We actually started out with Alabanza, but like you it was just way too much money. We drop our account with them about 3 years ago and got our own servers. Now we have over 20 servers and offer reseller accounts. I would suggest first getting a reseller account with a company then when you get enough clients you may think about getting your own servers or lease them. The amount of money alabanza wants is just not competetive these days and you can do much better.

You can get the support and space needed to compete in the hosting world with a normal reseller plan.