When you sell web hosting services as a Hosting Reseller, you need a tool to manage your clients, orders, billing, and payments. While many resellers used generic billing software or spreadsheets to manage these tasks, they have certain limitations affecting the productivity of the reseller. WHMCS or Web Host Manager Complete Solution is a tool designed for a Web Hosting Reseller Business. Today, we will talk about WHMCS and look at the benefits it offers to Web Hosting Resellers.
What is WHMCS?
As the name suggests, a Web Host Manager Complete Solution (WHMCS) is a comprehensive tool offering features that make various tasks easy in the web hosting business. It relies on process automation to save time and increase efficiency.
Here are some benefits offered by WHMCS for hosting resellers:
1. Saves Time
WHMCS automates various processes like billing, payment collection, sending reminders, etc. Hence, when you resell web hosting, you can focus on growing your business and servicing your clients rather than these processes.
2. Billing Process Automation
WHMCS offers a simple interface to automate almost all parts of your billing process. Earlier, resellers had to send invoices themselves and keep track of the payments. In case of delays, they had to send reminders and ensure that all payments were collected in time. With WHMCS, all these tasks can be easily automated. It also allows quick integration with most payment gateways enabling you to automate payment collection too.
3. Secure and Scalable
While WHMCS is highly secure, the developers recommend some additional steps like securing the writeable directories, configuration.php file, moving the Crons directory, restricting access by IP, changing the name of the WHMCS Admin folder, etc., to further boost its security.
4. Offers a wide range of support tools
Since WHMCS is designed for web hosts, it offers a range of support tools like:
- A ticketing system allowing your clients to open tickets (requests/complaints) either through the website or via an email, or both. As the reseller, you can then assign these tickets internally to a specific individual for faster resolution and better tracking.
- A knowledgebase that has frequently asked questions and their answers and some general tips to run and manage a website with ease. Your clients can use this searchable databank before contacting you with queries.
- An announcement system allowing you to automatically inform your clients of any potential downtime or performance lag due to a scheduled server maintenance activity, etc.
5. Customizable
The API and ORM of WHMCS are documented thoroughly and are modular and extensible. Therefore, developers can make changes to the interface and customize them as needed with ease.
6. Integration with leading control panels
WHMCS also integrates seamlessly with leading control panels like cPanel (ideal for Linux Reseller Hosting), Plesk, etc.
Some additional tasks that you can do using WHMCS
- Domain locking and unlocking
- Private name server registration and easy management
- Registering, renewing, and transferring client packages
- Offering add-ons like email, SSL, etc.
- Automatic suspension of client accounts that are overdue beyond a certain point
The following video explains why WHMCS is crucial for the Reseller Hosting business:
Summing Up
As a Hosting Reseller, it is important to remember that you are competing with large hosting companies. Hence, you need a Reseller Hosting plan that offers tools designed to help you maximize your efficiency. WHMCS is one such tool, making client management and billing processes easy and time-efficient.
