One of the most efficient ways of hosting a large number of websites or starting your own web hosting company is by using the best reseller hosting plan. There are quite a lot of options to choose from too, ranging from affordable reseller hosting to top-of-the-line unlimited reseller service packages.
Although choosing a reseller hosting is now very easy to do due to the abundance of options, it is still necessary to pay close attention to a number of important aspects in order to end up with the best one your money can buy.
Disk Space & Data Transfer
The two most important factors to consider when choosing a reseller hosting are still disk space and monthly data transfer. Disk space tells you just how much web hosting space you have – or how much you can resell. Resellers would want to calculate the number of service plans they can sell based on the disk space they can allocate. For example, you can only sell 10 plans that offer 1GB of disk space if you are using a reseller hosting plan with 10GB of disk space.
Monthly data transfer, on the other hand, dictates the amount of traffic your reseller hosting account can actually handle. There is no rule of thumb to follow here; the best approach would be to have the largest monthly data transfer quota possible so that you can handle more visitors or allocate more to each web hosting plan.
Oversell
The ability to oversell is often seen as a good thing, but it is not without risks. Overselling means you are offering your clients more than what the reseller account comes with. Server resources are allocated based on the actual use instead of the hosting service packages you create for each of your client.
Let’s say you have a reseller hosting account that comes with 10GB of disk space. You then create a service plan with 1GB of disk space. With a reseller hosting account that doesn’t allow overselling, you can only sell 10 plans. That is not the case when overselling is allowed. You can sell as many plans as you can as long as the actual disk space usage doesn’t exceed 10GB.
As mentioned earlier, overselling is not without risks. You will have to monitor the actual server usage closely in order to avoid service termination when the actual usage exceeds the allocated server resources of your reseller account.
Resource Usage
Another thing you need to understand before deciding to buy a reseller hosting account is resource usage. There will be a series of terms and conditions regarding server resource usage. These terms are put in place to prevent reseller from running processor- or memory-intensive web applications on the server.
The reason why resource usage is highly regulated is because reseller hosting has similar characteristics as shared hosting. Multiple reseller hosting accounts are hosted on the same server, influencing each other’s performance in general. To keep all websites running smoothly and consistently, these resource usage terms are put in place.
By understanding these terms, you can then set your own terms and conditions accordingly. Your clients will have to follow the same set of rules and you will not have to worry about your reseller hosting account being terminated for excessive server usage.
Cost
Naturally, you will also have to consider the cost of getting a reseller hosting account. With unlimited shared hosting plans now available at affordable prices, the cost of buying a reseller hosting service becomes more and more influential. You wouldn't be able to offer valuable web hosting services unless your initial cost is at its minimum.
There are unlimited reseller hosting plans, but they tend to come with more terms and conditions to follow. These terms and conditions as well as fair usage policy don’t always give you the advantage you seek from an unlimited reseller hosting account. With that in mind, focus more on keeping your reseller hosting account cost-efficient instead of trying to find the cheapest solution possible.
Support
Last but not least, always make sure you have the support you need to keep your web hosting business running smoothly. Since you don’t really have direct access to the server as root or administrative user, a 24/7 live customer support is critically important.
Before making any purchase, try contacting the web hosting company’s customer support hotline or the live chat support channel. See if you can get answers to your questions quickly. You can even ask more about the customer support itself; ask if there are technical support officers standing by at all times.
When your clients ask for support, all you will have to do is relay the support requests to the hosting company’s support channel. Starting and running a web hosting company or hosting a large number of websites will be very easy to do with good customer support ready to assist you at all times.
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