How to Start a Reseller Hosting Business as an Agency
A web agency or freelancer can sell hosting under their own brand in two ways: buy a reseller account from a hosting provider, or run their own VPS with a multi-level control panel. The first is simpler and keeps you out of server administration; the second gives you better margins and full control, in exchange for technical responsibility. This guide covers costs, a worked margin example, packages, white label, support and what to look for in a panel.
Why agencies sell hosting
If you build websites, your clients already need hosting. Selling it yourself gives you:
- recurring revenue: a monthly or yearly fee that keeps coming in between projects;
- control: you know which server the site runs on, which PHP version it uses and where the backups are, instead of fighting "the site is slow" tickets on a bargain host you can't touch;
- one relationship: the client has a single contact for the site, renewals and support.
The downside: you become the first call when a site is down or email stops arriving. If you don't want that responsibility, recommend a good host and stop there.
Reseller account or your own VPS?
| Reseller account from a provider | Your own VPS with a panel | |
|---|---|---|
| Who runs the server | The provider (updates, security, hardware) | You |
| Starting cost | Low, often tiered by space or accounts | VPS + panel license |
| Margin | Lower, you pay for the provider's service | Higher as the client base grows |
| Customization | Whatever the provider allows | Full: PHP, caching, backups, email |
| Skills needed | Few | Basic Linux, DNS, email, backups |
| Risk | You depend on the provider | You depend on yourself |
A reseller account makes sense with a handful of clients, if you don't want to do sysadmin work, or while you test whether clients will buy. Your own VPS pays off once you pass a few dozen clients, when you want to guarantee performance (WordPress especially), or when per-account panel fees start to add up.
Costs and margins: a worked example
Take an agency with 40 clients, mostly WordPress sites with a few mailboxes each. The third-party figures below are working assumptions: VPS and storage prices vary a lot between providers, so redo the math with real quotes.
Monthly costs
| Item | Assumed cost |
|---|---|
| VPS with 8 GB RAM and SSD/NVMe storage | €30 |
| S3 storage for off-site backups | €5 |
| Panel license (Koapanel Agency, unlimited sites) | €24.90 |
| SMTP relay for outgoing email (if port 25 is blocked) | €0-15 |
| Total | about €60-75 |
Revenue: 40 clients at €15 a month (€180 a year) is €600 a month.
Gross margin: roughly €525-540 a month. The real cost, though, is your time: updates, monitoring, client requests. At 5 hours a month and €40 an hour, that's €200, bringing the net margin to around €325-340 a month. Still worthwhile, but only if support is organized (more on that below).
Two practical notes:
- leave headroom: a server at 90% is a slow server. Two mid-size VPSes are often better than one huge box at its limit, and a single outage won't take down every client at once;
- the panel matters to the math: from 2026, cPanel Premier costs $69.99 a month for 100 accounts plus $0.49 for each extra account (source). A flat per-server price keeps costs predictable as you grow. If you're on cPanel today, the savings calculator runs the comparison with your own numbers.
White label: what the client sees
Selling "under your brand" means the client sees your name, not the provider's or the software vendor's. Check for:
- your name and logo in the panel and in the emails clients receive;
- your support contacts, not the panel vendor's;
- your own nameservers (for example
ns1.youragency.com) if you manage DNS; - no software plans or checkout pages visible to clients;
- a login URL on your own subdomain (for example
panel.youragency.com).
Packages and limits
A package defines what the client buys. Three or four are usually enough:
| Package | Sites | Space | Databases | For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 1 | 5 GB | 1 | Brochure site |
| Business | 3 | 15 GB | 5 | Small business with several sites |
| Store | 1-2 | 30 GB | 3 | WooCommerce, large catalogs |
A few tips:
- set realistic space limits: "unlimited" invites abuse and makes disk planning impossible;
- decide what happens at the limit: blocking new sites and sending a warning beats taking sites offline;
- offer an upgrade path: a growing client should be able to move up without three emails back and forth;
- email has hidden costs: big mailboxes eat disk and generate tickets. Consider limiting mailboxes per package, or pointing heavy email users to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.
Support is the real job
This is where margins disappear. Put in writing:
- what's included: hosting, backups, HTTPS, server updates. Site maintenance (plugin updates, content changes) is usually not included, so sell it separately;
- response times: for example one business day, with a separate channel for "site down";
- backups and restores: how many copies, for how long, and whether restores on request are included. For off-site backups see the guide on backing up websites to S3;
- security: OS updates, firewall, malware scanning. The guide on securing a web hosting VPS is a good starting point;
- email: the most frequent source of tickets. Get SPF, DKIM and DMARC right from day one (guide).
Legal and billing basics
This isn't legal or tax advice; talk to your accountant and, for contracts, a lawyer. The points not to forget:
- terms of service: term, renewal, cancellation, what happens to data when the contract ends;
- acceptable use policy: no spam, no illegal content, and the right to suspend anyone who breaks the rules;
- data protection: hosting sites and mailboxes means processing data on behalf of clients. Under GDPR you'll usually need a data processing agreement, and a server provider with EU data centers keeps things simpler for European clients;
- billing: charge in advance, ideally yearly, and apply VAT or sales tax as your jurisdiction requires. Decide how to handle non-payment: suspending without deleting is the cleanest option;
Choosing a control panel
To resell hosting, a panel needs at least:
- access levels: administrator, optionally resellers, and clients who only see their own sites;
- packages with limits (sites, space, databases) enforced by the panel, not by hand;
- real white label;
- isolation between sites: a compromised site must not be able to read other sites' files;
- automatic off-site backups;
- migration from common panels, to bring over clients who already have hosting;
- pricing that doesn't explode with the number of accounts.
cPanel/WHM is still the standard: clients know it, there's a huge ecosystem of plugins and billing integrations (WHMCS above all), and plenty of sysadmins know it well. The per-account pricing is the catch, as shown above. For a wider comparison, see the best cPanel alternatives in 2026.
Reselling hosting with Koapanel
Koapanel is a control panel for Ubuntu 24.04 servers built with hosting resellers in mind. It follows the WHM and cPanel model, with three levels (Accounts and roles):
- Administrator: manages the server and every account, creates resellers and packages.
- Reseller: creates and manages their own clients, with their own packages and brand, within a quota.
- User: manages only their own sites (files, databases, cron, SFTP, backups, HTTPS, PHP). Each site runs as its own isolated system user, even between sites of the same account.
If you're an agency with your own VPS, you're the administrator and create clients directly. The reseller level is for giving a partner or another agency a slice of the server, or for a provider giving one to you.
Packages (docs): limit space in GB (files plus databases), number of sites (which is also the number of SFTP logins), databases and allowed PHP versions; 0 means unlimited. At a limit, the panel refuses new sites or databases with a clear message and never touches anything that already exists. Above 90% of the space, both the client and their reseller get an email.
Resellers (docs): the administrator sets a quota of maximum accounts, assignable space and maximum sites. The reseller builds their own packages within that quota, sees only their own clients, and never sees the server, security settings or other resellers.
Brand: name, logo (PNG or SVG) and support contacts, shown to clients in the panel and in their emails. You can also set a link to your own shop for the "Upgrade your package" button, so clients never see Koapanel's plans or checkout. Resellers can have their own branded nameservers too (on-server DNS). One limitation worth knowing: the login page stays neutral, and the brand appears after login.
Support and non-payment (Log in as and suspension): "Log in as" shows you the client's panel with exactly their permissions, and the activity log records who did what on whose behalf. Suspending an account shows a "Site suspended" page and blocks login without touching files, databases or backups; "Reactivate" puts everything back.
What's missing, to be clear: there's no built-in billing module like WHMCS offers for cPanel, so you invoice with your own tools and point the upgrade link at your shop. There's also no Apache, LiteSpeed or CloudLinux: sites run on nginx and PHP-FPM.
On pricing: resellers, packages and white label are in every plan. Commercial use needs a paid plan (Free is for personal sites): Starter €7.90 (10 sites), Pro €14.90 (30 sites), Agency €24.90 (unlimited sites), per server per month, excluding VAT (pricing). To bring over clients who already have hosting, there's migration from cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin or any Linux server over SSH.
Running a hosting company and deploying on many servers? There are wholesale licenses with volume pricing and plans hidden from your customers: see the providers page.
FAQ
How much should I charge clients for hosting?
Start from your costs (server, license, backups, time) and the value you add: backups, HTTPS, fast support and good performance are worth more than a bargain shared plan. Charging yearly in advance cuts down on chasing payments.
Do I have to manage a server myself?
No. With a reseller account from a provider, they run the server. Your own VPS pays off as your client base grows and you want more margin and control.
Can I use Koapanel for free with clients?
No: the Free plan is for personal sites (up to 3). Hosting client sites needs a paid plan, which already includes resellers, packages and white label.
Will my clients see the Koapanel name?
After login they see the reseller's name, logo and contacts, in emails too, and they never see Koapanel's plans or checkout page. The login page itself stays neutral.
Try it before you sell it
The best way to see whether the model works for you is to try it: install Koapanel on a fresh Ubuntu 24.04 VPS following the installation guide, then create a reseller and a couple of test packages. Or open the public demo (admin / demo-admin-2026) and look at the Resellers page. Hosting companies can get in touch through the providers page.