Are you someone looking for an easy way to step into web hosting? Do you want to provide the right solutions to the web hosting needs of your clients along with other web services you are providing?
Reseller hosting is the best answer to all these questions!
Venturing into reseller hosting is also one of the easiest ways to earn extra bucks if you have a proper plan and the right web hosting partner. You can limit disk space, bandwidth, email usage, and other important features using a per-package or per-site approach; the choice is yours, just learn everything you can about reseller hosting!
Read on to find out more about reseller hosting.
What is Reseller Hosting?
Reseller hosting allows individuals, agencies, and companies to offer hosting services to their clients without owning a physical server. You will be able to provide your clients with a great user experience with reliance on the existing infrastructure of an established hosting provider.
To give a better understanding, let’s say you buy hosting packages in bulk from a hosting provider and then sell them to your clients. The hosting provider will help you deal with all the software, hardware, and server infrastructure whereas you will have to take care of customer support, billing, and allocation of server space to the clients.
Reseller hosting will be a great option for you if you provide web-based services like web design, SEO, or web development. You can become a one-stop solution for all website needs of your client by including hosting services.
Creating your hosting brand will help you make custom plans suitable for your clients by white-labeling them. We will cover white labeling later in this blog.
How Reseller Hosting Works?
You must be curious about how reseller hosting works. Let’s discuss that in detail!
The reseller hosting model involves purchasing a wholesale subscription from the host. In this plan, specific allocations will be made for storage space, bandwidth, and the number of websites that can be hosted.
The company you partner with will provide all the hosting infrastructure you need. It’s then up to you to customize and market packages to your clients. Your responsibilities will include customer service, setting prices, billing, and technical support. You should be able to handle it and cater to the specific needs of your clients.
In other words, your clients will receive the same product as if they had purchased it directly from the host. Additionally, you will brand them and provide them with personalized service. As a result, your setup may be more attractive to customers who already trust you.
Let’s also discuss how it works at an organizational level:
- You sign up for a reseller hosting service with your hosting provider
- Get access to a dashboard to manage your client’s web hosting accounts.
- Customize hosting plans for your customers using various management software.
- Choose whether you want to sell the services in your own brand name or not.
Features to Look for in a Reseller Hosting Provider
Nowadays, a huge number of web hosting providers offer reseller packages. Certain features will help you make your reselling business more successful.
Evaluate each provider carefully for the best features and then finalize the right web hosting provider for your business. Let’s have a look at some of these features:
White Labeled Solutions
White labeling or white-label solutions will allow the reseller to be branded as an independent company. The parent company won’t be visible to the clients and it will help you form your brand. While this is a more expensive type of reselling, it comes with more flexibility for the reseller. It enables you to customize the service you provide and caters to the exact needs of your clients.
Scalable Server Resources
Scalability is one of the most sought-after features of any web hosting service provider. Scalable server resources will help you easily accommodate when the number of customers increases.
Otherwise, you will have to look for another service provider. And this change will be costly, time-consuming, and complex. Thus, choosing a reseller hosting company that offers scalable server resources from the beginning is crucial.
Easy-to-Use Control Panel
You should consider choosing a provider that offers a variety of control panel options. Without a control panel, you won’t be able to manage your reseller services easily. cPanel and Plesk are the most popular choice of control panels.
These reseller control panels offer many tools, such as intuitive interfaces, reseller-specific features, support for multiple domains, and 24/7 customer support.
Automated Backups
Automatically backing up your reseller account, this feature will ensure data is always backed up and safe so that you can restore it if something goes wrong.
This will save you time, avoid unnecessary troubles, and give you peace of mind. Above all this, your customers will be happy with your web hosting service.
24/7 Tech Support
24/7 Tech support is often a necessity to solve any web hosting issues you or your clients face. Thus, it is crucial to choose a web hosting company that offers proper support and assistance whenever it is needed. Also, ensure they can efficiently address customer issues.
Money-Back Guarantee
The hosting company you choose must offer a range of reseller plans so that you can choose one that meets your needs and budget. If you’re unsatisfied with the service, it’s also wise to choose a provider that offers a money-back guarantee. By using this guarantee, you can feel at ease and evaluate what the provider offers.
WHMCS
WHMCS is the Web Host Manager Complete Solution, which provides all the tools you need to start a web hosting business. This platform allows you to do client billing easily.
Steps to Start a Reseller Hosting Business
If you have decided to start reseller hosting, then we have some basic steps that will guide you through the process. Have a look!
Step 1: Make a Business Plan
A well-thought-out business plan is a must for the success of any business. Web hosting is no different!
Create a plan with your goals, budget, and milestones. Identify your target audience, the customized web hosting packages you will be offering, and the price you are going to set for the services you will be offering to your customers.
Step 2: Choose Your Reseller Host
When you are planning to start your reseller hosting business, the most important thing is to make sure you choose the right web host to start with. Make sure they will provide all the features required for a reseller hosting provider which are mentioned earlier. The company should be a trusted one and should have experience in the business. You do not want to suffer the consequences of the lack of efficiency of your web host.
To evaluate the web host, you can ask them certain questions:
- Do they offer white labeling solutions?
- How capable is their tech support in times of crisis?
- Do they offer automated backups?
- How easily you will be able to scale up with them?
Step 3: Customize Your Hosting Packages
After purchasing your reseller hosting plan from the right web hosting provider, the next step is to customize it for your customers. For this, you need to understand the needs and requirements of your customer’s websites.
You can do this via the specialized dashboard provided by your web hosting company. Make sure you consider your customers’ opinions before setting up other services. Also, ensure that the price range is affordable for all your customers.
Step 4: Label Your Hosting
Choosing between white labeling and private labeling is the next big task in front of you. If you want to build your brand and be more flexible, then white labeling is the best option for you. If you want the hosting to be less expensive, then private labeling will work well for you.
Step 5: Market Your Plans
The last task is to market your plans well enough that they sell!
If you are focusing on your existing client base then you can directly reach out to them about your new venture and the services you will be offering.
If you have already built trust and loyalty in them, then they are sure to support you in new business. It will also benefit them by providing a one-stop solution to all their website needs and requirements.
But, if you are venturing into web hosting without an existing client base, then you will need extensive marketing plans to make you a success. Advertising, email marketing, offering discounts, optimizing your website for search engines, and social media marketing are some of the methods you can use to market your plans.
The Don’t’s in Reseller Hosting
1. Subpar Customer Support
Besides giving exceptional services to your clients, make sure you give them excellent customer service too. To reach out to every grievance your customers have, you should maintain a proper and efficient team to handle it. If somehow, you are not able to afford to have a team you can again sign a deal with companies offering to do so for you. Plan according to your convenience and resources.
2. Overselling Resources
Overselling is a big no in reseller hosting. Packing servers to the brim with more accounts than they can optimally handle should never be done. Overselling compromises server performance, leading to slow websites, downtime, and irate customers. Building a trustworthy reputation in the hosting industry is necessary. So, staying clear of overselling is important to fostering long-term success and client satisfaction.
Is Reseller Hosting Profitable?
The short answer is yes!
You can earn money with a reseller plan. You can make a profit with low investment and without any extra infrastructure. But, if you can’t attract enough clients, then it will be a problem. So, having a proper marketing plan before stepping into web hosting will be a great idea.
Reseller hosting is highly profitable for already established web services. Since they have built a loyal customer base over the years, it will be effortless to sell the hosting services to these customers.
So, if you are already offering website-related services like web development or web design, then adding web hosting to the range of services you offer will boost your profit 10 fold.
Furthermore, if you are planning to launch as a full-fledged web hosting company, then starting with a reseller hosting package will help you understand the nuances of this new business idea.
