subject: What Is Reseller Hosting? [print this page] Reseller hosting is a form of selling hosting whereby someone acts as a middle man in offering their available disk space and bandwidth to others. There are many different forms of reseller hosting.
Some will simply resell hosting as a way of paying for their own Business Hosting or supplementing their income. When purchasing hosting for their own website they will buy more disk space and bandwidth than they require. They can then resell what they still have available onto others who require it. They can break up the disk space and bandwidth many times and then sell small hosting packages, charging slightly more overall than they paid for the hosting to begin with. This may cover some or all of their hosting costs or even make them a profit.
An example of those who use reseller hosting to their advantage are web design companies. Many web design agencies offer web hosting for the websites they create despite not being experts in the field themselves. They purchase what they need for hosting from a specialist hosting company and divide it amongst their clients charging for the service and making a profit from it. The customers are getting high quality web hosting; the web design company are making money from this, as are the hosting company having sold it onto the web design company to begin with.
It is possible for businesses to earn a significant income from reseller hosting. They will market the hosting themselves and get their own customers, with these customers not having any direct dealing with the web hosting company. The customer will always deal with the reseller and not the hosting company even once they have purchased the hosting.
If there are technical issues with hosting sold by a reseller, the customer will usually contact the reseller, as that is their primary contact. The reseller will then pass this onto the hosting company (as the reseller is their customer) who will resolve the issue. This means that resellers do not require any technical expertise. They are the marketer while the hosting company looks after the technical side.
Some resellers work as agents on behalf of hosting companies. They sell hosting to customers and then receive a commission from the host. When this is the case the customers will normally deal with the hosting company thereafter and not the reseller. The resellers job is purely to bring the customers in while the hosting company deal with everything once the customer has been captured.
Reseller hosting can be a good income stream, either for those who would like to supplement their existing income, or those who wish to make a business purely from this. It can also be a positive for hosting companies, as they have someone who is selling hosting on their behalf.
