the Next Step
If you are exploring selling your business, please complete the form below and we will be happy to set up a time to discuss your plans further. All information will be kept confidential.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Much Is My Hosting Customer Base Worth?
The value placed on your hosting customer base is often tied to the synergies between your company’s customer base and the customer base of the acquiring company. The more closely your customer base resembles that of the acquiring company’s customer base, the higher value the acquiring company is likely to place on your customers. Similarities in hosting pricing plans, operating system, and hosting components are likely to yield a higher value, since customers can be easily migrated while involving little or no change to their hosting plans and the acquiring company can use its existing technology to service these customers. Another consideration is the spending habits of your customer base and how they are billed for services. If your customers are likely to be adopters of value added services and tend to purchase auxiliary products, they can potentially be seen as yielding a higher lifetime value (LTV) for the acquiring company. If the same billing system is present between your company and that of the acquiring company this can make for an easy transition of the billing details between companies, thereby making it a desirable factor in determining the value of a particular customer base.
Another consideration is customer churn rate. If your company has a low churn rate and customers are pretty sticky--meaning they are utilizing other products and services and have quality websites, they are much more likely to keep their hosting service over a longer period of time, thereby increasing the LTV of that customer segment. These are some of the metrics considered when evaluating the value of a hosting customer base.
What Is the Process of Selling My Hosting Company or Hosting Customer Base Entail?
OpenSRS offers a quick and efficient process for hosting companies interested in selling their hosting company or customer base. We are able to execute payment quickly and provide a fair valuation of your business. The process can be highlighted as follows:
- The process is initiated by you filling out a short questionnaire that provides basic information about your company. We will then review the information provided to determine if there is a fit between your company and what we are seeking. If there is a fit, we will move to the next phase of the process which is determining a valuation for your company.
- During the valuation, we will appraise your business by looking at factors such as annual revenue, customer type, hosting control panel used, billing system used, and a few other factors so that we can learn more about you, your company, and its customers. The information provided during this process is considered confidential and protected under a confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement. The valuation process is typically completed within a few days.
- If there is a fit between both companies after completing the valuation process, we will work together to negotiate a valuation that works for both parties.
- The final step consists of agreeing to a sale date and schedule of events. The schedule of events will detail when the migration of customers is to take place, customer communication schedules and details of events occurring each step of the migration process. Our goal is to ensure a smooth transition for your clients every step of the way.