This guide to what makes a great reseller hosting platform will save you hours of doing painstaking research, and shows you how to pick the best reseller hosting company to partner with for your agency.
If you are a digital services agency or a web developer looking to generate additional revenue by providing web hosting to clients, you could lease your own server and handle all of the technical areas yourself, or simply partner with a reseller hosting company and let them take care of all the hosting issues and headaches, leaving you free to grow your business.
But…with so many hosting companies offering reseller hosting, which one provides the best platform for your agency? What should you look for in a hosting reseller program? What traps and pitfalls should you avoid when deciding which hosting provider to partner with?
This guide will answer all of these questions. You will learn what to look for in a reseller hosting partner to ensure your long-term success, understand the pros and cons of different reseller platforms and programs … we’ll even provide a list of reseller hosting companies with links to their reseller pages.
We’ll cover the following areas:
- Pitfalls to Avoid When Choosing Reseller Hosting Companies
- The Ideal Reseller Hosting Platform
- Reseller Hosting Companies – What To Look For
- Best Hosting Reseller Programs
Let’s jump right in…
Pitfalls to Avoid When Choosing Reseller Hosting Companies
There are many different companies offering reseller hosting to choose from and you will want to partner with the provider that is best suited for your business.
Before embarking on your journey of research, let’s look at two common pitfalls to avoid when choosing a reseller hosting company.
Pitfall #1 – Beware of Affiliate Reviews
If you search Google for anything related to reseller hosting, eg:
- best reseller web hosting
- best hosting reseller program
- top reseller hosting company
- etc.,
You’ll find that all of the articles in the organic results section recommending the “best reseller web hosting companies” use affiliate links.
You aren’t necessarily going to find the best reseller hosting company for your business by searching Google, because:
- Most reseller hosting review articles won’t recommend companies that don’t offer an affiliate program, and
- The companies these articles recommend as “the best” are often the ones that pay them the highest commission.
So, when researching a reseller hosting partner, keep in mind that most of the articles listed in Google’s results are aimed primarily at lining the publishers’ pockets with affiliate commissions.
Pitfall #2 – Avoid Reseller Platforms That Won’t Integrate Fully with Your Business
Unless you have a burning desire to set up your own reseller hosting (and love tinkering with scripts, installing server applications, troubleshooting issues, fixing problems, and spending time reading technical documentation), we recommend choosing a company where the hosting and the tools you’ll need to run your hosting accounts and client sites is already set up, optimized, pre-installed, configured, fully managed, supported, and 100% ready to use.
This will allow you to focus more of your time, effort, and resources on growing your agency and scaling your business instead of dealing with technical issues and headaches.
Having someone take care of all the technical aspects of your hosting is great, but there’s still a business side to running a reseller business and there are a myriad of things to figure out, such as:
- Which hosting plans and packages you’ll create to sell,
- Which software and tools you’ll use to manage your hosting account and client sites,
- How to integrate client billing and management systems,
- How to provide clients with access and support,
- How to formulate profitable pricing strategies,
- How to handle various business legalities (e.g. refunds, site suspensions for non-payment, etc.),
- How to protect your client relationship,
- And so on.
Following these tips will help to eliminate many problems when running your reseller business:
- Choose a reseller hosting company with an integrated platform for seamless client management.
- Opt for automation to minimize manual tasks and maximize efficiency. This ensures a smooth client experience, fostering loyalty and long-term relationships.
- Prioritize a reseller platform that offers automation, integration, and simplicity to run a profitable business with minimal effort
- Avoid fragmented platforms, as these will be prone to issues.
So, how can you grow a profitable reseller business without all the hassles and headaches?
The Ideal Reseller Hosting Platform
Imagine having the ultimate dropshipping business where:
- Your supplier won’t charge you until a purchase is made.
- Your provider instantly delivers the product to your client.
- Everything happens through a fully branded and integrated platform.
- Your clients only interact with you, not the provider.
- You get paid instantly upon completing the sale.
Additionally, imagine owning an automatic vending machine for selling digital products like hosting, domain registrations, site templates, and other services, where customers can visit your site at any time (even at 3 am) and purchase from you without you being involved in the process (or even awake).
Can you really own a fully automated reseller business that runs under your own brand, integrates seamlessly with your business, delivers your clients top-notch products, allows you to focus on acquiring more clients … and makes you money while you sleep?
With the right reseller platform … Yes, you can!
Reseller Hosting Companies – What To Look For
Take a look at the chart below. We’ll use this as your blueprint for choosing the best reseller hosting company for your agency or web development business.
Let’s go over each of the above components to understand how these will benefit your business when fully integrated.
1. Pricing and Profitability
When working out whether a specific reseller program will help you turn a profit, it’s important to look at all the factors that can affect your profitability.
These include:
- Comparing the pricing structures of different hosting providers and analyzing the profit margins offered to resellers.
- Looking for providers that offer competitive pricing without compromising on the quality of their services.
- Finding out if you can set your own pricing on the hosting itself.
You don’t want a glorified affiliate program where all you’re really doing is referring clients to your hosting company and earning a sales commission. You want to be able to set your own pricing and sell the hosting as your own (and on its own).
With WPMU DEV Reseller, for example, you have complete freedom when it comes to pricing. You can purchase hosting (and domains too) at a deep discount, create your own plans, set your own pricing per product, sell hosting on its own under your brand, or bundle it with your services and sell your service packages with hosting included (your client’s hosting will be automatically set up when they purchase your service at the bundled price you have set).
Here are other areas to look at that will impact reseller hosting profitability:
- Explore potential discounts or incentives for resellers and consider the flexibility of providers when it comes to pricing strategies.
- Consider factors that can impact your profits if overlooked. Evaluate potential setbacks such as set-up fees, recurring costs, and additional license fees. Hosting management tools like cPanel, WHM/WHMCS, Plesk etc. charge license fees, often on a per user basis. Some companies also charge annual fees for accessing their reseller programs, while others have no cost to join, but you cannot set your own hosting prices and have to purchase add-ons like client billing or white labeling separately, adding to your costs.
- Consider how the reseller model of a particular provider will impact your cash flow when it comes to receiving your share of the sale. For example, with some reseller models you have to wait a month after a sale is made, whereas you get paid instantly with a platform like WPMU DEV Reseller.
- Make sure that the reseller agreement you enter into means that the partnership remains between you and your client. Otherwise, your supplier can take over the relationship (tip: research web hosting forums for discussions between resellers about owning their client accounts). WPMU DEV’s fully brandable Reseller platform means that your clients will never know that their sites are hosted with us, so the relationship with your clients remains yours.
2. Quality Hosting Products
It goes without saying that any products you resell to clients should be of the highest quality possible, so choose products from hosting providers with a solid award-winning reputation, a long-standing presence in the industry, and loads of positive customer reviews.
After creating a short-list of the top hosting providers, look for reseller hosting features in their product offerings that include the following:
- Server reliability and uptime guarantee: Ensure that the hosting provider offers a high uptime guarantee, as frequent downtime will negatively impact your clients’ websites, affect their user experience, and this will reflect poorly on you.
- Scalability: Consider whether your provider can accommodate your growth plans and handle increased demands as your reseller business expands.
- Additional features: Consider other features such as domain registrations, backup solutions, security measures, SSL certificates, and email services. These value-added features will greatly enhance the appeal of your hosting packages.
Consider also reaching out to other resellers or industry professionals for recommendations and check out user review sites like G2.com, Trustpilot, Reviews.io, Sitejabber, even review sections on social platforms like Facebook, and Google.
No doubt you’ll want to research WPMU DEV’s world-class web hosting, as this is the same award-winning suite of hosting products we offer to resellers.
To save you time researching different hosting options, check out how WPMU DEV hosting compares with other companies.
3. Reseller Hosting and Website Management
So, you have found an excellent and reliable hosting company with top-notch hosting services you can resell.
The next step is to look for web hosting administration tools that will allow you to easily create hosting packages to suit your business and manage your client sites quickly and effortlessly.
Since the website management process is largely controlled by the control panels used in your reseller platform, use the following questions to help you evaluate the reseller platform:
- Are the management tools simple, easy, and intuitive to use?
- Does the hosting control panel provide an “at-a-glance” dashboard that lets you quickly see and manage everything and access detailed reports, logs, settings, etc.?
- Is the reseller platform well-supported and regularly updated?
- How much input do resellers have on the platform’s development? Can they request new features and improvements?
- Can the client-facing features of the management tool be accessed from your website or do they need to log in from an external URL?
With the above in mind, let’s take a look at some of the more popular control panel applications available to WordPress hosting resellers for managing web hosting and client websites:
WHM/cPanel/WP Toolkit
WHM (WebHost Manager) and cPanel is a very popular choice for hosting resellers, especially among Linux-based hosting providers and server administrators.
WHM is a web-based administrative console. It allows server administrators and resellers to manage various aspects of web hosting, including user account creation, and server-related tasks including server configuration and server maintenance.
WHM provides a graphical interface for server administration and is often used in conjunction with cPanel to manage web hosting services and server resources for multiple websites in a centralized manner.
cPanel provides tools for server and website management, making it suitable for advanced users, and is known for its extensive features, robust performance, and large user community.
WP Toolkit is included with cPanel and is a WordPress management interface that allows you to install, configure, and manage WordPress sites, plugins, themes, and more.
As a reseller using this platform, you would manage your hosting account and configure your hosting packages using WHM, use cPanel to manage individual sites and features like email management, and file handling, and use WP Toolkit to perform WordPress management tasks within those sites.
While the pros of using WHM and cPanel include being very popular programs that are widely implemented, very flexible, and have extensive documentation, some of the drawbacks are that these can be hard to set up and configure, and require a lot more hands-on management.
Also, working with these separate applications can be a little overwhelming and confusing for beginners, and their interfaces tend to feel a little cluttered.
Additionally, WHM is dependent on cPanel, and cPanel requires paying license fees to use on a per-account and per-server basis, which can add to your running costs (many reseller hosting plans include the cost of cPanel licenses).
Plesk
Plesk is another popular control panel designed for managing web hosting and WordPress sites.
Unlike cPanel which runs on Linux, Plesk supports both Windows and Linux servers. However, like cPanel, Plesk also offers features like automated updates, security tools, and WordPress toolkit for efficient website management.
The Plesk interface resembles more that of WordPress, with all features listed within left-hand panel menus.
Like cPanel, the Plesk interface offers customizable modules, so you access those that you use more frequently from the interface’s home page without having to go through layers of menus.
Plesk also lets you view its interface differently depending on how you want to run your reseller business with two options: the Service Provider and the Power User view.
The Service Provider view is the recommended option for resellers who plan to provide shared hosting services to different customers.
Power User view suits web developers and web designers who create and manage websites for customers who won’t be logging into Plesk. It removes the ability to manage customer accounts, service plans, and subscriptions, and includes the Tools section, which contains various tools and utilities for managing your account.
If you are just starting out on your reseller journey, you’ll need to consider the cost of using Plesk to manage your clients accounts.
To use Plesk as a reseller, you’ll need the Web Host Edition license.
As we will see later, many reseller hosting programs run on the above applications.
Open Source Control Panels
For more technical users, using open-source hosting control panels like Webmin, CyberPanel, and others with Linux servers can provide great flexibility and customization options.
The downside of choosing these applications to manage your hosting and client sites is that you will need technical expertise to combine and configure the various systems required to run your hosting reselling business.
As stated earlier, we don’t recommend this option unless you really like tinkering with the technical stuff and want to spend time reading loads of documentation to figure out how to make everything work.
Proprietary Control Panels
Here is where we start to get closer to the ultimate dropshipping and automated vending machine model described earlier that will let you run a profitable reseller business with the least amount of technical know-how and hassle involved.
Some hosting providers offer custom control panels with unique features and integrations, tailored to their hosting plans and specific services.
The key benefits to choosing proprietary control panels to manage your hosting and client sites is that these are often designed for simplicity and user-friendliness, eliminating the need to deal with technical complexities, and allowing you to invest your time and effort into focusing on servicing customers and growing your business.
Additionally, proprietary control panels can offer cost-effective alternatives for smaller reseller businesses without the high licensing fees of general control panels.
For example, WPMU DEV’s Reseller platform eliminates all of the complexities of configuring and managing reseller hosting and websites for your clients as well as the need to pay high licensing fees by combining award-winning hosting plans with a proprietary, intuitive, and user-friendly site management control panel, The Hub, via an all-inclusive and affordable Agency membership, which covers all the licensing costs you need for your reseller business and so much more.
It’s also worth noting that web developers, agencies, and WordPress users consistently rate WPMU DEV’s The Hub as a leading WordPress hosting and site management tool, so WPMU DEV offers not only hosting products of outstanding and award-winning quality, but also the tools to manage your hosting and client sites.
For more details on everything The Hub lets you easily manage in your reseller business, see The Hub documentation.
Now that we have covered the main technical areas to look for when assessing reseller hosting platforms (i.e. quality hosting and hosting management tools), let’s look at what the best platforms should include to help you manage and grow your reseller business.
4. White Label Branding and Customization
The ability to white label services allows you to establish your own brand identity in the market.
Ideally, you want to be able to white label and customize the entire reseller platform to match your unique brand and have this all be fully integrated with your business.
Unfortunately, with many reseller platform setups this isn’t possible.
For example, if you are managing your hosting account using Plesk and want to make the control dashboards available to your clients, you can brand the Plesk dashboard with your own logo and make it clickable to point to your company’s website. You can even change the page’s title so your customers see your company name or other relevant text in their browsers’ title bars when they work in the Customer Panel.
cPanel offers similar branding options, with additional links to your support and documentation pages, and the option to add your logo to webmail and create a favicon.
However, your clients will still need to log into an external URL in order to access these dashboards.
If you want your clients to experience the full benefit of your brand, your reseller hosting platform should include additional brandable components, such as an integrated white labeled client portal, accessible via your own website.
This is included in WPMU DEV’s Reseller and is the next component of your reseller platform that we’ll explore.
5. Client Portal and Automation
Unless you plan to fully manage every aspect of your client’s online presence, you will want the client-facing areas of your reseller platform to offer complete white labeling options for your brand and be fully integrated with your website.
Additionally, you will want the platform to automate as much of the client administration as possible so you can scale your business and grow your client base.
Ideally, your platform would also automate various sales processes so clients could choose to upgrade services within their client portal without requiring your assistance. This increases your revenue with no additional effort on your part.
As discussed earlier, if your reseller platform is comprised of a mashup of third-party components where your clients have to log into a different URL than your website to access their information, this will present a challenge as it can lead to an inconsistent user experience.
With a white-label platform like WPMU DEV’s Reseller and The Hub Client plugin, you can create a fully branded professional client portal that your clients can access from your own domain without ever leaving your website.
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Additionally, The Hub Client includes built-in automation that puts more money into your pocket, like site templates, domain registrations (coming soon), and more.
Speaking of automation and putting money into your pocket, let’s now turn to the component of your reseller platform that will ensure you get paid for your services.
6. Client Billing, Invoicing, and Management
So far, we’ve covered all of the technical components you need for your reseller platform… white label hosting, hosting management, and client portal.
The next step is to figure out how to get paid for supplying your clients with your reseller products and services.
Remember, being a reseller involves:
- Buying products and services from your supplier,
- Marking up your cost price to resell these for a profit,
- Allowing clients to make one-time and/or subscription purchases,
- Setting up invoicing and/or automatic payments,
- Managing the entire client payment process, including the creation of accounts, suspension of unpaid invoices, subscription cancellations, report generation, etc.
All of these processes can and should be fully automated, including purchasing products at cost price from the supplier only when and if a sale is made and having the markup difference after the sale (i.e. your profit) be automatically transferred to your business and deposited into your bank account.
There are many software packages and solutions available that you can use to set up client billing, invoicing, and management for your reseller business, so let’s focus on just two examples: one for a reseller platform built using separate components, and the other, an integrated reseller client billing solution.
WHMCS
If your reseller platform is built using separate components like WHM, cPanel (or Plesk), WPToolkit, etc., you may want to consider using WHMCS (Web Host Manager Complete Solution).
WHMCS is a web hosting management and billing software script that includes features designed to automate various aspects of a web hosting reseller business, such as:
- Billing and Invoicing: Automates billing processes, setting up taxes, generating invoices, and managing payment collections.
- Provisioning: Facilitates the setup of hosting packages, domain registration, and management.
- Automation: Automate workflow tasks related to the creation, suspension, and termination of hosting accounts.
- Customer Management: Manage customer accounts, support tickets, and client communication.
While WHMCS is the most widely adopted billing automation solution for hosting providers, there are some cons, such as:
- Adding custom branding requires editing server files
- Having to purchase hosting from your supplier independently of selling hosting and collecting client payments.
- Paying software licensing fees (plus optional installation, configuration, and integration fees to ensure a smooth setup), which can make this a costly option for small reseller businesses.
WPMU DEV Clients & Billing
A solution like WPMU DEV’s Automated Clients & Billing offers you everything that a solution like WHMCS offers with additional advantages, such as:
- Integrated client and billing platform: With Clients & Billing, there’s no need to set up a separate component to handle billing management. Clients & Billing lets you manage all aspects of your billing process with Stripe, right from your Hub or Hub Client plugin installed on your own site.
- Sell all products and services: WPMU DEV’s Clients & Billing portal is not limited just to reseller products. You can create and sell any kind of product or service packages to your clients.
- Save on fees: Clients & Billing is included for free with a WPMU DEV membership. Even better, members on a Freelancer or Agency plan incur 0% transaction fees, and so pay no fees whatsoever.
The video below provides an overview of WPMU DEV’s Clients & Billing platform:
7. Expert 24/7 Support for Resellers and Their Clients
Running a fully branded reseller business means that if your clients only deal with you, the buck also stops with you, and you will be blamed if anything goes wrong.
It’s really important to know, then, that the company you choose to partner with will always and immediately be there to support you at all times, especially if there’s an issue with your clients.
You need excellent reseller and technical support for your business and your clients will need excellent hosting and technical support for their businesses.
When evaluating the hosting support you can expect to receive as a reseller, it’s important to consider the following areas:
- Proactive Customer Support: Does the support team anticipate potential challenges and address these before they become issues? Tip: Check real customer reviews for unbiased information in this area (see the list of review sites provided earlier).
- 24/7 Availability: Is customer support available 24/7 to ensure assistance is accessible when needed?
- Multi-Channel Support: Is personalized support for resellers offered through various channels, e.g. live chat, email, phone?
- Chatbots for Quick Responses: Does support enhance responsiveness and efficiency with chatbots for quick responses to common queries?
- Community Forums: Are there established community forums where resellers can connect, share experiences, and seek advice from peers?
- Expert Technical Support: Is expert technical support available to resellers for help with complex issues?
- Self-Help Resources: Are there informative blog posts, how-to guides and tutorials, documentation, videos, etc. to empower resellers with self-service options?
- Regular Updates and Communication: Are resellers kept informed of industry trends, best practices, system changes, maintenance schedules, and new features through regular updates and clear communication?
Again, it’s worth noting that WPMU DEV’s support is rated by thousands of fanatical members as one of the best available in the WordPress ecosystem, providing 24/7 expert technical assistance for resellers for all web hosting and WordPress-related issues by a live team of trained staff all around the world via live chat, member support forums, email, and an AI-powered assistant specifically trained on our comprehensive documentation.
In terms of providing support to your clients, WPMU DEV also has you covered, with tools like integrated video tutorials and our soon to be launched white label reseller client support (coming real soon!)
8. Additional Reseller Features
Everything we’ve discussed so far should be included and be able to be fully integrated with your business.
However, don’t just stop there.
You are looking for a long-term partner you can trust and rely on to grow your reseller business, so find out what else is included in their reseller program.
For example:
- Does the reseller platform include an exclusive IP address for each hosting account?
- Can you also integrate domain reselling into your platform?
- What about emails, customized website templates, white label premium plugins, and branded reports?
Can you also combine reseller products with your own products and services to create unique packages and bundles for your clients? Or set up different subscription plans to give your clients easier options to purchase from you?
Check their roadmap to see what new features or products are in the pipeline for resellers, and how responsive and open they are to receiving requests for new features and improvements from their members and resellers.
Best Hosting Reseller Programs
Now that you know what to look for in a hosting reseller platform, let’s look at some of the more popular hosting reseller companies and their programs.
WPMU DEV Reseller
WPMU DEV’s Reseller provides the ideal reseller platform for any digital agency or web development business and includes:
- World-class dedicated hosting plans capable of handling sites of any size and purpose, from micro businesses to large enterprises
- Award-winning hosting and site management tools
- White label customization and branding
- Client portal with admin/sales automation that runs on your own domain
- Integrated client billing, invoicing, and management,
- Expert 24/7 support for resellers (and reseller clients too…coming soon!)
WPMU DEV’s fully integrated reseller platform not only blends seamlessly with your brand, but it also provides a simple and unbeatable pricing model that is guaranteed to boost the profitability of your reseller business.
A reseller license is included at no additional cost with an Agency membership plan. This automatically gives you a 50% discount on all hosting plans, plus additional annual hosting credits which you can apply to any hosting plan (e.g. you can set up 3 x Quantum sites at no cost).
Agency members also benefit from a range of additional inclusions, such as wholesale domain pricing, a suite of premium plugins, directory listing, and a whole lot more.
As a WPMU DEV reseller, you can set your own pricing and create packages from a wide range of discounted hosting plans (10GB – 1,600GB+), starting from as low as $4 p/mo.
When you make a hosting sale, the full amount of your client’s payment is credited to your Stripe account. The payment method you have set in your profile is then charged for the hosted site, just as if you had created it yourself in your own WPMU DEV account.
So, there’s no waiting a month or so to get paid … just set up your payouts on Stripe and you’re done!
To learn about all that WPMU DEV’s Reseller offers your agency or web development business, check out our extensive documentation.
GoDaddy Reseller
The GoDaddy Reseller program is another very popular reseller hosting program.
GoDaddy’s Reseller program includes a range of nice features like a website builder, a family of integrated tools that lets you sell domains, hosting, SSL certificates, etc. and manage your customers’ websites and clients from one dashboard, a brandable storefront, and dedicated teams to support your customers 24/7 by phone or email (and even try to close the sale for you).
However, there are some things to be aware of.
For example, there is a cost to join.
GoDaddy offers two reseller programs: Basic Reseller (for up to 25 customers, starting at $107.88/yr) and Pro Reseller (for unlimited customers, starting at $179.88 /yr). There is no option to pay monthly.
While both programs include a white-label eCommerce storefront, credit card processing, 24/7 support, free GoDaddy software for email marketing, and sales and commission reports, they both charge resellers standard buy rates with Basic Reseller offering up to 20% off the retail price, while the Pro plan offers up to 40% off retail pricing.
Note that site management tools are only included with the Pro Reseller plan.
In terms of customization, there’s not much available when it comes to WordPress hosting reselling plans. All hosting plans are based on shared — not dedicated — hosting, so you’ll have no control over the number of customers sharing your server resources.
You can add a markup on top of GoDaddy’s prices (either globally or set a price per product), but you can’t create custom products or combine other services to create a unique package tailored to the needs of your business (and unlike WPMU DEV’s Reseller, GoDaddy customers don’t get premium plugins included with their hosting).
Additionally, reseller storefronts are hosted by default on a GoDaddy URL (secureserver.net). While you can set up your storefront to point to a subdomain on your existing website, GoDaddy limits this feature to certain pages of your storefront for security purposes, so when customers enter secure areas of your storefront, the default URL will display instead of your custom domain.
Finally, keep in mind that payments are handled through GoDaddy’s own payment system and resellers have to wait a month to get paid sales commissions (for example, the commission you earned during December will be paid out at the end of January).
SiteGround
SiteGround provides 3 reseller hosting plans ranging from 20GB to 40GB+ disk space, starting from $4.99/month (first invoice only with prepaid purchases of a 12-month hosting plan).
SiteGround’s hosting is built on Google Cloud servers and the management of your hosting account and client sites is done using SiteGround’s custom-built tools, Site Tools and Client Area.
A chat with their sales team confirmed that SiteGround currently does not have an option for billing or an alternative to WHMCS, so as a reseller, you would manage your client websites from the main user area but handle the billing manually from your end.
Note that for white label hosting, you will need to opt for their GoGeek plan at $7.99/month, or Cloud plan, starting from $100/month. Configurable hosting packages are only available with the Cloud plan.
Hostinger
To resell hosting from Hostinger, you will need to sign up for their partner program and manage your hosting account and client sites through their custom tools Pro Panel (for managing hosting and clients) and hPanel (a scaled-down version of cPanel for managing client sites).
With Hostinger’s reseller hosting you can sell shared, cloud, or VPS hosting, but you cannot set your own hosting prices, as it operates on a commission-based model, so the pricing structure of your reseller hosting plans is fixed and pays you a 20% commission for first-time purchases and 10% commission for user upgrades, renewals, or purchases of different plans.
Hostinger’s reseller setup is also not as integrated as WPMU DEV’s fully white-labeled platform where your client perceives to be only dealing with you.
With Hostinger’s reseller setup, if you’ve marked up the hosting and bundled it with your services, you will have to make purchases on behalf of your client, or you can send a cart of the reseller hosting plan directly to your client’s email for them to complete the payment, but your client will then purchase hosting at the price advertised on Hostinger’s website.
InstaWP
The InstaWP reseller model is based on setting up WordPress sites for clients using a template and then migrating the sites to one of their hosting partners or to any other hosting provider.
Their full Website As A Service (WaaS) offering is still in beta. It currently allows you to create templates and sell them at your own price.
However, InstaWP doesn’t have their own hosting, so their reseller model is commission based depending on which of their hosting partners you purchase from. They will take a percentage of the sale and pay you your commission at the end of the month.
WPUltimo
WP Ultimo is a WordPress plugin that allows you to create a WordPress multisite network and offer a white-label, multi-website hosting solution to your clients.
The WP Ultimo reseller model enables web developers to become hosting providers and offer website creation, hosting, and domain reseller services to their clients by emulating self-managed Website as a Service (WaaS) platforms on WordPress similar to Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress.com.
While WP Ultimo is a versatile solution for WaaS, it runs on WordPress Multisite (unlike WPMU DEV’s single-site solution, where every site is built and hosted on its own dedicated virtual server and individual IP), which is harder to manage (as one of the largest multisite hosts on the planet, we know the challenges of managing sites on this platform).
Other Reseller Programs
The following are some popular hosting companies that offer reseller hosting programs with pre-installed management software like cPanel, Plesk, WHM, WHMCS, etc. They don’t include components like premium plugins or a client portal like our white labeled Hub.
Note: Prices shown below may reflect promotional/discount pricing and vary from the actual prices charged by the hosting companies on their website.
InMotion
InMotion reseller features include:
- Hosting Products: 4 reseller plans (80GB SSD – 300GB NVMe SSD)
- Hosting Management: cPanel/WHM
- Client Billing: WHMCS
- Starting Price: $6.99/month
A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting reseller features include:
- Hosting Products: 4 reseller plans (60GB SSD/NVMe SSD – 250GB SSD/NVMe SSD)
- Hosting Management: cPanel/WHM
- Client Billing: WHMCS or Blesta
- Starting Price: $15.99/month.
HostGator
HostGator reseller features include:
- Hosting Products: 3 reseller plans (60GB – 140GB)
- Hosting Management: cPanel/WHM
- Client Billing: WHMCS
- Starting Price: $19.95/month (first month only)
InterServer
InterServer reseller features include:
- Hosting Products: 5 reseller plans (80GB – 280GB)
- Hosting Management: DirectAdmin
- Client Billing: Install via a script (e.g. WHMCS, Blesta, HostBill, etc.)
- Starting Price: $19.95/month
AccuWeb
AccuWeb reseller features include:
- Hosting Products: various plans (10GB – 200GB)
- Hosting Management: cPanel/WHM
- Client Billing: Not included. You will need to set up your own.
- Starting Price: $11.99/month (with annual purchase)
Hostwinds
Hostwinds reseller features include:
- Hosting Products: 3 shared hosting reseller plans (unlimited space)
- Hosting Management: cPanel/WHM
- Client Billing: Not included with Reseller
- Starting Price: $5.24/month (first billing cycle only, then $6.99/mo)
ResellerClub
ResellerClub reseller features include:
- Hosting Products: 4 reseller plans (40GB – 200GB)
- Hosting Management: cPanel/WHM
- Client Billing: can purchase WHMCS as an add-on
- Starting Price: $16.99/month (with 3-year purchase, otherwise $23.99/mo)
HostPapa
HostPapa reseller features include:
- Hosting Products: 5 reseller plans (50GB – 250GB)
- Hosting Management: cPanel/WHM
- Client Billing: WHMCS included for up to 250 clients.
- Starting Price: $30.99/month
Grow Your Reseller Business, Not Your Headaches
Hopefully, this comprehensive guide has given you all the information you need to find the ideal reseller hosting company and platform for your WordPress and web services agency or web development business to partner with for long-term success.
We’ve covered the pitfalls to avoid, looked at everything the ideal reseller hosting platform should provide you with, and even included a list of the top reseller hosting companies you can check out to save time with your research.
If you agree that the ideal reseller hosting platform for your business should comprise the following:
- Provide a fully managed hosting service so you don’t waste time worrying about the technical issues of hosting and managing servers,
- Be seamlessly integrated with your agency or web development business so it runs completely under your own brand on your domain,
- Include everything from superior-quality web hosting plans where you can set your own pricing and easy hosting and site management tools to client billing and invoicing, a white label branded client portal, 24×7 expert support for resellers and their clients, and other additional services you can resell (e.g. domains),
- Offer you the customization, automation, flexibility, and scalability you need to grow your business with no hassles or headaches, and
- Provide you with maximum profit potential (e.g. ability to buy services at deeply discounted or even wholesale prices and mark these up without restrictions),
Then we guarantee you won’t find a better reseller hosting solution to partner with than WPMU DEV’s Reseller.
WPMU DEV Reseller is the culmination of years of effort by a global team comprised of hundreds of dedicated staff members, all united by a single common purpose: to develop and support the best all-in-one fully integrated, automated, white-label WordPress platform available anywhere that agencies and web developers can resell as their own to grow and scale their business to unlimited heights.
Take our reseller platform for a 30-day risk free test drive, do your due diligence, and see for yourself why we are not just tooting our own horn.
Running a profitable reseller hosting business can be challenging and filled with headaches and complications, but with WPMU DEV’s Reseller, it doesn’t have to be.
