A web hosting provider offers reseller hosting to another entity, which then sells hosting as its own. If you resell hosting, you form your own price packages and are responsible for customer support.
Reseller hosting is a great way for companies and freelancers to get into the lucrative web hosting market. Most of these packages work on a standard wholesale basis. The reseller makes them available under his brand.
Resellers charge on a pay-as-you-go basis or a flat monthly fee.
If you’re looking for cheap reseller hosting, it’s not hard to find. Many packages start at around $10 per month, only slightly more expensive than shared hosting. Moreover, the quality is usually higher.
How does it work?
To start reselling hosting, choose and sign up with a hosting provider. Customize your hosting packages, add your logo or brand, and resell services at a markup. As long as you comply with the parent host’s conditions, you can set your own service terms and terms for clients to follow.
Then, create a new account and allocate bandwidth or disk space to your hosting packages. One big advantage of reseller hosting is that you don’t have to maintain software or hardware. Sometimes, parent hosts set the software up with specific reseller packages. Then, you just make accounts for your clients.
Pros of reseller hosting
Lack of maintenance is just one advantage. Among the many others are:
- Easy client management and billing.
- Cost-effective access to infrastructure.
- Low entry barriers.
- Extensive customization opportunities.
- White-label branding.
Reseller hosting provides tools to allocate resources and manage and bill clients. These tools alleviate the administrative tasks associated with operating a hosting company.
When you open a reseller hosting account, you usually get access to an admin panel in cPanel or WHMCS. Then, you can set a certain amount of disk space and bandwidth per month. These panels also have tools to set up client accounts, email addresses, and domains.
Affordable infrastructure access
As you don’t have to purchase and maintain software and hardware, you can enter the lucrative market at a very low cost. You don’t need to hire system admins or manage a data center, either. By buying a reseller hosting plan, you work with a team of specialists who will monitor your server for you. They will make sure you and your customers always have sufficient resources.
Low entry barriers
You might face a learning curve if you’ve never dealt with hosting. If you have some prior experience, for example, with managing shared hosting, all you need is a little help to find success. cPanel is very intuitive, and setting up your site should be a breeze, primarily if you’ve used it before. The only difference is that you’ll be setting up several accounts from your master account.
Build a brand
White labeling is a critical reseller hosting feature that lets you resell hosting services under a unique new brand. You can customize your control panels, hosting packages, and customer interfaces with your logo and design.
Customize packages
Last but not least, you’re reselling your hosting plans to clients from your administrative console. You can choose WordPress, SSD hosting, or other hosting options. You set your prices and start making a profit in the ideal case. You also control advertising, traffic, and numerous other aspects of web hosting.
Minuses
Reseller hosting works best as a source of income and doesn’t work for every customer. Essentially, you’re buying a hosting business, not a standard service. You must learn to manage billing, marketing, and other services. Reseller hosting only works if you want to resell hosting space.
