An In-depth Reseller Hosting Guide

If you are a web designer who creates websites for clients, then you might want to consider offering them web hosting as an additional service. Lots of people who require websites to be developed for them will most likely have no idea about web hosting, so it makes sense that you are offering it as an add-on to the web design work that you are providing.

All websites will need to have somewhere to be hosted, so if you already have a client base, then it can be beneficial for a number of reasons for you to also offer web hosting to them.

Clients can enjoy immense benefits with the right hosting. Good hosting should give you better site performance, improve response time, optimize eCommerce processes, provide domain-associated email addresses, and improve website security. Moreover, reliable web hosting does a ton of good for your SEO. Your site’s load time gets way below the competition, reduces website downtime, and provides an exceptional UX.

1. Benefits to the developer of offering hosting

As a web developer, it is much more convenient for you to be in control of the hosting for the websites, rather than having to connect and work with a wide range of different hosts that your clients have maybe signed up to.

If you are the one who manages the hosting, then when it comes to making changes to the websites or uploading any news files or content, then it will be much easier to do so with your own hosting accounts.

2. Benefits to the client

There are also a number of benefits to the clients if the web hosting aspect is also being taken care of by the web designer. It means one less person to deal with and that everything related to the website is managed by a single person, rather than multiple people or companies. 

If the client wants to have changes made to the site, or to have a new email address set up for them, then they know that their developer is the one-stop solution to everything.

Among the many benefits, reseller web hosting is a flexible, reliable, and affordable option for businesses. You enjoy a package full of features while the expenses remain low as a business. You don’t have to rely on your team or hire a new team to manage the servers, eliminating maintenance hassles. With reseller hosting, you can concentrate on the business aspects rather than on the technical side.

3. How do you go about selling hosting?

If you are interested in the ability to offer web hosting to your own clients, then you will want to look for a web host that offers a reseller hosting option. Not all hosts will offer this, especially smaller independent hosts, so you might need to look at some of the larger hosting companies for this facility. You should check out the Fortune Lords site, which is full of web host comparisons and in depth reviews.

A reseller account will basically provide you with the ability to create individual accounts for your clients. You will most likely be using the WHM and cPanel hosting management systems, which make it extremely easy to create accounts for your clients and to manage them with ease.

You can create individual hosting accounts for clients so that they have their own cPanel login details, though in most cases, they probably wouldn’t need or know how to use it, so it might not always be necessary to provide them with cPanel access unless they’ve specifically asked for it.

4. Setting up the Reseller Accounts

Through the WHM panel, you can create individual hosting packages for your clients and can specify the amount of disc space, data transfer and other features that their accounts will have.

This ability is great as it means that you can completely customize the individual hosting accounts, as you are the one who has developed the website, and will know how much disk space will be needed.

 Therefore, you won’t be wasting your limited resources by creating hosting accounts for your clients with 10GB of disc space in each when they might only need 500MB. You can also use online tools to check traffic of websites and work out what resources each one might need.

You can also limit other functions of the account such as placing a limit on the number of add-on domains that can be added, the number of email accounts that can be created or the number of databases that can be used. Of course, these limits can always be modified or increased if required, which you can do through the WHM panel.

5. Do all clients need an individual account?

If you have a large number of web design clients, then you need to look at how many of them will require access to their own control panel. The number is probably very low, as most people won’t have a clue how to use cPanel or what to do with it. In cases such as this, it might be beneficial for you to create an account in which you will host a number of different websites.

However, if the clients' websites have been developed with a CMS (content management system) such as WordPress or Joomla, then it’s probably safer to have these in their own unique hosting account. If the website were to be hacked, then it would be the only website inside that hosting account, so the damage will be limited to that single site. 

But if you had many other sites inside the same package, then the hacker may potentially have the ability to cause damage to all of the websites. This is certainly not a scenario you will want to face, especially when it comes to restoring all of the websites again, so going with individual hosting accounts for WordPress clients is a much safer option.

6. How much will it cost me?

The cost of your reseller account will depend on the limitations of the account. For example, the basic option for reselling will probably allow you a maximum of 20 individual cPanel accounts. If you have less than 20 clients, and want to have each one in their own account, then this option is perfect. You’ll have more than enough resources to handle less than 20 clients.

If you have a large client base, then you might need the reseller option that allows a maximum of 50 or 100 cPanel accounts. The options available will depend on the web host, so it’s worth spending a little time checking through the various hosts who offer reseller hosting, and see which has the more flexible choice of accounts.

The cost for reseller hosting usually starts at around $40-$50 a month for the basic package, and then increases as the package limitations are increased. Again, spend a little time comparing the hosts and their pricing and features and deciding on which one makes more sense for your business model.

A few final words

Reseller web hosting can be a good option if you are looking for a lucrative business as a developer or a designer. Although it is a lot of work, it provides immense benefits to those willing to try it. The best tip you need would be to do extensive research on the several web hosting service providers that offer inexpensive options for high-performing and advanced web controls.

Reselling web hosting is a nice side business to have alongside your web development business, and it’s the perfect add-on for what you offer your clients. 

In most cases, your clients will want to use your hosting, rather than have to look for an alternative themselves, especially when most will not likely have any idea what they should be looking for.

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