Reseller Web Hosting Guide

A brief guide to reseller web hosting ...

There are essentially two uses for a reseller web hosting account. You can use it for the purpose of 'reselling' hosting services to consumers (ie set yourself up as a hosting company) - or you can simply use it for your own personal multiple domain hosting.

Reselling Hosting Services

This is the main purpose of a reseller account. If you wish to start up in business as a web hosting company, selling hosting services to other people, then a reseller account is the simplest way to go - you can be in business almost immediately, with virtually no initial outlay. Many of the large 'established' hosting companies started out simply as resellers.

As a reseller, you are using the servers and infrastructure of a larger company and marketing this to end users completely anonymously - people who sign up with your hosting plans will be unaware that you do not actually own the servers or maintain them yourself. This is a great way for a small hosting company to set up in business - you don't have the huge expense and hassle of operating a data centre - all you have to do is market your hosting plans and provide customer support.

Multiple Domain Hosting

You don't have to use a reseller account to sell hosting services to other people, you can also use it for your own personal multiple domain hosting. The account will operate in the same way - the only difference is that you won't need to use the accounts billing facilities, because all the domains hosted belong to you.

Most people with multiple domains that they need to host will find it far cheaper than buying a separate hosting account for each domain. As a rough guide to cost, if you have a small number of domains (less than 10), the price for hosting should work out around £1 per domain per month - if you have a large number of domains (50 or more say), it would probably work out around 50 pence per domain per month.

These figures are based on a 'quality' web host located in the UK - you can get reseller hosting much cheaper than this, but you won't find me recommending companies like that on this website, because they are total junk. Bargain basement web hosting is a false economy and nothing but stress and hassle!

As well as saving money, a reseller account is also far more convenient than hosting all your different domains with their own individual 'single site' account - you can administer all of your sites using one reseller control panel - and in addition, each domain hosted on the account has their own personal control panel and full website statistics.

Choose Your Reseller Account Wisely

The best advice I can give is NOT to choose a reseller account based solely on price - cheap hosting is cheap for a reason - the hosting company will be cramming thousands of domains onto a single server, causing poor performance for you or your clients - and technical support will probably be poor.

Do your research carefully - personal recommendations from existing clients who are satisfied with the service is the #1 method for finding a great host - if you are looking for a UK based reseller account, then naturally I would suggest that you start your search on our UK Reseller Web Hosts page :-)