Are you looking for a new hustle in the new year, but aren’t sure where to begin?
Reseller hosting could be the key to your next big business venture.
Reseller hosting is an attractive solution for anyone who wants to venture into the web hosting industry with minimal upfront investment costs and maximum scalability options.
My years of experience in web design brought me into the web hosting world, and reseller hosting has become a specialty of mine.
Before we start, I want to make a quick note:
To prepare yourself to learn about reseller hosting, I’d recommend acquainting yourself with web hosting in general by checking out this article.
Without further ado, here’s an introduction to reseller hosting and how you can make it work for you!
What is Reseller Hosting?
Reseller hosting is a web-hosting-related business model that allows individuals or businesses to perform web hosting services without administering and operating a web hosting infrastructure.
A fair amount of large web hosting providers offer reseller hosting services.
This means that they allow portions of their web hosting services to be purchased, then sold, by an individual or third-party organization — i.e., the “resellers” — to other individuals or organizations in need of hosting services.
Essentially, web hosting companies that manage their infrastructure lease out web hosting space (bandwidth and hard drive space) to be white-labeled and resold by another individual under their brand name.
This allows entrepreneurs to start their businesses and offer specialized offerings for consumers without having to manage web hosting servers themselves.
It’s also a great option for web designers who want to offer additional services.
So, how can you get your own hosting business using reseller hosting?
How to Get Started Reselling Hosting?
The process of getting into reseller hosting is fairly simple, especially if coupled with a little research.
Here are the fundamentals.
Step 1: Find a Reseller Hosting Company
First, you need to locate a hosting provider with reseller hosting plans.
I’ll talk about my favorites a little bit later in this article.
I’ll also talk about what you should look for in a hosting company, since choosing a hosting service can be pretty daunting.
But for now, let’s say that reseller packages are the number one thing to look for.
Tip: Checkout this article for the best reseller hosting companies:
Step 2: Purchase the Reseller Package
Pretty self-explanatory, no?
Choose the reseller package that best fits your business needs.
Most hosting providers offer multiple reseller plans at different scales. You can choose one depending on how many client sites you plan to manage.
Step 3: Create Your Own Hosting Packages
This step is an essential part of building your go-to-market strategy.
What are you offering as a web host?
How much storage and bandwidth come in your hosting packages?
Do you offer domain names?
Will you throw in site design and maintenance for an extra $10/mo?
Think carefully about what you offer and the value of those services.
Step 4: Pick Your Pricing
A surefire way to achieve solid pricing for your hosting services is by comparing them to other web hosting providers.
Check how much the top providers offer for their plans, and consider what they do and don’t offer.
From there, you can decide whether to charge more (if you offer additional features, like daily site maintenance) or if you should charge less (for example, you don’t offer custom domain names).
Step 5: Start Selling
You’ve got your product — now it’s time to go to market!
Build your brand using social media and by creating your own website.
Some tips on actually being discovered as a web host are available in this article.
Remember: your clients will see you as their web host, not the provider you purchased storage and bandwidth from. Make sure you advertise yourself as such!
What are the Advantages of Reseller Hosting?
Please proceed if you’re not yet convinced about why this is a worthy business model!
White Labeling
A third-party manufacturer makes white-label products, then sold without branding so that purchasers can add their branding and logo.
Through this process, you can have an item that appears as if it was produced right within your company—adding distinction in a crowded marketplace.
When done correctly, white labeling is a great way to leverage unique product offerings without having to do all of the heavy lifting yourself.
In reseller hosting, the web hosting services are sold as “white label” hosting so that you can make it seem like you’re their ultimate source.
As such, there’s no way for your clients to know that you purchased them from an upstream provider with servers and hardware.
This makes your job a lot easier because you can focus on managing your clients’ sites without having to manage hardware and keep servers running.
If a server goes down, you’ll have access to your upstream provider and they can fix it.
Creating Your Own Packages
You can get super creative with your offerings.
If you’re a web designer, offering hosting options will make you more compelling to someone trying to start their website.
This is because you become an all-in-one solution: you’ll design the layout and get their site up and running.
Or, you can take another route: only offering web hosting services but do so within a specific niche.
Then, you’ll probably attract customers who want to ensure their site is being hosted by someone who understands its purpose.
Reseller hosting allows you the perks of running a web hosting business- invaluable in this day and age- without the headaches of keeping servers fresh.
Low Barrier to Entry
Reseller hosting plans aren’t costly, nor do they require a computer science degree.
Reseller hosting isn’t a very tough field to get involved in.
You don’t have to worry about investing a ton of money in education and plans to make that money back.
You don’t even need to be a web hosting expert!
As I said, if your servers go down or something technical happens, that’s an issue for your original provider. You have to manage your clients.
Interpersonal and marketing skills are much more important than technical knowledge when reselling web hosting space.
cPanel Management
cPanel is a revolutionary part of web hosting.
It’s a Linux-based control panel that grants you access to a dashboard where all your site needs are accessible and visible.
No more running complex commands – cPanel does it for you!
It’s like having desktop applications for managing websites – effortless and user-friendly.
In the case of reselling web hosting, all of your clients’ sites are accessible from this all-in-one dashboard.
Client Website Access
Your clients can also have cPanel accounts to manage their sites if preferred.
This is because, as a reseller, you’re not necessarily required to manage every piece of your client’s sites.
If you do, this could be a managed web hosting you can charge extra for.
Just because you have hosting space for your clients doesn’t mean they can’t access and run their sites themselves.
At that point, reseller hosting becomes almost passive income for you.
Who is Reseller Hosting For?
Agencies
Marketing, site design, or other tech agencies can benefit tremendously from reseller hosting.
Any company looking to provide web hosting services without investing in expensive server hardware, software, and personnel should consider reseller hosting.
Agencies can purchase a reseller plan from a provider, then set up their pricing and branding for clients.
Freelancers
The same is true for freelancers as for agencies.
The point here is, it doesn’t matter how you plan to market and sell the web hosting space you purchase from a provider.
Agency or individual, once you purchase the space, you can market it like it’s your own product.
Hence, the beauty of white labeling!
How do You Make Money as a Reseller?
But how does reseller hosting actually work? How do web hosting providers and reseller hosts profit?
The way that web hosting providers make money off of reseller hosting is pretty simple: they charge more for reseller hosting plans than other web hosting plans.
Duh!
This makes perfect sense, considering that reseller hosting plans have enough disk space and bandwidth to host multiple websites.
, often along with perks like domain hosting, white label branding for the reseller, cPanel cap
(These are known as hosting packages.)
Hosting packages also usually come with features for the reseller, such as:
- Domain hosting
- Updated cPanel to manage client sites
- White-label branding customizations
- Features to pass on to your clients, like email, cPanel, and monitoring tools
- 24/7/365 support from the hosting provider
Then, the reseller can divide that hosting package across multiple clients, charge a few bucks or so to host their websites — possibly along with other services like site building or eCommerce functions — and make a profit.
Hosting packages are literally designed for resellers.
Reseller hosts care for the demographic of people who want to run a website but don’t want to get into the nitty-gritty of choosing a hosting provider.
Reseller hosts act as a middleman that smooths out the whole process.
The upstream provider will deal with hardware and connectivity; the reseller will deal with the back-end of their clients’ sites; the clients will deal with their branding and content.
As such, the whole process benefits all parties involved.
How to Choose a Hosting Reseller
Reputation
Reading reviews is probably the most important type of research when choosing a provider for your reseller plan.
Consider what you’d want as a client: reliable uptime, good customer support, and multiple servers for fast loading times.
You can discover whether hosting providers meet their claims by reading reviews.
Plans that Meet Your Needs
Extensively compare and contrast hosting providers’ plans to make sure they’ll fit your business needs.
Some of these needs include speed, bandwidth to accommodate traffic, scalability in case your business grows, and more.
You don’t want to overpay for a less-than-ideal price plan.
Technical Support
This is essential, especially for reseller hosting.
If your clients’ sites go down, who will they look to for answers? That’s right, you. And who will you need to look to?
Your web hosting provider.
Make sure you choose one that’s reliable and responsive — ideally available 24/7/365.
Reliable customer and technical support can be a wonderful tool in managing your clients. Don’t skimp on this!
Upgradable
Predicting how much traffic your client sites will receive is almost impossible.
Make sure you choose a web host that will allow you to upgrade your plans with ease.
That way, you’ll be able to access more bandwidth and storage space as your client sites grow.
Money-Back Guarantees
Money-back guarantees are a smart choice, especially if you’re just starting in reseller hosting.
With this option, you can experiment with reseller hosting before committing completely.
Furthermore, you can experiment with different hosting providers to decide which is right for you.
What are the Best Reseller Hosting Companies?
These companies offer plans with excellent uptime, generous storage, and affordable pricing.
Bluehost offers domain reseller and reseller hosting plans that will cater to your budget and business needs.
Their plans are sold as three-year commitments, but they come with the necessary scalability to cover anything that could happen in those three years.
A2 hosting offers an array of customizable hosting plans that are stunning and provide technical support and billing services.
They also offer client management systems to help with your part of the reseller hosting process.
SiteGround offers free site transfers, which can be an excellent asset to your hosting packages.
With this feature, you can accommodate clients with existing sites and allow them to maintain them, rather than having to redesign them for your hosting.
They also have the most affordable hosting provider prices on this list.
HostGator is famous for its top-rated reseller hosting services and informative articles.
Their site includes a Q&A section to help you decide which plan is best for your purposes.
Once you decide on a plan, you’ll encounter feature-laden convenience to make the reseller process a breeze.
Reseller Hosting Wrap Up
I hope this overview was concise enough for you to make it to the end, yet comprehensive enough to demonstrate the world of reseller hosting!
Good luck in your business journey, and I hope you have a booming year.
‘Til next time!
Reseller Hosting FAQ
If you’re an individual who needs hosting for one website, then a shared hosting plan is perfect for you.
Not only can it not be resold due to the adverse effects that may have on other server users, but there’s also only one control panel provided across all domains!
On the other hand, reseller hosting plans are ideal if you’d like to generate income by reselling web services.
A reseller hosting package is a package from a web hosting provider intended for individuals or agencies who want to resell hosting space to their clients.
These packages usually come with enough storage and bandwidth to accommodate multiple sites.
With a specialized market and dedication, reseller hosting services can be an immensely rewarding venture.
It can also easily become a form of passive income.
GoDaddy reseller hosting involves hosting plans designed for site-space resellers.
This largely depends on how many sites you’re hosting, how much you charge for each, and how you reinvest the money you make from your reseller business.
Developing a website can be similar to owning rental property; you’ll still need to provide upkeep, manage requests and keep your “tenants” content.
Resellers can reap the benefits of selling web space without having to worry about server management and other technicalities.
