Smartyhost signs Purpose

Web hoster Smartyhost has signed a reseller agreement with web development and IT services company Purpose, a former destra partner.

Under the agreement, Purpose – a web developer that does work for customers between $2000 and $10,000 – would offer Smartyhost’s hosting services to customers under a “white-label” arrangement.

White-label means Purpose can sell web hosting as its “own” service without the customer knowing it was provided by Smartyhost.

Anoosh Manzoori, managing director at Smartyhost, promised that resellers can earn big margins selling the service.

Smartyhost sells the service to resellers for $70 and resellers could potentially on-sell it to customers for around $495, Manzoori said.

Manzoori said the company has around 300 resellers that are selling the service under a white-label arrangement. Smartyhost was looking to build wholesale agreements, which only made up 10 percent of its total business so far, he said. The hoster has 25,000 customers worldwide.

Smartyhost would look at doing an IPO in the next 12 to 18 months. It closest competitor was Webcentral which had around 50,000 customers.

The company also recently signed enterprise management solution provider Kinetica to resell its hosting services.