[Question] For those hosting clients websites... Shared Hosting vs. Reseller Plans?

Hi TrueLux

You will get a lot of differing opinions on this one, but shared hosting is something to be wary of. It is not as evil as some will try to tell you though, but when it does go bad it goes very bad.

The first issue here is who owns the domains? If you do you are probably ok as far as TOS are concerned. If the client owns the domain you really do need a reseller account or your own private server. Even with a private server you need to check the TOS.

If you get a reseller account I would strongly suggest getting at least a dedicated IP address. You will need that for a SSL certificate if you want one now or later.

You will find using a reseller account also allows you to setup seperate c-panel accounts for each client. This will make things a little simpler for you as far as managing the file backups and handling an individual clients files without the worry of messing up another clients account.

If you have enough clients to cover the expenses, a dedicated server would be best. However, you will need to get into the tech side a little more as far as management of the server. An alternative would be to get a dedicated server with managed hosting. Simple, but expensive.

Rex

Just get yourself a reseller hosting account. It will actually be easy for you to manage. You can automatically bill your clients through the WHMCS in your reseller account.

thanks Rex and Micks!

I'll get on the phone with a rep from HostGator to talk about their reseller accounts. It would suck to have my main site and all clients sites taken down for greed!

As mentioned above, get yourself a reseller account. Should your account get compromised, every addon domain you have is vulnerable. If one of those websites gets a ton of traffic or uses too much resources, your entire account will be suspended, cutting off every website on there. There's no isolation, organization or security there.