[mgirdley]

I see this done all the time:

Build websites for a couple dozen clients. Charge hosting fees and maintenance each month to keep sites live.

Marking up AWS hosting to $50 / mth and charging some hourly here and there at $100 / hr adds up quickly.

[mipapage]

That only lasts so long until the client figures out they are being fleeced. My wife hawks those businesses that are way overpaying for their web hosting and the like (maintenance each month to keep sites live).

[morganvachon]

Indeed, I've found the sweet spot for managing and hosting a website for a small business or individual to be around $10/month and I net maybe $5/month/client out of that after hosting fees and time invested. There's a plethora of "build it yourself" hosts out there who use economies of scale to offer simple shared hosting for under $5/month with a site builder engine that's good enough for the masses. Look at A Small Orange[1] as a great example of how to thrive while offering a good but cheap service.

It can be done, but given the small scale it's basically pocket money, not any sort of real income, unless you can build a brand and scale it up. That's the secret sauce: Marketing.

[1] http://asmallorange.com