* An entire business solution in one package!
* Complete administration 24×7 for you AND your customers
* Offer a host of automated extras to your customers

Customer Management

As an reseller you are able to manage every element of your Customer’s account. The Reseller Control Panel gives you unprecedented control over your customers:

* Complete customer management
* Create and sell your own completely customised hosting packages
* Directly view and edit customer’s account
* Comprehensive and direct billing facility
* Customize your Control Panel with header and footer graphics

Customer Care and Support

The Reseller Control Panel uses a comprehensive internal messaging system. Messaging is a smart way of keeping customers up to date with the latest information, or providing hosting support.
Customer Domain Name Registrations

As a reseller you are able to handle domain name registration in two ways:

* Register all domains for your customers though the host provider, quickly and efficiently
* Register the domains using a third-party registrar of your choice

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Pro’s -
You do not need to manage the server.
Backups etc. are also handled by the reseller host (although clients and the reseller account holder would be wise to keep backups too).
Server crashes can happen but if you go with a reliable company then they do all the hardwork in restoring things.

Con’s :-
Lack of control on what to install on the server
Lack of resources like CPU, RAM etc…
Less customization in general
You often have to pass support requests on to the actual host as the reseller cannot do all things on the server. This increases support time.

Although it’s a cheaper start in to the hosting business I personally would save up and get enough to purchase 2 servers in a good data center and have a backup elsewhere and start with a good foundation.

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Additionally some of your clients might also prefer windows rather than Linux. So there are two major advantages for going into windows, you broaden your service platform and along with it you get the cool advantages of Windows development.

Windows is a powerful operating system.

Development in windows is very faster + you have very good support for SQL Server as back-end on the windows server.

ASP.NET is also an advantage on Windows.

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Time in business is an important factor, of course, but there are many hosts out there who just seem to dry up and disappear even after a few years being online.

Your main concern should be response time.
You are the go between for your clients essentially. If it takes X amount of time for you to answer a support request Plus X amount of time for your request to your host a lot of time can expire before your client has an answer.

Test out your potential host by getting an account and using features. That way you will get a good indication of network stability and response time to support requests.

Search the forums for recommendations.

Good reseller is what you need to look for. Many are sub-reselling a reseller package and that is where it can hurt business because you will depend on host which depends on reseller and reseller depends on server host. So, reply time increases dramatically and if you don’t get help when you need the most, it matters least how low the price may be.

Talk with the hosting company on a daily basis. Feel them out. Get a small plan feel out the services/support.

Don’t jump into anything for price as reseller relationships are for the long run. Above all, if you are getting into a business seriously you should be prepared to invest some money.

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The most important thing to look for is a host who has been around for a while. If you can find a decent provider (and there are tons of them out there) a reseller package can be wonderful.

Perhaps the one important thing that you would want to look for is a hosting provider that not only has good reliability and service, but an easy way to upgrade your package should you need additional space.

Another important thing would be to see what type of self-help resources they offer and whether or not they would be willing to let you use those on your site to help your customers.

Of course, along similar lines, many large hosts have pictures of their data center and don’t mind if you use those pictures on your own site - technically not really cheating because the physical location of the server is there.

As to specifics, stay away from anything that is unlimited. Figure what your prospective clients would need, figure a decent estimate of how many clients you can acquire in a month - start with that - estimate on the low end (you can always upgrade later) and there is no sense in wasting money until you have the customer base to at least pay for your own hosting / reseller costs.

As to the different systems, many customers seem to want Windows servers because of ASP. You might want to try to find a host that actually has ASP on their Linux servers - one of the main reasons for this is that many of the Linux ASP programs are commercial (and rather expensive) - so you atleast know the host has some money that they have invested in software.

Of course, you will also see control panels ranging from cPanel (popular with Linux),  Plesk, Helm as well as a plethora of other “custom” control panels.

cPanel is by far the most common and has a great reseller control system built into it and its what I’d recommend. Second recommendation would be Plesk.

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Most end users are reasonable and will understand that true efforts are made to put their sites back online, but you as a reseller must have some clear facts to share with them. When you, the reseller, have no idea what’s going on, it’s really hard to appease your customers.

I feel the best thing that you can do is notify the customers to let them know there is an outage and that it is being worked on. When the outage is over do e-mail them once again letting them know that the server is back online. All within this process you should contact your host and keep in touch with them to make sure that 1) they know of the outage and 2) that they are fixing the issue. Only thing that resellers can do is to reply to all the support tickets of the customers, and assure them that everything is being taken care of. I think that is what the customers really need — assurance, and if during outages, the resellers are nowhere to be found, then they will surely panic.

A good way to inform customers in case you have multiple servers is through your company forum. If you let customers know to signup in the beginning, then you can update all Network Statuses, uptimes, and even answer server-specific questions which are available for everyone to see.

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Profit - Reselling web hosting plans allows your company to make money. Your overhead costs are low and your prices can still be competitive. As a reseller you can set your own hosting plans and prices and decide your profit margin. Resellers can focus on selling and adding value while the web hosting handles all of the technical issues.

Technical Support - With reseller hosting, technical support is taken care of by the actual hosting provider as many hosts now offer end user support to clients of their resellers at no additional cost. So get the best technical service and support, so that you may better serve your customers.

Server technology updates - It is the responsibility of the host provider to keep up with the latest technology and equipment (servers, communications, routers, etc.) so to start with the hosting business all you need is a PC with Internet and a decent web hosting provider to get reseller hosting plan from.

Billing flexibility - Many hosts provide simplified billing for resellers’ convenience. Resellers have complete freedom to price the plans for their customers. Large territories that allow for large opportunity.

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Since reseller is providing a shared resource out of server, they are not in complete control of the server or environment. They themselves are dependent on host/server provider for certain problems requiring access to server. Having said that, if such a problem occurs, it is not isolated issue for that very reseller in most cases.

Now host may have to handle hundreds of clients, so having a reseller in place eases their support system also, because then they need to attend to the reseller who in turn handles those clients. In addition, should anything bad happen, it is reseller who is at risk because customers see reseller as the service provider. Having reseller in place, provides host a good channel to fill up their space in better possible manner. besides they do not have to run for clients or atleast this gets attended easily. In a way having a reseller is advantageous to the server provider.

Now how would customers benefit if they were to host with reseller rather than server provider directly? A few of you may argue it out but truth remains, resellers have much much better host-client interaction than server provider-client and also rapport. For sheer amount of work server provider needs to do, it is unreasonable to expect them to have time for this. Resellers have lesser responsibilities towards server maintenance and can easily use this to build up confidence and relatino with hosted clients. Over period of time resellers start providing multitude of services, something parent company would not be in position or may be charging for. This includes installing scripts, SEO, web designing and related. If not for free, atleast for cheap and then there is a community to develop and interact. So, reseller network in a way ends up in a closely knit community, something which parent host wouldn’t have time and staff for. This is all general and not specific to any firm or reseller. Even from business standpoint, someone like me would wanna host with someone whom i can freely interact, seek support, and has lesser load to handle.

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In my opinion, resellers help 2 people. The main provider as well as the purchaser. Cheaper hosting is great for people who don’t need a lot of special features and just want to host their personal webpage and that is exactly what is offered by resellers. Because resellers are still making some money I don’t forsee them going away, nor do i expect hosting companies to stop selling reseller accounts for precisely the same reason.

reseller hosting is going anywhere due to the fact that it is the stepping stone for web hosters. Most individuals that go into web hosting start with a resellers account and move up to a dedicated server.

Its evident that the hosting market is oversaturated and alot of smaller companies cannot make it now days, but it all depends on how much effort you want to put in to stay competitive. Though its hard it can be done!

Reseller hosting customers are often the web developers hosting their customers. It’s not just small time hosts that rely on these pachages. The VPS may take a part of this market (especially the fully managed ones) but many reseller hosting customers still won’t want the complication. I don’t see reseller hosting as obsolete anytime soon. It may however redefine itself a bit (offering end user support may become the norm rather than the exception) and could lose some of its market.

Even if we consider the VPS as its future replacement, the market doesn’t just vanish. The reseller hosting provider of today will slowly become the VPS provider of tomorrow.

Resellers are no threat to the big boys because they are reselling and the big boys still get their money. There will always be consolidations but a company that has flexibility and knows how to appeal to the right segment of users will do well.

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Reseller hosting is the perfect solution for webmasters, designers, developers, internet consultants or anyone wanting to start a profitable online business. If you’re looking to get into the reseller hosting business, cPanel reseller hosting is the best option. Reseller hosting is almost the same as a shared web hosting account except you are given more control over your account. A webmaster may require a network of websites under different domain names to serve different business plans, but all are hosted under a common reseller hosting account.

The services offered by a reseller web hosting service do not really differ from a real host. As a matter of fact, reseller web hosting offers more features to the customers. Due to the added value services, reseller web hosting can offer web design and programming services to each customer that are often times not possible from real hosts. Real hosts tend to focus on bulk accounts and corporate clients. Reseller web hosting offers value added services to customers in order to maintain a competitive edge against bigger web hosting services.

As a reseller of web hosting services, you will purchase the hosting from an existing web hosting provider and then resell it under your company name. The greatest advantage of being a reseller is the fact that you will keep 100% of the profits that you generate from your own web hosting company.

With the right web hosting reseller company, web site developers can be successful with a reseller web hosting service or business. They can provide their customers with web hosting and create web sites at the same time. This is why it is a good idea to find a web hosting company that offers multiple hosting accounts with their web hosting reseller services. A web developer can then host their clients web sites from their own reseller web hosting account.

One of the best things to do before choosing a web hosting reseller company is to get a list of reference sites you can check out to see if they have downtime. With web reseller hosting companies and services you can ask other web site developers about what web hosting resellers they have had good quality service with.

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