Six Main Things To Consider When Buying A Reseller Hosting Package

by Abdillahi Abdillahi

Are you ready to start your own web hosting company? The best way to start your own web hosting company is to get a reseller hosting package from a hosting company and start your web hosting company instantly without buying or installing any software. But When buying a reseller hosting package, there are many things to consider. So today this article lists the six main things you should consider before buying any reseller package.

1: Control Panel and WHM(Web Host Manager)
This one is ranked number one I guess. Make sure you get a control panel, Cpanel is the best and widely used control panel for any reseller and non reseller accounts. WHM (Web Host Manger) lets you easily manage your customers and hosting business. It lets you set up, delete, monitor web hosting accounts.

I heard that some companies which offer reseller hosting packages set up accounts for you. You shouldn't go with such companies because You want to manage your customers and Your customers want their own control panel where they can manage their sites.

So you need to make sure that you get Control Panel and WHM with the reseller package you get. Also any account you create should get its own control panel without paying any extra $$$.

2: Private Name Servers and Dedicated IP address.
These two are very important if you want to keep people from knowing the original hosting company. If you don't have a private name server then you will be using the original hosting company's name servers, e.g. ns1.hostingcompany.com and ns2.hostingcompany.

You don't want people to make a who is search and find out about that the original hosting company. In order to hide the original hosting company you must be able to make your own private name servers. Most of the times companies that offer reseller packages give you that but sometimes you need to ask them before making any payment.

Why do you need a dedicated IP address for your site and the sites you are going to host? Well here is the answer. When you get a reseller hosting package, you don't get a dedicated IP address instead you will have to use the shared IP address which the company is using. Even though you can hide them with your private name servers but it will be easy to find them if the IP is resolved.

There are many tools out there that can be used to find out such things, so wouldn't it be better if you were using an IP address that your site and the sites you host will be using instead of the one which the company and millions of their shared hosting customers are using? I'm sure it would be. But getting a dedicated IP address can cost you like $2-$5 per month and as you can see it worths. After all you don't want potential clients to go the the original company so make sure you get those two ready for your new hosting company.

3: Quality Customer Support
Well here comes another important one. Once you start a web hosting company, it can be very stressful. Clients keep opening tickets. So for that reason and many other reasons you will need efficient and friendly support from the company which you are buying the reseller hosting package from. They must be there for you 24/7 to assist you with any questions you may have.

And make sure they don't charge you any $$ for offering support to your customers because Some companies do charge extra $$ for offering great 24/7 support for your customers.

4: Branding
They should allow Cpanel and WHM branding. What is this? Well let me try to explain it. Cpanel and WHM branding is customising them with your own graphics using the branding function in WHM (Web Host Manager). The reason of why this should be considered before buying any reseller hosting package from any hosting company is that you might need to use your own graphics for your cpanel and the cpanel of your accounts so for that reason and many other reasons it is better to make sure whether or not they allow Cpanel and WHM branding.

5: Established Data Center
Well most of the time web hosting companies have well established data center. But still you should check and read their network and data center information, e.g where it is located, security facilities they use, and any other thing that is needed to know about the data center. After all you don't want to host your site and the sites of your customers on a server which is in the living room of someone :)

6: Acceptable Use Policy(AUP) and Terms of Service (TOS)
This one is also important. You must read the AUP and TOS of the company and see if they mention anything about resellers. Sometimes companies providing reseller packages will make you use their AUP and TOS, which means your site and all the other sites that you are going to host will accept that policy. So if you want to set up your own AUP and TOS then being with a company that doesn't allow such thing will be a big problem.

There are many reasons which you should consider this, lets suppose the company which you are going to get the reseller package doesn't allow adult hosting on the server but you want to host adult sites, any site, for just building a great client base so as you can see that policy of not allowing any adult material on the server will lose you many clients and also will make you look for another company.

I think that is one enough reason to read and triple read the policies of any hosting company that you want to get a reseller hosting package from.

Conclusion
There you go, These are the six main things you should consider before buying any reseller hosting package. Now that you know these main things then you should start searching for the best hosting company that will meet your needs and your client's needs.

About the Author:
Abdillahi Abdillahi is a web designer, founder and president of kooshin.com, a company providing affordable web hosting and web design solutions to small to medium sized businesses and individuals. For more information, please visit kooshin.com