5 Best Reseller Web Hosting Providers of 2021

A Guide to the best reseller web hosting

Reseller web hosting allows anyone who wishes to start their own web hosting company to sell white label web hosting plans. Basically, there are a number of different frameworks used in the web hosting industry that allow resellers to accomplish this. The most common method is to purchase storage space wholesale on a server from a web hosting company and then use WHMCS with cPanel to add sub-accounts from customers. WHMCS allows resellers to create their own hosting plans at whatever price they choose and then allocate the storage space on a server to the client. Resellers can create a sub-account for the customer which includes a separate cPanel login for them to manage their domains, websites, email addresses, and site files in the same manner as on the main hosting service provider.

Another slightly different method employed by some reseller plans is to rebrand and sell existing web hosting products from a wholesale company under license for a commission. This approach is in many ways easier than using WHMCS. Most resellers look for a licensed account that will allow them to manage customer domain name registrations on commission as part of the total package. The inclusion of a reseller storefront or ecommerce tools can also be helpful in getting started, although many successful resellers simply invoice their clients monthly using WHMCS. With a reseller storefront, small businesses can add their own logo, promotions, sales copy, discount coupons, and marketing campaigns to operate a complete web hosting company with all of the services and products of the wholesaler.

This article will review the five best reseller hosting companies that we have identified for web development on the basis of web server hardware performance, platform features, quality of customer support, included software tools, and the affordability of each plan. Read on to learn more and use our coupon (if applicable) when signing up for even better discounts on a new reseller hosting account.

Our Top 5 Favorite Reseller Web Hosting Providers:

Web host:Price range:Storage:Transfer:Learn more:
InMotion Hosting$15.99 to $94.94/mo80 to 260 GB.8 to 6 TBView Plans
A2 Hosting$13.19 to $40.91/mo30 to 200 GB400 to 2000 GBView Plans
HostGator$19.95 to $24.95/mo60 to 140 GB600 to 1400 GBView Plans
GreenGeeks$19.95 to $99.95/mo50 to 200 GB500 to 2000 GBView Plans
SiteGround$42 per credit10 GBUnmeteredView Plans

1. InMotion Hosting

InMotion Hosting - Awarded #1 Top Reseller Web Hosting ProviderInMotion Hosting’s reseller plans have everything that is required to build your own web hosting company under a white label system, or to manage domain name and web hosting services for private clients as part of a small business. Web designers, independent developers, programming teams, freelancers, graphic artists, and social media marketers all have traditionally used reseller hosting plans as a means to manage the website resources of many different clients under a single account. The SSD storage space and data transfer allocations on InMotion Hosting’s plans effectively limit the amount of over-selling of resources that can be conducted on the platform. InMotion Hosting’s reseller program includes bundled licenses for WHMCS, cPanel, and eNom, operating under a tiered system where you only need to upgrade when all of the hosted client sub-accounts exceed the limits of the contract level. InMotion Hosting’s reseller plan enables sizable margins and commissions on the web services that most companies and individuals normally purchase as part of their requirements for web publishing. View all reseller hosting plans

2. A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting - Awarded #2 Top Reseller Web Hosting ProviderInMotion Hosting’s reseller plans have everything that is required to build your own web hosting company under a white label system, or to manage domain name and web hosting services for private clients as part of a small business. Web designers, independent developers, programming teams, freelancers, graphic artists, and social media marketers all have traditionally used reseller hosting plans as a means to manage the website resources of many different clients under a single account. The SSD storage space and data transfer allocations on InMotion Hosting’s plans effectively limit the amount of over-selling of resources that can be conducted on the platform. InMotion Hosting’s reseller program includes bundled licenses for WHMCS, cPanel, and eNom, operating under a tiered system where you only need to upgrade when all of the hosted client sub-accounts exceed the limits of the contract level. InMotion Hosting’s reseller plan enables sizable margins and commissions on the web services that most companies and individuals normally purchase as part of their requirements for web publishing. View all reseller hosting plans

3. HostGator

HostGator - Awarded #3 Top Reseller Web Hosting ProviderHostGator is one of the most popular companies in the web hosting industry and many people recognize the brand from their widespread online advertising campaigns. HostGator allows resellers to take advantage of the services of their two data centers by white labeling company products and operating a storefront. HostGator’s reseller plans include a free Reseller Club account. HostGator is a primary corporate partner with Reseller Club. Using the two services together, resellers can offer a full suite of products to their clients which include web hosting plans, cloud hosting, dedicated servers, and domain name registrations. The commission structure at Reseller Club is better than eNom, with more domain name extensions available for resale, lower contract prices, including other products like SSL/TLS certificates, domain privacy services, and data backup plans. These products extend what is possible with a traditional reseller hosting account to give independent creatives more options for their clients. HostGator’s reseller program has five levels of expansion and is designed to scale as a client base grows. View all reseller hosting plans

4. GreenGeeks

GreenGeeks - Awarded #4 Top Reseller Web Hosting ProviderGreenGeeks also has a reseller program with all of the functionality of their shared hosting platform, including bundled licenses for WHMCS, cPanel, eNom, and ClientExec. The program includes all of the most popular tools used by resellers for client account management, billing, and invoicing. GreenGeeks has a well respected data center operation with a commitment to environmental causes which includes giving back 300% of the electricity consumed in operations to the grid in the form of renewable energy credits and sponsorships. The company’s support for web development requirements is also excellent and recommended for high performance applications running on the LAMP stack. With five different levels of reseller resources and support for unlimited domains on all of the plans, you can effectively over-sell disk space on the accounts, upgrading only if the total amount of web traffic or storage exceeds the monthly account limitations. The GreenGeeks reseller plans include ample room for freelance web professionals to mark-up services to clients and set their own commission structure. View all reseller hosting plans

5. SiteGround

SiteGround - Awarded #5 Top Reseller Web Hosting ProviderSiteGround’s reseller hosting plans are based on a unique system not found with other companies. Resellers are able to purchase credits for hosting accounts at wholesale prices, where the price reduces in three different tiers depending upon the number of contracts purchased. For example, if ordering 1 to 4 web hosting plans, the price is $49 per year for each plan. When ordering 5 to 10 accounts, the price reduces to $45 per year for each plan. Any number of contracts over 10 per year are billed at $42 each. The reseller can then set any price for the hosting plans and offer them as white label services under a different brand identity or to clients privately at discount rates. With this service, resellers do not need an eNom, WHMCS, or cPanel license and their clients can simply login to enjoy all of the benefits of a normal SiteGround hosting account. This bulk-rate discounting method can be used to procure web hosting plans at discount rates for large number of clients or to mark-up domain services under a white label system such as a rebranded website. View all reseller hosting plans

What to Look for When Purchasing a Reseller Hosting Plan

There is a lot of competition in the reseller hosting sector, and it is not easy to scale a white label brand when competing with the sales and marketing campaigns of the established web hosting companies. The people who have the most success with reseller hosting plans are web design and development companies who can offer the services directly to their clients. To be successful with a rebranded web hosting start-up will take a lot of promotional effort. Nevertheless, independent web professionals who offer the discounted services available at wholesale pricing to clients at a small mark up can add extra income to the bottom line on a monthly basis, contributing to the viability of an enterprise.

There are a few tools that have become essential to reseller hosting, and anyone considering signing up for an account plan under this framework should be familiar with them, in order to decide whether or not they fit the needs of their business model. The quickest way to get started with reseller hosting is through a storefront, but this does not always fit the needs of web professionals offering the services to private clients or bundled as part of a larger bill for contract services and website maintenance. The main software tools that work together to make a reseller hosting account successful are:

  • WHMCS: This platform software is used by most web hosting companies along with cPanel and WHM. WHMCS is the billing and invoicing management utility that allows you to create web hosting plans with disk space allocation and then charge a fixed price for them through monthly, quarterly, or yearly invoices. Often WHMCS is used as back-end support for account management while another ecommerce platform is used in the storefront for product sales.
  • cPanel: WHMCS is one of the three main products from the company that makes cPanel, the industry standard software administration tool for web servers. cPanel will only run on CentOS Linux and CloudLinux, two distributions whose development is also managed by the cPanel company for licensed use on web servers. cPanel is the most popular method in web hosting for Apache server management and is widely used in shared hosting plans.
  • WHM: In order to deploy cPanel across a network of web servers in a data center, web hosting companies use WHM as the platform software with either CentOS or CloudLinux as the OS. WHM greatly simplifies the process of deploying the LAMP stack across many integrated servers and allows shared hosting platforms to function. WHM can also be used on VPS and dedicated servers, primarily as the means to install cPanel for server and multi-domain administration.
  • eNom: The most popular domain registrar for reseller accounts has traditionally been eNom, although GoDaddy, Tucows, and Reseller Club are major competitors. eNom gives resellers the ability to operate as licensed domain registrars on a franchise basis by white labeling its services on websites. eNom sets a number of base prices for domain extensions depending on the account plan, which resellers can then set their own price for when offering to customers.
  • ClientExec: Unless you are using a ready-made storefront from one of the web hosting companies, most resellers will need an ecommerce platform with cart, check-out, and credit card processing facilities in order to operate a WHM & cPanel white label site. ClientExec is an ecommerce platform that is designed for the web hosting industry. The software will integrate easily with WHM and allow you to sell new web hosting account plans or other services online.

The combination of WHM, cPanel, WHMCS, eNom, and ClientExec contains all of the tools required to run a complete reseller hosting operation using shared disk space from a data center company’s servers. Storefronts simplify this process considerably, where resellers do not need to put the time and energy into installing the software, developing a custom theme, and integrating all of the different software on a server in order to get a system to work. Some resellers just use WHMCS for invoicing clients and manually enter the customer billing information on the server for account management. Reseller hosting takes some development work, business knowledge, and marketing experience to get right, but can be cost-effective and beneficial for web professionals who use these tools to create a web hosting system customized for their own specific client requirements.

Some of the most important features to look for when deciding on the purchase of a reseller web hosting plan are:

  • Web Hosting Product Varieties – shared server storage plans with WHMCS vs. reseller plans that offer dedicated server, VPS, and cloud hosting plans as available products
  • The Cost of TLD Registrations – some registrar services offered on reseller plans include prices for domain names that are higher than those commonly found on the web
  • Inclusion of Software Licenses – a total package including licenses for cPanel, WHMCS, eNom, ClientExcec, and Reseller Club provides the most value for resellers
  • Storage & Data Transfer Limits – the difference on account limits between reseller packages can be a major determinant between companies when signing up for a contract
  • Storefront Publishing Options – a storefront package with pre-populated web hosting and domain registration products saves time in development & increases opportunity
  • Cost of Tiered Upgrade Plans – a comparative review of the upgrade path on different reseller hosting plans can quickly illustrate which companies offer the best deals
  • Quality of Server Hardware – reseller plans used by web development companies for hosting personal clients need to secure the best hardware configurations possible
  • Software Stack Configuration – search for developer-friendly companies with the most innovation in platform features to offer the highest quality services to clients

Web design companies using reseller accounts for client hosting will not only be using the web server hardware for their most important clients, but also using the services personally in development work. Because there is no way to change the quality of services available except by moving to another company for a new reseller hosting account, it makes the most sense to know what the development requirements are in advance and then purchase the reseller plan that one is most comfortable with using on a daily basis. For many developers, it is important to have the option to offer an independent cPanel login to clients so that they can manage their own domains independently. Some resellers may offer platform configurations and hosting products that have substandard features which consequently reflects badly on the white label company when their clients are dissatisfied with the web hosting services provided. Sometimes it can be beneficial to combine two or more companies in a business plan, for example using a shared server reseller plan for managing web hosting accounts for clients with a Reseller Club account used to procure the required dedicated server and VPS plans.

Reseller storefronts make it exceedingly simple to launch a complete white label hosting company, but a lot of time needs to be put into the project to customize the theme, create new sales copy, professional logos, and site graphics. Otherwise, your business will end up with a template site identical to thousands of others on the web with duplicate content and very little web traffic or customers. It is exceedingly difficult to scale a reseller hosting account in a competitive industry when competing against the affiliate advertising campaigns of multi-million dollar companies and lacking any independently owned data center operations. Similarly, it is difficult to make a profit on domain name registrations when the registrar company offers higher prices on TLDs to resellers than the same extensions are available at GoDaddy or NameCheap. It takes some savvy and experimentation to be successful with a reseller hosting account, but one of the tried and tested methods of success is to use the services for the existing customers of a company. This is especially good when web development firms or independent professionals offer both design and maintenance contracts to clients. By providing monthly security upgrades as well as hosting services for CMS websites, small businesses can invoice clients for a complete package on a monthly basis using WHMCS or ClientExec and earn additional profit on every deal.