Reseller hosting is a great option for web developers who want to offer their clients turn-key solutions with the added benefit of generating recurring revenue.
Simply put, when a customer reaches out to you for work on their site they don't want to put in the extra effort of contracting someone else's reseller. Providing a streamlined service including hosting packages will delight your customers and increase your profits.
We’ve outlined the key features and benefits of reseller hosting to help you get started expanding your business opportunities.
Reseller Hosting Benefits
Reseller hosting provides the ability to resell hosting services to a client and keep the difference between your own wholesale hosting cost and the retail price you charge your clients.
Reseller Hosting is perfect for people who want to learn how to use WordPress, as well as for businesses that want a low-cost web domain. It is also ideal for businesses that need an unlimited number of websites.
Some of the services you could offer your clients with the help of reseller hosting include RAM, disk space, CPU, bandwidth, and so on.
Let’s take a look at some of the biggest advantages that reseller hosting providers:
All the technical maintenance is handled by the host, which allows you to focus on your business.
You have the ability to set your own rates and earn additional revenue.
You get to present a complete service portfolio to your clients and build your brand.
Why Should Web Developers and Web Designers Take Up Reseller Hosting?
An additional reliable source of income – Reseller hosting can make you some good money. Reseller hosting can be a secondary income as well as a primary income since many people set up sites that they own for many years.
Existing pool of clients – If you’re a web developer or web designer and you have been somewhat successful, you already have a pool of customers, as well as developed strategies for acquiring new customers.
No specific hosting knowledge is needed –In order to start a reseller hosting business, you don’t need to be an expert. The reason for this is that the hosting provider is the one taking care of the back-end. You don’t have to pay people to set anything up, and you don’t have to maintain and own servers or anything else.
It doesn’t cost a lot to start – A reseller hosting business can be started on a shoestring budget since there isn't much overhead to worry about. With careful planning and execution, a reseller hosting business can be a lucrative endeavor.
Scalability – As your business grows and develops, you will undoubtedly need to scale up both the space you occupy and the resources at your disposal. Reseller hosting plans are the perfect way to do this, as they are highly scalable and easily adjustable to meet your changing needs. You can ensure that your business is always able to meet customer demands while still remaining profitable.
How to Choose Reseller Hosting Providers
Find the perfect features for your customers
When you’re looking for a reseller hosting provider, you need to find one that offers features that suits the needs of your customers. As a web developer or web designer, you already have an intricate understanding of your clients’ websites. Reseller hosting provides you with the opportunity to offer customized hosting packages addressing the needs of your clients.
White label branding
It is important that your hosting provider has white-labeling functionality in order to create a strong brand for yourself that will be independent of your hosting provider. White-labeling is when a company or individual purchases a product or service and removes the branding to make it appear as if they themselves created it. This strategy can be applied in any business, from the most basic to the most complex. Companies can white-label services and products, digital and physical, for one reason or another.
The ability for growth
If you have a growing customer base, you will need to upgrade your hosting package. The more customers you have on your website, the more potential there is for profit. A fast enough host can make sure that visitors stay engaged with your website — increasing the average time spent and conversion rates.
While many hosting companies focus solely on speed, others also prioritize security to protect valuable data from unscrupulous hackers and pesky malware.
Powerful control panels
When picking a reseller hosting provider, you need to get a package that will have additional management tools like cPanel. One of the most popular control panels in the industry is cPanel, which makes managing a web server easy and seamless.
With its intuitive interface, you can easily manage everything from billing to backups in 30 seconds or less. With just one click, you'll get a complete overview of all essential data for your hosting account — good for keeping track on how many customers are signing up with your service and how much you're making each month.
Uptime
One of the most frustrating things that can happen to you is clicking on a site and the site not opening. This is not only a problem for the users but for Google as well, since it starts to give less value in organic search results. When choosing a reseller hosting provider, keep an eye on uptime.
Data security
You need to make sure that the reseller hosting provider is able to completely [protect]entry:blog/what-is-website-security-audit}) its customers since trusting someone to host your site is not a simple task. Whether you're a small business or have an IT team, it's your responsibility to ensure that your data is secure. Whether you store your data in the cloud or on your own servers, you need to protect it.
Reseller Hosting Plan Features and Options
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the amount of data you can transfer from and to your reseller hosting plan.
Disk Space
Disk space refers to the space that you are given to share between all of your accounts, the ones that are resold and primary.
Resold Accounts
The package that you buy determines the number of reseller accounts you can create for reselling.
Some add-on services
Certain add-on services could include domain registration, SSL certificate, a dedicated IP address, and so on.
Summary
In this article, we have given you an overview of what reseller hosting is and how you can use it to make an additional income as a web developer or web designer.
Besides extra income, you will make your business a one-stop solution for your customers. Your customers can come to you with an idea for a website that you can design and develop, and you can also host their website as well.
If you're looking to get into the hosting business, our affordable reseller hosting is a great option. You can rent out a portion of your server space to customers, and provide them with high-performing hosting services. This is a great way to build your own hosting business from the ground up. Our experts will provide the perfect mix of technology and creativity to help you succeed in today's competitive e-commerce market.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is reseller hosting?
Reseller hosting is essentially a way for you to purchase hosting resources from us in bulk and then to re-sell those resources directly to your clients. You can set limitations on disk space, bandwidth, email usage, and other features on a per-package or per-site basis. We provide a completely managed service from a technical perspective - the server space, hosting resources and support come from us and you are responsible for supporting your end-user clients. You can even brand your clients' cPanels with your own logo for a super professional image.
But reseller hosting isn’t just for web designers, agencies and start-up hosting companies - it’s also a great option if you run a lot of websites personally. Because you have access to WHM, you can create each site with its own separate cPanel. This means each site or client gets their own login to manage their own hosting settings, isolating them completely from other users on the same server or under your account. This improves site performance and resiliency from malware attacks.
We have a lot more information on what is reseller hosting on our blog.
How does Verpex help with my reseller hosting?
Our job doesn’t end once we’ve sold you the reseller space. In fact, we’re with you for the whole time you’re hosting with us, supporting both your needs and that of the customers you pick up along the way, whether you max out your cPanel account limit or not.
The Verpex team is at your disposal, acting as your essential support team 24/7. That means anything pertaining to hardware, the network, updates and configuration, security, and connectivity, is all handled by us.
Both you and your customers can focus on running your businesses while we take care of all maintenance and troubleshooting with expert technical support.
What’s included in a reseller package?
Reseller packages commonly include disk space, domain hosting, bandwidth, the latest cPanel control panel, premium support by the hosting providers, the ability to brand your own web hosting company, and so on.
Can you make money with reseller hosting?
You definitely can. There are countless success stories from entrepreneurs that have managed to take on hundreds, even thousands of clients, just be aware of the work you’ll need to put in.
Read our article to learn more about web hosting business income.
What is the key to success for reseller hosting?
The foundation of the success of your reseller hosting business will be finding a proper reseller web hosting provider that will provide you reliable and consistent support and service.
How do I promote my reseller hosting business?
Many find success with targeted Google and Facebook ads when promoting their reseller hosting website. Try and focus on a niche or local market to start off with.
Do I need to be a hosting expert?
You don’t need to be an ‘expert’, but some knowledge will definitely help.
There’s a bunch of things you can be familiar with that’ll make the process smoother, not just to make your new job easier when managing multiple sites via your cPanel, but also to do right by your customers; especially if you’re hoping that they’ll retain your services.
Put simply, without some appropriate knowledge, you won’t be able to deliver the comprehensive service you’re promising, nor will you be able to effectively run things on your end.
Sure, the company you host through will handle all essential server maintenance, day-to-day troubleshooting, security, and just about everything else, but knowledge in domain registration, email, typical administration, and even a slight understanding of HTML will go a long way in providing solid customer service to your reseller hosting clients.
How much should I charge my customers?
Well, as the old rhetorical goes: how long is a piece of string? This decision is entirely yours to make as we’re not involved in the relationships with your customers; we just resell our systems to you. Besides providing management and support, we don’t interfere any further.
If you’re unsure, you’ll no doubt benefit from doing some market research, assessing what your competition is charging, as well as what your operational costs are.
Finding the right price might not come to you instantly, but you should be able to ascertain a minimum price in order to make your new reseller hosting venture profitable.
Affiliate program vs reseller hosting: What is the difference? Which is better?
Both have advantages and disadvantages and one isn’t better than the other. Rather, each will be better in different circumstances.
Those looking to build a business should try reselling, while those wanting passive income should become affiliates.
You can learn more about the differences between reseller hosting and affiliate programs on our blog.
Can I expand my reseller plan as my business grows?
As your business grows, you need a hosting partner that offers the scalability you need to maintain uptime and your availability to new business.
The unlimited reseller plan, designed for the most comprehensive needs, comes with a maximum of 100 cPanel accounts, but should you need more than this over time, you can simply sign up for another unlimited membership to effectively double the number of accounts you can offer.
Whether or not you want this new account to be applied to the same server or an entirely different one is up to you.
How long does it take to become a reseller?
In theory, you can be up and running in just a few minutes. However, only those that have done diligent research, and have written a clear business plan will succeed.
Do you offer control panel customization for resellers?
You can customize your control panel in whichever way you want, thanks to the white-label service we provide.
Am I responsible for my clients' content/behaviour on your servers?
Yes, you are responsible for what your reseller hosting clients upload on our servers.
Do you include litespeed and lscache?
We run on Litespeed servers which allows you to run the LSCache WordPress plugin
What restrictions are there to reselling?
There are no restrictions to reselling, except for contents that are illegal or against our terms of service
Bruno Mirchevski is a web hosting services expert. He has spent years researching the niche, exploring the most diverse aspects of Shared, VPS, WordPress, Cloud Hosting, Dedicated Servers, Resellers, etc. With his extensive knowledge and experience, he can grant you meaningful insights on our blog, whether you are a beginner or a hosting pro.
View all posts by Bruno Mirchevski
