Site Automation Question
Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 8:24 pm
Do you know of any web hosting providers that have an API for setting up domains and shared hosting plans for my customers?
Let's say I build a great web app called Alpha at alpha.com. Users can pay $90 to download and install on their own server, or they can pay for a hosted solution. On the hosted solution, it's really just a domain name purchase and a shared hosting plan purchase, but with the addition that the whole thing is automated and the Alpha database and web app is copied to that space, ready for them to use. Okay, fine and all, but how to automate?
I mean, I'd like people to pay $120 setup fee and $15/month for hosting. So, they go to alpha.com, start the signup process, keep looping through a domain name finder form until they get one that's available, pay a PayPal payment of $135, and some kind of magic script creates the domain, creates the shared hosting plan, creates the MySQL database for Alpha, copies the Alpha web app files to public_html, gives me $100 to my PayPal account, and deposits the rest with the hosting provider to pay for everything else. Then, on recurring billing, the hosting provider will automatically bill $15/month for hosting exclusively separate from me. I would be out of the loop on hosting support, but would be in the loop as far as software support. The end user would also get a fully working shared hosting plan completely under their control and would own full rights to that domain name. If that means full SSH, FTP, and/or cPanel access, then so be it.
And when they want to stop using Alpha, they fill out a form on my site and it stops the recurring billing from the hosting provider and removes the shared hosting plan. (Or I can have an alternate link to just stop the hosting plan direct from the hosting provider's website.)
Let's say I build a great web app called Alpha at alpha.com. Users can pay $90 to download and install on their own server, or they can pay for a hosted solution. On the hosted solution, it's really just a domain name purchase and a shared hosting plan purchase, but with the addition that the whole thing is automated and the Alpha database and web app is copied to that space, ready for them to use. Okay, fine and all, but how to automate?
I mean, I'd like people to pay $120 setup fee and $15/month for hosting. So, they go to alpha.com, start the signup process, keep looping through a domain name finder form until they get one that's available, pay a PayPal payment of $135, and some kind of magic script creates the domain, creates the shared hosting plan, creates the MySQL database for Alpha, copies the Alpha web app files to public_html, gives me $100 to my PayPal account, and deposits the rest with the hosting provider to pay for everything else. Then, on recurring billing, the hosting provider will automatically bill $15/month for hosting exclusively separate from me. I would be out of the loop on hosting support, but would be in the loop as far as software support. The end user would also get a fully working shared hosting plan completely under their control and would own full rights to that domain name. If that means full SSH, FTP, and/or cPanel access, then so be it.
And when they want to stop using Alpha, they fill out a form on my site and it stops the recurring billing from the hosting provider and removes the shared hosting plan. (Or I can have an alternate link to just stop the hosting plan direct from the hosting provider's website.)