White label hosting is a unique web hosting model that allows business owners to sell hosting services to their clients without owning servers or data centers. In this hosting model, you buy/rent bandwidth, hard drive space, and other resources from a standard hosting provider, and then sell them under your brand to clients.
If this sounds like something you would like to try out, you can check out some of the best reseller hosting providers to get started. However, if you still need to know more about white label hosting, keep reading! This article explains how web hosting white label works, its many benefits, and a few disadvantages. Let’s dive in!
Key Highlights
- White label hosting allows business owners to resell web hosting plans under their brand name.
- White label hosting is ideal for online entrepreneurs, freelancers, web development agencies, and new hosting providers.
- With white label hosting you buy generic plans and sell them without much modification, in contrast to Private label hosting.
- White label hosting isn’t capital-intensive and it can be a steady source of revenue.
- Client acquisition and customer support are the major drawbacks of white label hosting.
What is White Label Hosting?
White label hosting is a business model that allows you to buy hosting services from established hosting providers, and resell them to your clients under your brand name.
- Rebrand the hosting services
- Advertise them through your marketing channels as if they were your own
- Sell them at your price.
The internet is one of the most important industries in the world and web hosting is vital to its continued operation. If you are a freelancer, online entrepreneur, or web developer looking to tap into this $83B industry, white label hosting may be perfect for you. White label hosting is also known as white label reseller hosting.
As a web hosting white label retailer, you don’t need to worry about setting up hardware or managing downtime and other technicalities. All you need to do is purchase a reseller hosting package and sell them to your clients for profit. The more perks (customer support, cPanel management) you can offer to your prospective customers, the greater your profit margin.
How does White Label Work?
White label products are goods bought wholesale and resold under the brand name and logo of the purchasing business. White label branding means the manufacturers produce generic products and then grant permission to different retailers to sell under their brand name.
This business model is similar to dropshipping programs and it allows big brands to sell more product units through other channels with less marketing effort. With affiliate marketing, what you are doing is selling a product from a brand and getting a commission after each sale. However, white label branding transfers ‘ownership’ of the product to you and allows you to turn around and resell those products at your price.
For example, Verpex offers White Label reseller hosting. As an online entrepreneur, you can buy the plan in bulk and rent out the web resources to many smaller websites for profit. You don’t need to worry about web architecture, maintenance, and management. You also don’t need to tell your clients that their data centers are provided by Verpex.
You can expect to get these five services when you opt for white label hosting:
Private name servers
Before you purchase any reseller packages for your white label hosting, you should confirm with customer support if they offer private name servers. Private name servers are the most important part of any reseller plan because they allow you to distinguish your brand from the hosting provider.
This whole white label rebranding depends on making the services your own. By default, most hosting providers automatically provide you with private name servers when you sign up for their reseller hosting package.
Billing integration
Running a web hosting business can only be successful if you have a seamless payment system. When you sign up for a reseller hosting package, you get WHM billing software that lets you charge customers and manage payment schedules without hassle.
Seamless scalability
White label hosting is one of the simplest online business models because you can easily scale. If you manage different clients, you can buy up more hosting resources and provide the right value for all of them. You can resell different kinds of hosting that fits your client’s needs without any hassle.
Intuitive control panels for account management
The bulk of your work as a white label hosting reseller is website management. Your clients don’t want to manage their emails, databases, files, and domains and so you do it for them. Reseller packages must come with a simple control panel (preferably cPanel or a custom control panel) that helps you to manage and make backend changes on multiple websites. Depending on your offer, you can also give your client access to their control panel.
Email add-ons and domain integration
Before you pick a reseller hosting provider, you should make sure they allow for free email and domain integration. Many hosting providers allow white label resellers to offer domain names and email add-ons to their clients.
Free website migration
Free website migration is a basic requirement for any hosting provider (including white label resellers). Your hosting provider should include website migration in the reseller hosting packages. This will allow for seamless website migration for your clients.
Free SSL certificates
Most reseller hosting plans come with free SSL certificates. The hosting provider is responsible for the installation and renewal of the certificate.
White Label alternatives – Private hosting
If you are a small hosting provider company looking for something extra, you can try private label hosting.
Private label hosting is when a hosting provider creates an offer/product for a single retailer/white label. Under white label hosting, you buy reseller packages available to everyone else. With private label hosting, your hosting offers are created and designed especially for your business which means greater value for your target market.
Private label hosting allows for greater customization and a distinct difference from the original hosting provider’s plan. Simply put, private label hosting is a more sophisticated, personalized form of white label hosting
Who should opt for White Label Hosting?
Anyone can be a white label hosting reseller. However, if you are in the following line of work, you should consider offering white label hosting to your clients.
- Web development agencies
- Online entrepreneurs
- Freelance web developers/designers
- New web hosting providers
Web development agencies
If you run a web development agency, a white label hosting business is a good way to make extra cash. After developing websites, you can ask your clients to allow you to host them on ‘your’ servers.
Online entrepreneurs
Online entrepreneurs who want to expand their businesses can start selling hosting services. White label hosting allows the silent hosting provider to handle all the technicalities while you focus on finding clients that need hosting services.
Freelance web developers/designers
If you are a freelance web designer or developer with a sizable client base, you can decide to sell hosting services to them. Freelancers often have good personal relationships with their clients and they will be happy to pay you more to host and manage their websites.
New web hosting providers
This category needs white label hosting more than any other. As a new hosting provider without data centers or servers, you can quickly sign up and buy reseller packages from established hosting providers before you eventually get your hardware. If you want to go the extra mile, you can opt for private label hosting and get offers custom-made for you.
Benefits of White Label Reselling Hosting
- Low capital investment
- Steady recurrent source of income
- No need for hardware
- Hosting provider support
- Improved customer relationship
- Brand growth opportunity
- A wider range of services
- Management flexibility
- Price control
Low capital investment
Investing in a white label hosting business requires low capital. Unlike other online businesses, all you have to do is subscribe to a monthly/yearly reseller hosting package. The pricing plans depend on the hosting provider and the type of hosting. However, hosting cost is not the only expense you have to incur. You still need to market your product and that depends entirely on your budget.
Steady recurrent source of income
Once you build a client base, white label hosting can become a steady source of revenue. Even though the income is not passive (white label brands require active management), it is steady and it adds up fast. Online entrepreneurs who can stay consistent and sell products fast will find this business lucrative.
No need for hardware
If you want to be a standard web hosting provider, you need to build data centers and install servers across North America, Asia, and Europe (depending on the target audience). This process is capital intensive and only big pockets can manage such a huge project. For smart online entrepreneurs, white label hosting is the way around this problem. You can own a web hosting brand without buying any servers or setting up hardware.
Hosting provider support
Many hosting providers give adequate support to reseller hosting buyers. Most times, you can reach them through email, live chat, or phone. You can also go through their knowledge base to learn. This will help you offer support to your clients on demand.
Improved customer relationship
Most hosting plans are long-term and customers rarely change good web hosts. When you start providing good hosting services to your clients, they will develop personal loyalty to your brand which means more money in the long term.
Brand growth opportunity
Online entrepreneurs have the most benefit from white label hosting. If you are into web development, you can brand your agency as offering efficient web hosting on top of your core services.
A wider range of services
If you are a web developer offering full-stack development and web design, you can also offer web hosting to your clients. This means you will have a broader range of interconnected services, make more money and create a better brand image.
Management flexibility
Part of the reason for becoming an entrepreneur is the need for freedom and the ability to set your own rules. White label reseller hosting allows you to present yourself the way you want, choose your customers, instill your values in your brand and set your guidelines.
Price control
If you position your brand the right way and add necessary upgrades to your reseller hosting package, you can make as much profit as you want from white label hosting. A white label brand means that you are in control of the prices of your goods. However, you should also carry out effective customer analysis and try to see how you can match value for rate.
Cons of White Label Reselling Hosting
- Client acquisition can be difficult
- Extremely competitive
- Managing multiple websites
- Constant customer support for clients
Client acquisition can be difficult
The most difficult part of white label reselling hosting is getting clients. If you are a small hosting company and you’ve been building a sales funnel and nurturing leads, then you might have an easier time getting clients. However, if you are a newbie, the process is quite difficult – but not impossible.
There are two ways you can get clients for your white label hosting business –
- Inbound marketing – This entails attracting prospective buyers and you can do that through SEO, social media, focus groups, or free courses.
- Outreach – This approach is the most difficult but also the most effective.
Extremely competitive
Online entrepreneurs can smell an opportunity from a mile away and an $83B industry is sure to attract many players. There are a lot of white label hosting platforms and you will need to compete against thousands of businesses for clients. However, there are more people opening websites every day which means an ever-increasing customer pool. If you stay the course and work on your business consistently, you will soon have a large client base.
Managing websites
If you don’t plan to employ a support team, then managing your client websites all by yourself can be a bit difficult. At a certain customer figure, you would have to employ customer assistants or transfer management to the clients. If your system is set up so clients can manage their websites themselves, you lose out on potential profit.
Constant customer support for clients
Even though clients can manage their websites (depending on your offer), they will still need support from time to time. If the servers are down or they have bandwidth issues, they will reach out to you to help solve their problems. This can be very stressful and time-consuming if you don’t have a support team to help out.
You already know everything about white label hosting. If you are ready to become a web hosting white label reseller, you need to follow the following steps:
Steps to Become a White Label Hosting Reseller
Step 1: Choose a web host provider
The first step is to pick the perfect web hosting provider. We already listed some of the features that a hosting provider should include in its reseller hosting package. The more add-ons, the better. You can choose from among the best reseller hosting providers.
Step 2: Selecting the right plan
Most hosting providers offer different types of hosting plans for white labels. You need to select the perfect plan that will fit the clients you hope to serve. If you plan to offer secure web hosting to hospitals, you might need to buy a VPS or dedicated reseller hosting plan.
Step 3: Have a management plan
Management is the main job description for your white label hosting reseller business. You need to manage client needs, schedule payments, and organize support staff (if you have one). You need to draft a clear management process that allows you to solve tasks easily and on time. The cPanel will help you with all website management-related tasks. Learning more about the cPanel will make your job easier.
Step 4: Building your client base
This is the final and most important test. Finding clients is how you build a thriving business and you can do this through cold outreach, social media ads, email marketing, SEO, and any other channel. Find out where your target customers are lurking, join their community through the right channels and grow your business.
Conclusion: Is White Label Hosting right for you?
If you are looking for a really useful service to sell and you have the time and will to build an online business, then white label hosting is absolutely for you. There is no limit to the number of times you can sell and you don’t have to lay out massive capital upfront (You can become a white label reseller with less than $1K).
White label hosting has a lot of advantages as we stated above. However, it also has some drawbacks. The most vital ones are the client acquisition bottleneck and customer support. If you can work your way around these obstacles, welcome to El dorado. Web hosting is an $83B industry and anyone can tap into it through white label reselling.
Next Steps: What now?
- Carry out customer research and make a list of potential customers
- Choose the right reseller hosting provider
- Select the perfect package
- Design your brand logo, and buy a domain
- Design your website with a website builder
- Start marketing (cold outreach is best!)
- Set up customer support and management flow
- Sell and scale
