Reseller hosting gives you the chance to make some of your money back from the hosting you’re already using. Instead of only paying to keep websites online, you’re buying hosting resources you can also sell.
That doesn’t automatically mean you’ll make a profit, obviously. But once the money coming in covers what you’re spending on hosting, everything above your other costs starts moving in the right direction.
Read on to find out how it works.
Using Reseller Hosting to Turn Loss Into Profits
Imagine you’re already paying to host several websites separately. Every one of those bills is simply another expense.
A reseller plan lets you bring multiple hosting accounts under one setup and then create additional packages for other customers. So rather than hosting being something you only spend money on, it becomes something you can also charge for.
The first target is really break-even.
If your reseller setup costs $70 per month and you make $50 from hosting customers, you’re still $20 down. Get that income to $70, and the hosting is effectively paying for itself. Anything you earn above that then contributes towards profit once payment fees, software, taxes, and other costs are taken into account.
Step-by-Step Guide to Setting up Reseller Hosting
Setting everything up isn’t massively complicated, but we’d work out the numbers before trying to sell anything.
- Choose a reseller hosting plan. Look at the resources included and how many accounts you can realistically run. Verpex is a good place to start and has some of the best reseller hosting plans around.
- Work out your monthly costs. Include the reseller plan, billing tools, payment fees, and anything else you’re paying for.
- Create your hosting packages. cPanel’s WHM, for example, lets resellers create packages with limits for things like disk space and bandwidth.
- Set your prices. Make sure there’s actually enough difference between your costs and selling price to make it worthwhile.
- Set up billing. Monthly and annual payments are both common. Billing software can also handle recurring invoices rather than you having to remember who owes what.
- Create each customer’s account. Resellers using cPanel and WHM can create and manage separate cPanel accounts for the customers they host.
- Decide what support you’re providing. Customers need to know whether they’re only buying hosting or whether you’ll also help with things like migrations, email, and WordPress problems.
Who to Sell Reseller Hosting to
You don’t necessarily need to compete with massive hosting companies for people searching Google for the cheapest hosting plan. There are plenty of people who simply want their website online without having to understand much about hosting.
That could include:
- Local businesses
- Bloggers
- Freelancers
- Tradespeople
- Photographers
- Small e-commerce stores
- Charities and community organizations
- People running their first website
You can also make packages around the type of customer you’re targeting. A photographer with hundreds of large images might need more storage than a plumber with a five-page business website, for example.
And some people will happily pay a little more if there’s an actual person they can contact when something stops working.
Reseller hosting can start changing from another monthly expense into something useful. You’re already paying for hosting resources, and instead of only watching that money leave your account, you’re giving some of those resources a price and selling them to people who need them.