Starting Out

[LT Smash]

I have been a faithful customer off and on to my current hosting company for almost a year now. All I have is a basic hosting package. I am kind of interested in a reseller package, mainly for my personal use, not for profit. Any tips or suggestions for a new guy starting out on resellers?

 

[LaneHost]

Hi there!

Always good to hear customers remaining faithful to their providers.

With a reseller account, it gives you more control over what you have now with a standard web hosting account. Not sure what platform you are using nor what kind of control panel, I will assume you are on Linux with cPanel as that is one of the most popular.

So for example if you were using the above, with a reseller account you would get a new control panel in addition to the one use you use currently, cPanel...called WHM or Web Host Manager. This allows you to manage, create and delete accounts easily.

Each web hosting account would have it's own control panel...

<<MOD NOTE: Edited for self-promotion. Rules.

Was there something specific you were not sure about?

 

[LT Smash]

That seems pretty easy enough, I never really had it explained like that. I am considering attempting to buy and sell websites, and using a reseller account seems easy enough for me. Since I have never used a reseller, is there a limit to how many accounts you can make? And could I use my main account (with WHM) as a website also?

 

[davet]

That seems pretty easy enough, I never really had it explained like that. I am considering attempting to buy and sell websites, and using a reseller account seems easy enough for me. Since I have never used a reseller, is there a limit to how many accounts you can make? And could I use my main account (with WHM) as a website also?

There's always going to be a limit on the amount of sites you can host. The host might not limit you but there's always going to be a limit to the amount of sites hardware can handle. Even if the hosting company allows "Unlimited Sites" you have to take into account server resources like CPU and Memory usage. If you start hosting unlimited sites on a basic plan it's just a matter of time before their admins either disable your account or start charging you more money for excessive resource usage.

Hosting 25 sites on a basic reseller account is going to cause a lot less load than hosting 2500 sites. Typically the more sites you host, the higher package you're going to need to purchased due the CPU and memory usage more sites would require.

If you ask some of the sales people at some of the larger hosts, they'll flat out lie to you and tell you it's unlimited. About a month ago I had a HostGator Sales person tell me I could host 5,000+ sites on the basic reseller account which isn't even possible.... well possible but highly unlikely a server is going to be able to handle 5,000 sites on it. Hosting 5,000 sites would require about 12 servers and with them only charging $24.95/month for their basic basic package they'd lose about -$2500 per month on just the 1 reseller account. Hosting companies will tell you just about anything to get you to sign up and then restrict your account once you're overloading their server.

The rule of thumb we tell our resellers is about a $1 per site. If your plan is $25/month then you can host about 25 sites. $100/month you can host about 100 sites. These are not set limitations but they are limitations the reseller should keep in mind if they want to protect the performance of the server and their customers' sites.

Remember it's unlimited sites, but it's not unlimited CPU and memory usage. The more sites you host the more CPU and memory they will be using.... the higher the package you will need to upgrade to.

Also yes you can use your main account on your WHM account.

 

[romes]

Davet explained it very well. Reseller accounts just give you more flexability. Also, it is better in my opinion to find a host that limits your accounts. For example: 10GB space, 25GB bandwidth, and only 15 accounts ur able to make. this makes it more reliable, and the price you pay, is what you pay. Dont have to worry about paying more, unless you want more accounts. In my opinion, that is the way to go about it.

 

[LT Smash]

Looking back, it really does seem like I have been conned into a few hosts with their talk, luckily, I never got into using that many sites to overload the server, which is good I wasn't charged more, but bad I didn't experience it first hand. davet, the information you provided is really worthwhile. I will definitely remember the rule of thumb.

 

[thecubehost]

A reseller is mainly for designers/developers who want to host sites for clients or for people starting up a web hosting business.

If your interested in that, go for it.

 

[iiDesign]

If your running out of space/bandwidth and need to upgrade, then yah that is something to look into. But mostly if you would like to host more domains (clients or friends) a reseller account would be the best way to go. Every domain you add gets it's own control panel. It's a good way to move up.

 

[Digitallinx]

Also with a reseller account you can always sell some space to cover your some of your expenses so it's a smart move.

 

[Blue]

It's only a smart move if you are prepared to spend the time and money supporting the clients you sell this space to.

 

[pM-scott]

If you're not planning on reselling unused space, than the real only reason to get a reseller account is for separate control panel instances for each domain. And if that's all you're going to be doing, there isn't much of a learning curve from standard shared hosting to reseller. It gets more complicated if you plan on selling to the public where you're going to have to come up with packages and monitor bandwidth and disk usage.

 

[TheWebMistress]

I got my first reseller account out of a desire to build websites, & my reseller business grew from there Even now if I have a business idea or am bored of an evening I will throw together a small site & can host it immediately, reseller gives you more freedom if web design is a route you want to take.

 

[FibaHost]

I remember when i got myself a reseller.. and using WHM was a new experience.. once you get the hang of it.. i was thinking of more and more sites i could add to my reseller account and thats how my list of sites grew.. i think its a very useful when you want to host more than one site under one roof.

Good luck

 

[Alberto]

Main thing for me would be your level of knowledge when it comes to server management. If you have limited knowledge I would really recommend paying a little premium price for reliable support. If you are a type that likes learning and increasing your tool bag of skills then this will surely be a great adventure. This is a great business.

 

[cyberworldhost]

I have been a faithful customer off and on to my current hosting company for almost a year now. All I have is a basic hosting package. I am kind of interested in a reseller package, mainly for my personal use, not for profit. Any tips or suggestions for a new guy starting out on resellers?

1. Always read the TOS .
2. Test there support system and see if you like it.
3. check out the shared offer sections in WHT
4. search on WHT for reviews of the web host

 

[engineerroy2008]

In wht not all hosts are having good reviews, user intentionally write against some hosts even for small issues

 

[DevineHost]

Hi

All i suggest when looking for a reseller account is dont go for ones that offer "unlimited" , it doesnt exist, there has to be an end to everything.

though you can get a reseller account for $11 or less for some reasonable space and bandwidth, just do some research before you buy.

 

[rathost]

I don't know why would you need re-seller package for yourself, just use add-on domains instead.

Only go with reseller if you;

- Want dedicated IP's
- Want private nameservers
- Want to add account for friend or something

Otherwise shared hosting with multiple add-on domains should be enough.

 

[suge_liang]

I have been a faithful customer off and on to my current hosting company for almost a year now. All I have is a basic hosting package. I am kind of interested in a reseller package, mainly for my personal use, not for profit. Any tips or suggestions for a new guy starting out on resellers?

hi why don't use it for profit? since reseller package is often expensive and yet made for resell (profit orientation) but i think it's okay anyway.
If you would like to start using reseller, my suggestion is find a cheap yet big enough reseller hosting. for your reference you might want to check out hosting package i am using. its from <<MOD NOTE: Affiliate links not allowed.>> quite cheap but huge enough.

it is 500GB of hdd and 5 TB of bw for only US$6.95/mo

 

[romes]

500GB of Space and 5TB of bandwidth for $6.95 /month is called overselling. Suge_liang will never see the resources given to him at that amount. Once he reaches a certain amount, his host will either make him upgrade to a plan thats even worse or get rid of him.

If you require a cheap reseller, just look in the offers section and choose a host who DOESN'T oversell. Overselling is bad, and makes it hard for reliable hosts like many of us here stand out. Reason why so many people have such bad luck with hosts.

Also, if you do not like a package a host has, but you wish to use them just ask for a custom package. Almost all hosts will do this for you.