Reseller hosting is when you buy a dedicated server or  large web hosting account and you break it apart and sell the smaller hosting portions to others. As a web hosting account owner you can use your allocated bandwidth and hard drive space to host websites for your customers mostly for a profit.

If you’re a newbie in creating websites you first must understand what web hosting is all about. Web hosting is an internet service that allows you or your business accessibility on the World Wide Web for all internet users to see. Web hosts are businesses that supply owned or leased server space and internet connectivity for their clients.

You usually have to go with established hosts to get reseller account as 1 dollar web hosting providers cannot offer these- they are often resellers themselves.

Reseller companies buy server space wholesale and divide the account into several small accounts for sale to others. They usually have their own pricing and service plans and they resell their web hosting services to individuals or companies who wish to build their own websites but are new to the web world. Clients of reseller hosts pay either an annual or monthly fee to ensure that their websites are up or running. Some also provide decent tech support just like the more conventional web hosting companies.

If you’re planning to build your own personal website or a website for your company but you have a limited budget, a reseller hosting plan may just be the right way to start. It usually is cheap, much cheaper than a standard web hosting plan.

Tips for choosing a reseller hosting company

Now that you’re in the market for a reseller web host, who do you choose? What will be the criteria for your choice? With so many reseller companies, most of them offering the same kind of services for the same price, how can you be sure that you’re making the right choice?

Here are some tips:

• Do an extensive research. Look into the pricing as well as the type of services offered by reseller hosting companies and compare.
• Compare the bandwidth, disk space and free reseller tools. Most resellers have an interface that shows information on how much disk space and bandwidth are available for sale.
• Check on the reliability of the company from published comments and reviews on blogs and forums.
• Choose a reseller that will fit your needs. If your business or you only need the bare minimum to run your website, why choose and pay for the best when you might not be using most of the services that you paid for?
•  Search for a reseller that will allow customization of their services.

Analyzing and comparing your options is your best move so that you won’t regret your choice.

Advantages and disadvantages of reseller hosting

Now let’s check out the advantages and disadvantages of choosing a reseller hosting company over the standard web host providers.

First, the advantages:

1. Cost – Resellers usually offer web hosting plans at a reasonable cost for good value.
2. Technical support and response to client’s requests - Usually, resellers are faster to respond to their customers’ need for technical support and request for changes than a large hosting company. Most reseller web hosts have their own admin and support team using a more secure and state-of-the art software than what is being used by a traditional web host.
3. Flexibility – You can choose a package size to meet your needs or downgrade or upgrade it if needed easily.

Next, the disadvantages:

1. Slow loading – Since the hosting server is being shared with others, loading time can be rather slow or may not load at all.
2. Technical support – If the reseller hosting company does not have its own technical support but depends completely on their principal supplier to handle technical issues, technical support can be a problem. This is true especially for technical problems that resellers don’t have access to.