When you first put up your website on the internet, you will need a host who will give you the web space. Shared web hosing is a service you can buy from web hosting companies. Reseller hosting is a plan which allows you a lot of web space, a part of which you can later sell at a profit.
Reseller and shared hosting services have a lot in common and most web hosting companies sell both types of hosting services.
The main difference however is that users under shared hosting plan will have to share server resources with other websites. Reseller accounts have the additional advantage of being able to host accounts other than their own and slap share their allotted resources with these accounts. The hosting company still has command over the server and is liable for maintenance of the server and for keeping the software up to date. They will also give technical support to the reseller and sort our any problems the reseller may encounter.
The majority of internet users who are running either a personal web page or a small business will find that a shared hosting account is sufficient for their needs. However larger business enterprises may find the need to operate on a reseller account because they would be running a good number of web sites. In such as case, a reseller account will help them to cut the expenses of having to procure a separate shared hosting account for every website.
A reseller account allows you to sell hosting and therefore is advantageous if you are planning to get into the web hosting business. You will have the freedom to monitor your customer base and to create, suspend and terminate client accounts. You can do your routine business tasks knowing fully well that your server will be expertly managed by the web hosting company.
A reseller account does save you lots of money since you can get yourself other clients to share your resources across these accounts. There are reseller accounts with enormous bandwidth and disk space that are available at just about $25-$50 a month. This is a real money saver if you are running a number of sites. The host undertakes to provide customer support and technical assistance as part of the hosting plan.
Getting a reseller account can be a major step towards becoming a seller of hosting services yourself. The low priced reseller accounts will help you to concentrate on your main business while simultaneously building additional revenue through reselling accounts. This work has to be gradual; many web site owners have lost potential business and good customers because they waned to do too many things too soon.
However when you resell accounts you may find that people are a bit unconvinced about buying their accounts from a reseller and not the web hosting company. Your buyers will have to approach you for technical support and you may have to call your hosting company if you are not able to solve the issue yourself. A lot of time may elapse before the problem is sorted out but with a good customer service program you can iron out these faults.
A reseller cannot have administrator rights and it can be frustrating if you cannot manipulate the server control panel or the software. The only thing to do is to ask the host for more administrator privileges and hope they will give you the same.