What Is Reseller Hosting? Features, Income & Comparisons

Written by Web Hosting Expert

May 18, 2021
What Is Reseller Hosting? Features, Income & Comparisons

Looking to step into the reseller hosting business? You might not have realized, but setting up your own hosting company isn’t quite as tough as you think.

Opting for a reseller hosting package means you can avoid establishing your own server infrastructure, maintaining the network, hiring a large and expensive technical team, and providing round-the-clock support to your ever growing customer base.


You can rely entirely on your provider for all of those tasks and more. Keep reading to learn what reseller hosting is, who it’s for, and how to get the most out of it.

What is Reseller Hosting?


how reseller hosting works

Reseller hosting is a way for you to buy hosting resources in bulk and then re-sell them to your clients.

Easily set limitations on disk space, bandwidth, email usage, and other important features with a per-package or per-site approach; the decision is yours, just learn as much as possible how reseller hosting works!

Your hosting company will provide the fully-managed service which is composed of server space and hosting resources, to lend full performance to your end-user clients.

Reseller hosting isn’t just for web designers, agencies and start-up hosting companies, though. It’s also a great option for anyone who runs multiple websites themselves.

With access to WHM, you can create each site with its own separate cPanel - meaning each site or client gets its own login to manage their own hosting settings. This improves site performance and also resiliency from malware attacks.

Pros And Cons of Reseller Hosting


Just like with every purchase or career choice, you’ll need to weigh up the pros and cons before making a concrete decision on your reseller hosting plan.

Whether or not this is the right opportunity for you depends on how well you can adapt to the responsibilities that come with it, and if you’re equipped to deal with the demanding nature of managing websites for various clients. Sure, you’ll have a lot of the hard work done for you, but you’ll still need to take on a lot of commitments yourself to become a successful web hosting reseller.

Advantages of Reseller Hosting

Considering the scale of what reseller hosting offers, the plans are actually pretty cheap and affordable
Create your own environment to suit the needs of your customers and their hosting plans
Establish your own brand and identity without having to tell your customers you’re leaning on the services of a reseller hosting provider
Disadvantages of Reseller Hosting

Changing your reseller provider will have a knock on effect on your customers and every website you host for them
The success of your business and how well you cater for your clients will always hinge on the reseller provider you’re working with

How to Start a Web Hosting Business


How to Start a Web Hosting Business

Starting your web hosting business with Verpex begins by selecting the plan that suits your needs and purchasing it.

But there’s a lot you’ll need to think about aside from paying for the server space, and the sooner you begin the better. There’s no point getting the server without having some sort of strategy in place, as you’ll be wasting precious time in garnering leads and appealing to prospective clients, for example.

Verpex reseller hosting ensures you don’t have anything to worry about in the way of providing the best performance for your customers, but you’ll need to have a strategy to get them through the door.

  • Work Out Your Target Audience: Establishing the type of clientele you wish to market your services to needs to be done before anything else. This is essentially the backbone of every strategy you put together.

  • Set Your Hosting Prices: Go too expensive and you’ll scare away the custom; go too cheap and you’re delaying getting your business off the ground. Put in the research and see what your competitors are charging. If it’s possible to charge slightly less, do it.

  • Start Promoting Your Services: Once you’ve got the groundwork done, it’s time to get to work on putting your brand out there, forging both your identity and reputation.

You can learn even more about what it takes to start your own web hosting business.

Web Hosting Business Income


In order to start turning a profit on your reseller hosting plan, you’ll want to acquire as many clients as you possibly can. Naturally, the more companies that turn to you for their hosting requirements, the greater the profit will be.

If you’re taking the new career seriously, you’ll likely either already have employees or be on the look out for some trustworthy hires, so you might not make much money for a while. One way you can maximize your earning potential is to increase the services you offer, from web design to site maintenance. Plus, you’re entirely in charge of how much to bill your customers.

Learn all the ways of making a solid income through your hosting business.

How to Sell Reseller Hosting


How to Sell Reseller Hosting

You’ll need to create a well-oiled hosting machine before you start looking to sell your services to potential customers.

Though we’ll take care of the significant day-to-day management of your customers’ websites, what’s needed from you is a healthy amount of research. This research is what will help you in establishing fair-yet-profitable margins that incorporate your fixed and variable costs outside of the reseller plan itself.

Having some sort of support system lined up so you can offer your clients the direct, first-hand service when it’s possible, and gaining at least a basic understanding of how to effectively and knowledgeably provide hosting to nurture your professional reputation

You can read more about what’s needed to properly sell reseller hosting.

What Features Are Included in Reseller Hosting?


Aside from total support and management from the Verpex tech team, you’ll get an abundance of state-of-the art solutions and essential features.

Between the market-leading WHM control panel and Softaculous Auto-Installers, we’ve included features that ensure the smooth running and swift setup of your reseller hosting plan.

That means twice-daily backups, unlimited migrations, choice of locations, and much more.

Plus, all our servers are white labeled, meaning that you have the ability to re-sell hosting services as if they were your own company.

Shared Hosting vs Reseller Hosting


Shared hosting includes only one cPanel account with the resources mentioned for each tier, and typically serves people that might have just started a business or plan on making a WordPress blog, for example. Basically, anyone that doesn’t need a wealth of resources and has one or a couple of websites.

Reseller hosting is for customers that want to provide a platform for third parties to house their websites on and they use WHM login with the capability to create cPanel accounts within the limits of its own package. This is typically used by aspiring entrepreneurs who want to start their own web hosting service or for web developers and designers who wish to add additional services for their brand.

To get a closer look at how these two options compare, click here.

Reseller Hosting vs Affiliate Programs


Both of these options have advantages over the other, without a doubt. The one you choose should depend on what your long term goals are and any decision should be made with your clients in mind.

Though affiliate programs might be free to sign up to, and reseller hosting comes at a cost, the opportunities that follow are much more lucrative in the long run.

Reseller hosting definitely takes longer to get off the ground, but it’s the best option for anyone that has the resources and time to allocate to it.

Click here for an in-depth analysis on both.

Reseller Hosting With Verpex


Reseller hosting provides an opportunity unlike any other form of hosting you’ll find.

By leasing fully-managed server space, from a provider like Verpex that runs its own network, you’ll be able to create your own hosting company and begin hosting third-party websites under your own brand. This is the perfect choice for anyone that wants to break out in the industry but doesn’t have the infrastructure to be able to support the needs of prospective customers.

With Verpex, you’ll be able to host as many as 100 clients and unlimited domains off one membership, with the opportunity to scale up should you need to.

Summary


Reseller hosting provides endless opportunities to create a successful business and make your own mark on the industry.

While you’re not operating your own network of servers, reselling them from a trustworthy source like Verpex means you don’t have to focus on the complexities of maintaining the infrastructure and can apply your efforts to nurturing your new hosting business. We look after your server as well as the third parties you’re hosting on there to guarantee uptime and remove any potential disruptions.

Reseller Hosting FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

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 many sites can I host on my server?

The amount of sites you can host on your reseller server is basically limitless. The only thing holding you back is the amount of cPanel accounts you can host, and this depends entirely on the hosting provider that you choose. With Verpex, you have the choice of three plans: Start-Up, Pro, and Ultimate. As the names suggest, each plan is designed to meet the scaling requirements of reseller hosters, with options for new starters through to experienced users with large demands. Respectively, the plans have 15, 50, and 100 cPanel accounts included.

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.

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.

Do I need previous experience to use the reseller control panel?

Of course, having some prior experience with cPanel will go a long way, but our state-of-the-art system is designed to maximize ease of use while offering the full suite of configurability.

Plus, you’ve got the Verpex tech support team with you to help with any issues you or your customers are facing, so if you need any guidance on getting the most out of your reseller control panel, just let us know.

We’re on hand to help, Chat Now

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.

How much money do I need to begin reselling server space?

This really depends on the scale of your operation. For example, if you intend to hire employees to manage your website, as well as the backend of your reseller server, then the costs can quickly rack up. But as far as beginning your journey into reseller hosting, the only cost you need to think about is the monthly charge of your chosen plan. The Start-Up plan costs $14.99 per month, Pro is $24.99 per month, and the Unlimited reseller plan is available for $39.99 per month. If you are just getting started, you can start on the smallest package and then upgrade as your needs and client base grows, which is a great way to keep costs down. Also, keep an eye out on our website as we frequently run promotions that can cut your costs significantly.

How long does reseller hosting setup take?

Once you've ordered the desired reseller hosting plan, your package is created instantly and you'll receive a welcome email shortly after with your credentials to get started.

Is it possible to create separate cPanel accounts for my clients?

Yes, you can create separate cPanel accounts for your clients

How can I monitor the bandwidth usage of my accounts?

To monitor the bandwidth usage of your resold accounts, go to WHM -> View Bandwidth Usage

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.

What restrictions are there to reselling?

There are no restrictions to reselling, except for contents that are illegal or against our terms of service

Are all reseller hosting plans cloud-based?

Our servers are in the cloud. So yes, all our reseller hosting plans are cloud-based

How can I create custom plans for each individual account?

You can get the step-by-step procedure to create custom plans for an individual account in this guide

Julia Raznik
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Julia Raznik
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