Marcia - 9:48 pm on Jan 24, 2001 (gmt 0)

Abe, I've only found one host that has that 50% reseller deal, I bet you use the same one I do. I originally went with them for the very reason of anticipating a reselling situation.

I also only offer this to clients whose sites I design, maintain and do continued search engine work with, which I started only because I knew that the optimization work needed to go on, and since the original setup is so time-comsuming that I felt I was entitled to some continued compensation.

What I did was set up a package deal - giving a good offer on "editing" the site for search engines to people who wanted to continue on a monthly basis, which I tell them in necessary. The package includes continuted tweaking and submission, routine maintenance, and I "throw in" full featured hosting to make sure I have the stats necessary to check keywords, and also, to make it convenient for them, with only one all-inclusive monthly charge and billing. I have not had one person turn this down.

A couple mail me checks, while with others, I can take credit card payments through PayPal - which allows billing for services in addition to products with the customer being able to use their cerdit card (some others don't). So I can bill monthly, quarterly or for six months, but I do have to send a request for payment each time. ProPay might work also, I haven't checked them out regarding this.

I am not wild about PayPal, but the third party services that do handle recurring payments for memberships, hosting, etc. charge an awful lot - one is 15%.

There is a third-party person I set product sites up with, who has told me I can use his service for billing for my services. It's 6 or 7%, with payment not as quick as PayPal, but I will be offering the additonal option because of the availability of shopping cart or secure detailed order form on his secure server, with him taking the payment and mailing checks out in about two weeks. Disadvantage is lack of direct deposit, like PayPal offers.

Now that I've read your question again, I will find out from him about recurring payments. He is in the same business I am, on a considerably larger and more well-established scale, and I do know that he does regular recurring billing for his own clients, billing their credit card monthly.

I've given a brief run-down of what I've found out, and I think it's a matter of how much of a percentage a person is willing to pay, as well as the decision whether the price difference is worth the automated billing vs. sending billing or payment requests manually at regular intervals.

Hope this helps.