Reseller hosting is slightly different than the more common shared hosting. Although it is mainly designed for resellers, there are plenty of benefits you can get from using reseller hosting instead of shared hosting. For starters, you can host a large number of sites efficiently. You also get better overall performance and more features from a good reseller hosting plan. Speaking of features, there are several features you can expect from any reseller hosting service package of your choice.
Standard Features & Hosting Space
Depending on the plan you choose to use, you can expect to get anywhere from 25GB to 500GB of hosting space when you use a reseller hosting plan. The large hosting space is also paired with sufficient monthly data transfer quota, which means you can run multiple websites and handle a large number of traffic without having to worry about both.
You also get support for unlimited domain names. You can either set up an account for each domain or create a large hosting package under the reseller hosting plan to host all of your domains. The former is certainly more efficient, since you can then have different administrators for different domains. You are basically treating each website as a client from the reseller hosting admin panel.
Email accounts, FTP accounts and MySQL databases are also among the basic features to expect, similar to when you use a shared hosting service package. These features are essential, especially if you use popular CMS platforms to host your site and manage your content. WordPress, for example, needs at least one MySQL database to run.
Support for PHP usually comes as standard if you choose to use a Linux-based reseller hosting service. Some hosting services also offer support for Ruby on Rail and other programming languages. Aside from that, you also get uptime guarantee. 99.9% uptime guarantee is the best one to look for, but 99.5% is good enough if the reseller hosting is running on a single server.
Private Name Servers
A good benefit of using reseller hosting is the ability to use your own private name servers. Instead of using ns1.yourhosting.com, you can now configure your domain names to point at ns1.yourprimarydomain.com. Private name servers allow you to hide the hosting service you use and will help make your websites look more professional, especially when someone is looking at their WHOIS entries.
Reseller hosting also comes with advanced DNS management. You can set up your own mail server and point emails from each domain name to that server from the DNS control panel. You can also do so many other things, including have different subdomains point to different servers. Domain forwarding and other DNS-related features are also available.
Control Panel & WHM
Most reseller hosting plans come with the standard cPanel control panel we are familiar with. The only difference is that you can now brand the administrative panel using your logo and color scheme. This is done by applying a theme or customizing cPanel from your reseller control panel.
If you are using the reseller hosting to offer hosting services to others, brandable cPanel is definitely a plus. Of course, you also get WHM Control Panel to help organize your clients and their hosting accounts. Everything can be fully automated, allowing you to focus on marketing your services and providing good customer support.
There are a few advanced features that WHM offers:
– Server monitoring tools are provided within the reseller control panel. You can check server status and the statuses of your services, including MySQL and FTP. The monitoring tools make monitoring your hosting account very easy to do.
– You also have complete control over child- or client accounts. For instance, you can modify passwords, terminate or suspend accounts and perform other administrative tasks from the WHM control panel.
– Create and modify packages to suit your needs. You can set disk space, bandwidth, email, database and FTP accounts for each package or individual account. You can even create customized packages for select clients if you need to.
Bonuses and Extra Features
It doesn’t stop there. Unlike shared hosting services, reseller hosting grants you access to a lot of other services that you would normally have to pay to use. Domain reseller service is a good example of the added services you get with reseller hosting. Instead of paying an annual membership free, you can instantly sell domain names – with over 70 gTLDs and ccTLDs to choose from – from your reseller hosting account.
Even the domain name reseller account can be integrated and fully automated. Once WHMCS is set up, all you have to do is enter the correct API key for your domain reseller account and you are all set.
Bonus advertising credits and various other freebies, including how-tos on web hosting marketing, are also offered by top hosting companies. Interesting, right? All you have to do now is find a good reseller hosting service and you can get started with enjoying these features right away.
