Due to the high demands for website design and development (because every business needs a website), business is evolving in the web hosting industry, especially in the area of reseller hosting.

Entrepreneurs and business owners are taking advantage of this growth opportunity by opening up their web host to add or buy resellers for their entire revenue stream from their brand. This is well-received due to the low initial cost and overall convenience to the user.

Are you a web developer and want to add another source of income to your company? Or, you may be looking for ways to make money online and want to know what reseller hosting is and how to turn it into a business opportunity? Now let me start to describe it, how does it work and how you can turn it into an additional revenue stream.

What is Reseller Hosting?

Reseller hosting is the only hosting service where you make money by renting out your services to your customers. These web hosting services include server bandwidth, CPU, disk space, RAM, etc. You can have 20, 40, or any number of customers, depending on how much server space and resources you have purchased.

There is a high demand for web hosting services such as shared hosting, WordPress hosting, dedicated hosting, and virtual private server (VPS) hosting. Web hosting is the foundation for personal blogs, business websites, podcasts, video blogs, and almost every idea in a website. Resellers are entrepreneurs who want to make a lot of money from web hosting, and web designers and developers are looking to make a few bucks by expanding their customer base.

The vendor sets the pricing model for the product, not the web host that provides the servers and software. In many cases, resellers use custom control panels to mark their packages. This builds the confidence of people who already know the brand name. Who wouldn’t want to settle down with your business if you’ve done well in the past? Branding is important if you are looking to partner with a retailer.

How Does Reseller Hosting Work?

Reseller hosting is a variation of shared, VPS or dedicated hosting plans, where the customer has an administrator account to create a new personal hosting account. It actually resells the web hosting to a third party.

Reseller accounts have a dedicated server management system, so administrators can allocate specific resources to individual accounts and bill them separately.

Imagine a house in the real world for a second. All right – imagine a house or building that has been rented to someone who has rented a room to a private person. The reseller hosting is like that. People can buy their own apartment or rent their own house. But if they just do not want to deal with rent or property management and want to do with their friends, then it is better to do.

This analogy makes reseller hosting sound informal and unprofessional. No, this is actually a very common service for freelancers and agencies whose clients don’t even want to hear the term FTP or DNS.

Resellers are responsible for interactions with their customers, but not for hardware, software, or connection issues. The data centre operator of the web host is responsible for such troubleshooting. However, resellers may be in a tricky position to liaise between the hosting provider and the customer for other types of technical support (such as billing and payment issues). In other words, you need to show patience and understanding when dealing with angry customers.

Ideally, you should be able to provide basic support. For problems that you can’t solve, you may need to contact the web host owner to find a solution. Therefore, the level and quality of support provided by the services you rent to your server can be very important.

What To Look for in Reseller Hosting

Some homeowners sign a contract with a reseller and charge a fee to each customer. Therefore, the landlord charges a fee each time a reseller adds another customer. Or you can choose between different packages. There are different functions for hosting resellers depending on the hosting company. However, there are some common features that are often included in the package. So, you should really look for:

  1. Server Resources (memory, bandwidth, processors, etc.)
  2. Server Management Support (how much they’ll help with setup)
  3. Server, Website & Billing Software (WHMCS, domain resells, WHM, cPanel, etc.)
  4. Data Center Location & Security Setup
  5. Plan Bonuses (i.e., automated backups, white labelling, etc.)
  6. Premium support (usually 24/7) is offered by the hosting provider

How Can I Become An Entrepreneur And Make Money With Reseller Hosting?

The reseller plan is designed for you to earn money and is usually the cheapest and easiest way to start a hosting business. Using a single control panel, this option allows you to set up, manage, and operate the back end of websites, email, and domain management for your business and your customers.

Most clients may not have the expertise or experience in this area and will rely entirely on you for customization and flexibility in their work. Allowing you that means the reseller to charge a bit more for this hands-on type of service.

Consider everything, since the website provider also manages the server, your centre is the value and control of your hosting customers. Here is an easy way to get started as soon as you get money from your web hosting business.

So, to start your web hosting business just follow the steps given below:

(a) Identify Your Business Goals

Setting your own business goals is the most important step when it comes to starting a reseller business. Your business goals are important to your location and your target audience.

Some things that can be considered for your business goals include sales target, increasing customer base and website traffic.

(b) Figure Out Your Target Audience

Once you have discovered the niche of your business, it is time to find your target audience. Find what you want to serve – web designers, developers, bloggers, online entrepreneurs etc. Once the target audience is determined, you can choose the appropriate reseller hosting plan to cater to them.

After you figure this out, define your business goals, that is, how you plan to grow your business and customer base. Based on this, you can choose a reseller hosting package from the parent hosting company.

(c) Choose a Parent Hosting Company

The right web host can elevate your business to a higher level. One thing to keep in mind when choosing your web hosting company is that their functional products should match your business goals and the returns you want to provide your customers.

Customer support, order management, appropriate pricing, the ability to install software applications, scalable plans, and fast website loading speeds are some of the basic features that ensure that web hosting companies provide.

Do thorough research before deciding on a specific host by reading reviews on search engines, checking their social media accounts, contacting their sales/support team, and comparing their plans and pricing models with other hosting providers.

(d) Fix a Budget

Having a large budget does not guarantee successful business results. Instead, the right investment and revenue model is more successful.

Your hosting plan should suit your budget. Budget overshoot can cause concern in other areas, which may require some money.

(e)   Set Your Price

Once you’ve decided on a host plan and budget, it’s time to set a sale price. The value of selling your product/service is as important as the value of your product. If your product/service is valued at a higher level than your competition or if you set them at an unprecedented low price, you are in a difficult situation. Your money should fall into these two extremes, that way you will not lose your customers and make you a bad service provider.

A good way to get started is to look at the prices your competitors offer and set your selling price. In addition, once your business has grown and been established, you can increase your value as well as your valuable contributions.

(f) Build a Marketing Plan

Promoting your business is crucial and a good marketing plan can support it. Decide what you want to market about, where will you market it – online, offline, or both? How to reach your target audience – advertising campaigns, email marketing, affiliate marketing, blogging, creating a YouTube channel, etc.

A good marketing strategy can help you reach your potential customers and grow your business.

Advantages of Reseller Hosting

Reseller hosting isn’t for everyone. However, this style of hosting is very beneficial for reseller business owners and his/her customers. These are some of the biggest benefits that reseller hosting can offer.

(a) Cheap In Cost

Reseller hosting plans are reasonably priced. This is why they are a great choice for those who want to start an online hosting business. Moreover, it makes it easy because you do not need to buy the technology, infrastructure and tools you usually need to become a web hosting provider.

(b) Easy to Manage Reseller Hosting Accounts

When you register as a reseller host, you have access to the admin console in cPanel or another admin package. This would be the amount of disk space you allocated and the bandwidth per month. This panel will have the tools you need to create new accounts, configure disk space, email addresses, domains, and online hosting features.

You can also create your own hosting plan to resell customers, give users administrative rights, manage traffic, all areas of online advertising and every aspect of web hosting. Constantly use their hardware and software.

If you have ever fixed your own shared host for a website, the reseller ​​is very similar. The key difference is that instead of just creating your own domain, website and email, you create a structure where your customers do everything.

The biggest advantage of reseller hosting is that your customers will have their own cPanel or other dashboards where they can manage their personal accounts. This saves you a lot of control and means that business for a reseller becomes more like a residual income plan than a full-time job.

(c) You May Create Your Own Reseller Hosting Packages

Depending on your overall client profile, you can configure Flexible Hosting, WordPress Hosting, SSD Hosting or any type of package you think best suits their needs. Then you can charge whatever that the market can afford and earn.

(d) Focus on the Business

When choosing reseller hosting, you can focus on the business side rather than the technical aspects of running an online hosting business. This is because all the issues related to upgrades, server maintenance, security connections, etc. are the responsibility of the web host company you rent or purchase from.

(e) Additional Features

Compared to basic hosting plans, there are many features in reseller hosting. The Website Control Panel also becomes more powerful, allowing you to manage your website more efficiently. In addition, many companies offer an unlimited number of SSL certificates as well as features such as cPanel.

(f) Build Your Brand

Although you are selling resources of other online hosting providers, host resellers let you build your own identity and brand. In particular, this means that customers will not know that you are renting from another online host.

(g) Additional Income Opportunities

By selling additional add-ons such as SSL certificates, dedicated hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated IP, domain name registration and so on, you can get additional profits from the reseller hosting business.

Disadvantages of Reseller Hosting

From the above discussion, we can say reseller hosting is the best plan for starting a hosting business without its own server. Still, it has some disadvantages. So, let’s talk about the disadvantages of reseller hosting.

(a) You’re Dependent on the Parent Web Hosting Company

The quality of the parent web host determines the success of your business. This means that if their servers fail regularly or have a lot of technical problems, it will affect your business.

(b) You’ll Need to Dedicate Time to Customer Service

If you offer web hosting, even though you sell reseller hosting, you are still responsible for answering users’ questions. If you do not have time to answer these questions correctly, it can ruin your business.

(c) High Level of Difficulty

If you are not an expert in website management, you will have difficulty finding features and hosting controls for your vendor.

(d) Changing Providers Will Affect Your Clients

If you decide to switch web hosts, you will need to change all of your client data. This can be extremely tricky, so it is recommended that you have a dedicated server or virtual private server (VPS). Having a dedicated server or VPS will make switching providers easier, but it also makes things more expensive.

(e) Limited Access to the Server

In most cases, you will need to contact your web host as the reseller offers limited access to the host server.

Will My Clients Know It’s Me Or My Hosting Company?

They will believe it is you! You see, you can run your own hosting business under your banner and brand, and your customers don’t know who your actual hosting service provider is. This gives you complete control to write your business in your name to promote your business!

If My Business Grows, Can I Upgrade At Any Time?

Yes, you can update your reseller hosting account at any time to grow according to your business needs.

How To Choose The Best Reseller Hosting?

All major hosting service providers offer reseller hosting plans, and while everything looks good on the surface, there may be many potential shortcomings when you start to research in-depth. The first suggestion for you is to read every reseller plan you are considering! Double-check all available documentations and ask about existing restrictions. Although you may hear the word “unlimited”, nothing is truly unlimited in the world of web hosting.

Most providers emphasize two things: disk space and monthly fees. Disk space is usually 10 GB to 100 GB. This is important because it determines how many websites you can have in your account. The number of pages you can organize is usually labelled “unlimited”, but you are limited by the amount of disk space available.

Prices are usually on a monthly basis and usually range from $ 10.00 to $ 50.00. When estimating monthly costs, it is important to consider the length of the contract. For example, an ad might say “$ 9.99” for a 50% discount, but you may need to sign up to qualify for the offer for 3 years.

Here are some other factors to keep in mind when looking for the best reseller reception provider:

(a) Software Platform: It is important to look at the server software architecture and whether you will be able to run your program. If you need to run ASP scripts, you need to get a Windows server. The most popular LAMP stack options are Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP.

(b) Customer Support: Another important aspect that people often miss. This begs the question – what is the first line of help for your end customers? Who will provide them with support services? Most reseller reception providers offer support for their real resellers, in case they need to help their customers.

(c) Online Storefront: You can’t sell without a real store, right? The reseller hosting program for which you are registering should provide an online store that you can easily add to your web host. This should allow your potential customers to order hosting accounts on your site and open them on the server of the hosting provider that you are actually reselling.

(d) Website Migration: Free website migration helps to attract new customers, so this is good if your parent host offers. See what they do and what the current conditions are.

(e) Email: Ask if you have an integrated email service with a hosting account that you open for your end customers, or if you have to pay extra for it.

(f) Backups: Check if your client account receives daily backup copies with its plan or requires additional payment.