Hey everyone. Doing some research on upgrading my hosting... Been in this game for several years but still a relative amature and I'd appreciate it if someone could explain to me exactly what a reseller hosting package is...?

A reseller account has another level of management software that allows you to create hosting accounts. In cPanel this is called WebHostManager (WHM).

It differs from addon domains in the respect that each domain has its own control panel, username and login. A cPanel with addon domains enabled is just as good for a single user.

A reseller account is required by most hosting companies if you plan to resell space to others. Most require it even if you are just giving an account to a friend. IMO, that is the only valid reason for getting one.

A Reseller account is basically a shared account with Reselling abilities, in the sense that you can create sub accounts under you which will have their own independent control panels. You can access these accounts via a control panel of your own.

So basically, it is a shared account with added abilities.

I think Presh probably expressed it most clearly in non-specific terms (i.e. not in cPanel specific terminology).

I would say (at it's most basic level), it's a hosting account where you can host multiple domains, and can provide separate logins for each domain (or, perhaps group of domains).

There are numerous other considerations as well though - branding is usually an important issue for resellers; the ability to re-brand control panels etc. with their own branding rather than that of their provider. Part of this also involves the nameserver addresses used since these can give the game away (i.e. your customers can find out that you're "just" a reseller rather than a host with your own equipment etc.).

In general I would recommend a managed VPS as a better option for reselling; you have the 24/7 experienced management of your platform (i.e. one benefit of shared environment vs. dedicated server environment), but the enhanced reliability and control (e.g. control panel and other software versions etc.) of a dedicated server.

The downside is that VPS's generally cost slightly more than a reseller account, but if you're serious about it then it's worth it. The upgrade path (which should be important to you) is also usually much smoother with a VPS, although this depends slightly on virtualisation platform and your chosen provider.

As an example, we offer seemless upgrade (doesn't even require a reboot) from our smallest VPS plan, through the range, and onto a dedicated server - not something which you could do from a "reseller" plan.

Resseler Hosting is more something part of commercial terminology than a real class hosting. With a reseller package you just get some branding tools that allow you to sell shared hosting plans to third parties. That's it.

A web host reseller account is a web hosting account that allows you to create hosting packages to sell to your clients. You can also host multiple sites of your own using the disk space allotted to the one hosting account.

Originally Posted by juio

You can also host multiple sites of your own using the disk space allotted to the one hosting account.

Yes, but depending on the platform/host you may also be able to do this with a standard shared hosting plan.

I agree with aeromit that in most cases reseller hosting is nothing more than a marketing term.