How to start a web hosting company in 2025

Posted April 5, 2025 by Angus

Reselling is a well known and successful business model that would normally involve purchasing physical products directly from manufacturers, wholesalers, liquidators or even second-hand retailers. This allows the reseller (you) to take advantage of an established product that already sells. Reseller web hosting is unique in a way as it enables you to sell fully white-label hosting services without needing to manage actual servers.

Getting customers through the door of a new business is already difficult, imagine having to set up your own cloud infrastructure as well. This has the potential to be a monumental undertaking with huge set up costs and a deep technical gulf. Which just isn’t suitable for new entrepreneurs hoping to start their new web hosting business. 

As more businesses establish their online presence in 2025, launching a reseller hosting business presents a great opportunity to get start in the web hosting industry.

What is cPanel reseller hosting?

Reseller hosting with cPanel is a simple concept but to get the best return on investment you’ll need to know more about how it works. cPanel is the leading Linux-based web hosting control panel that provides an easy to use gui based interface and comes bundled with features that can enable everything from DNS zone management to email account creation. 

Some of the main benefits include:

• Set up on managed infrastructure – You don’t need to manage physical or even virtual servers, licenses, software and backups. 
• Fully white-label service – You can create your own cPanel sub-accounts with custom packages that have resource limits you set. On a platform that you can put your own branding on, completely separate from us. 

Configuring WHM for your business

We’ve touched on the benefits of using a managed platform for your web hosting company, now it’s time to start thinking about applying some of those benefits to your new reseller hosting account some of the most important to start off with are:

• Effective custom branding. This plays a critical role in building up the initial trust and recognition of your brand within the hosting space. This can start at something as simple as custom WHM branding which lets you change the default look of the cPanel interface introducing your own logos, favicon and you can use a dedicated login URL. This helps you create a seamless, professional experience for your customers by blending in small touches that help establish you as a credible provider.

• Carefully structured hosting packages. Having your own unique hosting packages enables you to cater to the needs of your clients (not ours). Your USP (we’ll touch on that later) will likely be different to ours and to cater to that specific niche you’ll want to design hosting plans that cater to the needs of your clients. Whether that’s personal sites or small business owners setting up your own limits will help provide a clear value proposition through clearly defined tiers. If you’re just starting out it’s wise to not overly restrict your customers or let them run wild so you might want to research our own limits so you don’t overcommit resources

• Custom DNS management. This is another area that will contribute to your overall business image. helping to convey a more technical and professional look. Using custom nameservers that incorporate your brand has the added benefit of increasing your reach. This is through people seeing your brand more often. The nature of our reseller hosting means that email enabling records (SPF, DMARC and DKIM) come pre configured further aiding email deliverability.

Marketing your new web hosting company. 

Getting your marketing right is a life or death matter (for your company anyway). Without a good marketing strategy you’ll struggle to get clients through the door and your new business is as good as dead before it even gets a customer. When it comes to marketing or even direct sales as a web hosting company you’d be best served by starting with the essential – a Website. 

Building your business website

Creating a website can be a challenge but it’s usually necessary as a web hosting company – without a website why would others trust you with theirs? If you’re not particularly technically minded and want a WYSIWYG style editor you are likely best served by using WordPress for your website. 

When thinking about website design you’ll likely want to start off by emulating what others in or around your niche have done, this is the easiest way to take advantage of their experience and apply it for your benefit (without copying them completely). This might look something like this:

1. Install WordPress on your custom domain.
2. Choose a theme that is suited to your needs or design your own. 
3. Construct different pages detailing your features, plans, USP, etc. 
4. Include client reviews and different trust factors for your brand. 

As a note, WordPress is a solid choice but it can be difficult to scale well, so make sure you apply our tips on caching for WordPress.

Integrating WHMCS (Optional)

WHMCs is the leading client billing solution across the web hosting industry, it comes stocked with lots of features that enable client management, billing and support. We have left this as an optional step as WHMCS is more suited to a B2C style company and might not be needed by a fledgling digital agency. With that said, the benefits that a WHMCS license can provide make managing your company a lot easier: 

• Client management – creation, deletion, login, etc.
• Automated billing – support for multiple payment methods. 
• Platform integration – can bolt-in directly with WHM / cPanel. 
• Domain management – can bolt in with domain registrars allowing registration, transfer and automated renewal. 
• Support system – A built-in ticketing system with support for building out a knowledgebase.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

SEO refers to optimisations that can be made to your site which help improve how it is viewed across search engines, the better a site performs the higher its overall visibility and usually traffic. 

More visibility = More organic traffic to the site = More sales 

Getting SEO right can be difficult, especially in a developed space (the Web Hosting industry) where many competitors will have teams of people dedicated to creating content and performing outreach. So it’s best to just start with the basics, get those right and play by the rules and watch as your business gains traction organically. Some ideas to get your started:

Research well performing pages and terms for competitors in your niche, find out what works and what doesn’t. You can use the free version of tools like Ahrefs.com or SEMRush.com. 

• Create blog posts that are relevant to your business, for example you run a design agency focused around the construction industry – focus on topics that are relevant to them this could be a new product or business (as a rough idea). 
• Create guides through your knowledgebase, these could show how to use your service and might pick up traffic that otherwise ended up at your competition.
• Optimise your site content for relevant search terms without overstuffing. 

Want to boost SEO further? 

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

For most new businesses, this is something that might not be suitable. PPC advertising if used correctly can elevate your business quickly. However, this will come at a cost to you and if you’re inexperienced it’s probably best to start out with a small budget and see what works and what doesn’t. Some of the main examples of a PPC campaign would be setup in either GoogleAds or Meta Ads. 

Social Media Marketing

Marketing via social media is similar to SEO (content marketing) in the way that if done right it can make your business very successful. And, for normal posts you don’t have to pay but to get to that level you need to commit a lot of your time and effort into providing content that engages people in your niche. Without adding my own bias for a small business Social media marketing is a no-brainer, you can acquire and engage with potential clients at no cost whilst increasing your overall brand visibility. 

You’ll want to consider which platform is best suited to your niche before commiting though. Reddit, Linkedin, X, Facebook, instagram to name a few are all safe bets when starting out. 

Referrals, networking and direct sales

These time honoured marketing (sales) techniques work by directly building up your rapport with professionals in your niche and can be the simplest way to build up a solid client base. Attending industry events, partnering with web designers and reaching out to businesses with outdated sites could help you grow your business out quickly.

It won’t be easy but it’s effective and by creating these direct relationships it’s likely that you’ll retain their business for longer. 

Categories: Reseller Hosting