TL;DR: Integrate maintenance with your website development services and sales of your website care plans will skyrocket!

“It might sound like an exaggeration but I went from a 0% success rate on closing care plans to a 100% success rate basically overnight … All I did was I simply stopped presenting this as optional … I just put it as a standard part of my process and pricing.”

Corey Dodd, Web designer

Are you ready to take your business and income to the next level?

Great! If you sell website maintenance services (or plan to), then read on to find out how making it a standard part of your business and sales approach will significantly boost your success rates and your income.

We’ll cover the following areas:

• Sell More Web Care Plans & Maintenance Services – The Guaranteed Method
• Make Maintenance Non-Negotiable and Improve Your Results
  • Step 1 – Convince Clients that Maintenance Matters
  • Step 2 – Inform Your Clients of the Risk of Neglecting Maintenance
  • Step 3 – Assume That Clients Will Be on Your Maintenance Plan
• How To Successfully Present Web Care Plans To Clients
  • Develop An Effective Sales Presentation Script
  • Build Website Maintenance Into Your Services
• Sell More Web Care Plans With Total Integration
  • DFY vs DIY WordPress Maintenance Options
  • Handling Client Objections

Sell More Web Care Plans & Maintenance Services – The Guaranteed Method

When you buy a car, you expect to keep it regularly serviced and maintained.

When you own a vehicle, you know that safety and maintenance are not optional.

Owning a digital vehicle is exactly the same.

As an experienced WordPress website developer, you know what can happen to poorly-maintained websites and the importance of keeping sites regularly serviced and maintained.

You know this, but your clients don’t.

Unless your potential clients have experienced their website being hacked or suffered disruptions to their business because of undetected problems, they really don’t know what can happen if they neglect website maintenance.

As an expert and a professional, then, it’s essential to communicate to your potential clients that website maintenance is not optional and explain why and what can (and probably will) happen to their business if they fail to maintain their websites regularly updated, secure, and optimized.

Make Maintenance Non-Negotiable and Improve Your Results

Imagine that every website you build for clients includes website maintenance.

Imagine too, that your clients simply agree and accept this as a necessary part of owning and running their website, much like they do when owning and running a vehicle.

This would significantly impact your bottom line, wouldn’t you agree?

Now, your mind is probably screaming all kinds of objections as you read this.

Let’s just put those on hold for the time being and explore how this approach would and could work for your business and increase your sales success rates.

Step 1 – Convince Clients that Maintenance Matters

The best way to convince someone else is to convince yourself first.

If you need convincing about the need to keep WordPress sites secure, just check out the latest WordPress security stats.

For example:

Sucuri reports that among the sites they have cleaned up:

• Most compromised environments were affected by malicious PHP scripts, .htaccess malware, and remote code execution backdoors.
• 50.58% of all CMS applications were outdated at the point of infection.
• The most commonly detected vulnerable components included out-of-date versions of Contact Form 7 (27.44%), Freemius Library (20.85%), and WooCommerce (14.51%).
• 69.63% of compromised websites were found to have at least one backdoor at the point of remediation.
• SEO spam was detected on 46.76% of all infected websites in 2022.
• 38.5% of all SEO spam infections contained spam doorways to manipulate search rankings. Another 29.3% belonged to unwanted SEO link injections for spammy websites.
• 23.63% of compromised websites contained at least one hack tool.
• Malicious WordPress admin users were found in 32.69% of infected databases.
• 90% of credit card skimmers were found in the form of malicious PHP code, making them impossible to detect with external scanners and highlighting the importance of server-level monitoring.
• The most common infection found during remediation was malicious allow/deny rules in .htaccess files associated with Japanese SEO spam (13.48%)
• 36% of all compromised websites had at least 1 vulnerable plugin or theme present in the environment at the point of remediation.
• Over 1.2 million backdoors removed from infected websites by Sucuri remediation teams in 2022 alone.

WPScan reports a yearly increase in WordPress vulnerabilities with over 51,000 detected plugin vulnerabilities in its database of 150,000+ plugins, and 95% of all vulnerabilities being attributed to plugins.

Additionally, hackers have even started running sophisticated phishing scams to impersonate the WordPress security team where emails are sent to WordPress users asking them to install plugins containing malware on their sites.

If all of the above statistics aren’t enough to convince you that every website you build for clients requires 24/7 protection around the clock, then search out more statistics until you are fully convinced. For example, you can read Patchstack’s State of WordPress Security in 2024 whitepaper.

Step 2 – Inform Clients of the Risk of Neglecting Maintenance

As a professional website developer, it’s vitally important that your clients be properly informed of the risk of neglecting maintenance of their websites, preferably before something happens.

Make it your responsibility to communicate to potential clients that:

• All websites are continually and relentlessly under attack. Keeping a site fully secured and protected is an ongoing battle.
• Attacks on websites can come from anywhere and everywhere at any time … bots, phishing emails, system vulnerabilities, etc.
• Hackers are using increasingly more sophisticated methods to detect vulnerabilities and look for ways to breach site security and cause havoc regardless of a site’s size or importance.
• Site owners who do not perform regular maintenance stand little to no chance against hackers and malicious bot attacks… it’s only a matter of time before they will run into serious problems.

Step 3 – Assume That Clients Will Be on Your Maintenance Plan

You don’t need to hard-sell or force clients to buy maintenance, and you don’t need to use any persuasive, manipulative, or dirty tactics.

Simply assume that every client will be on your maintenance plan…and thank you for it!

If you can conceive this in your mind, you won’t sell yourself short.

Remember, it’s no different than buying a vehicle. If you neglect to regularly service and maintain it, expect to incur more serious and expensive problems later.

So … how do you introduce website maintenance to potential clients without making it a “hard sell?”

First, read our guide for successful client briefings. It shows you how to conduct a thorough needs analysis of your client’s business and gather all the information you need to effectively assess and evaluate your client’s needs, wants, capabilities, and budget.

If your prospective client clearly lacks the capabilities to carry out their own website maintenance, just assume that you will provide them with this service.

How To Successfully Present Web Care Plans To Clients

If you don’t currently sell web services that include maintenance, then consider introducing this earlier in your sales approach.

Your closing rate for selling web care plans will increase significantly if you effectively communicate the following to your potential clients:

1. The necessity, importance, and value of your maintenance services,
2. How much time, effort, and know-how it would take for them to learn how to perform these services themselves,
3. How outsourcing these services to you will eliminate all the hassle and headaches, and save them time and money.

Let’s look at how to do this.

Develop An Effective Sales Approach

However you present solutions to potential clients (e.g. emails, video conferencing, face-to-face meetings, etc.) it’s important to introduce your maintenance services early on in your sales process, so that they are fully aware of it and see this as part of your solution.

Here’s the approach we suggest:

1. Briefly introduce website maintenance as an integral part of your services when communicating your solution.
2. Include analogies and metaphors to help clients understand the importance of website maintenance.
3. Have supporting materials to back up your claims.

Let’s go briefly over each of the above points.

1 – Introduce Website Maintenance at the Beginning of Your Communications

However you choose to present your website development services to potential clients is not the focus of this guide. What’s important is that you communicate to potential clients that website maintenance is not an add-on, but an integral part of your website development services.

For example, here is a script you can adapt and use to communicate this in a face-to-face meeting, video conference, or email:

Initial Script

“We have reviewed your information and put together an effective solution that we believe will best address your needs and your budget.

Before we discuss the proposal further, please understand that your website will become a 24/7 target for hackers and malicious attacks as soon as it goes live. Sophisticated crime syndicates around the world target all websites regardless of their size using automated bots.

Owning a website is like owning a car. If you don’t keep it regularly serviced and maintained, it will eventually break down and cause bigger and more expensive problems later.

Unfortunately, this is the reality of having an online presence. Here at [YOURCOMPANY], we take this seriously, so, along with our proposed solution for developing your website, we have included important information about what kinds of problems you can expect to deal with if you don’t keep your site regularly updated and secure. We have also included details of a website care plan that fits your overall budget.

As you will see from the proposal, we’ll not only build you a secure website in a secure hosting environment, we’ll then keep it secure, protected, and optimized for the first 12 months, to ensure that nothing disrupts your business. We will proactively update, monitor, and fix all issues on your site, and keep you informed of everything we do with comprehensive reports (see attached sample).”

As you can see, there is no hard selling going on. By including the above information with your proposed solution, you not only communicate to potential clients that you are a professional, but that you also care about the safety, security, and long-term success of their business.

This simple step can help you secure an additional recurring income for many years to come.

The above script states that you will include information about what kinds of problems your potential clients can expect to deal with if they don’t keep their site regularly maintained and secure, an overview of your website maintenance services, and a solution that will fit their budget, so let’s look at how to do this.

Website Maintenance Services Script

We recommend adapting a script like the example shown below to your proposal or presentation. It explains to your potential clients the importance, value, and necessity of performing regular website maintenance and why they should hire your services to make sure it will get done:

“As stated in our proposal, our website development services include looking after your site once your site is built. This section explains the necessity, importance, and value of performing regular website maintenance, and how we proactively ensure that your site remains up-to-date, secure, and fully optimized at all times.

“The necessity of maintenance: WordPress sites are frequent targets for hackers due to their popularity. Regular security reviews and updates are crucial to protect your site from vulnerabilities. Additionally, a well-maintained website loads faster and provides a better user experience, which is essential for retaining visitors and improving your search engine rankings.

“Why maintenance is important: Your website is a critical asset for your business and the primary gateway for your customers. Regular maintenance will ensure that your site remains secure, up-to-date, and performing at its best. This includes updating all of the software, managing security, and performing regular backups to safeguard your data.

“The value of using our professional maintenance services: You will have access to our expert website maintenance and troubleshooting knowledge and years of experience proactively monitoring and addressing any potential issues before they become major problems, saving you time and reducing downtime. We’ll keep your site running smoothly and problem-free 24/7, leaving you free to focus on your core business activities with peace of mind.

Here are the services we will perform on your site to keep it running at its best and the solution we propose to fit your budget: [INCLUDE LIST OF SERVICES]…”

2 – Include Analogies and Metaphors To Make Website Maintenance Easier To Understand

Including the following analogies and metaphors into your presentation or proposal will help potential clients understand the value and importance of signing onto your web care plans for a healthy, secure, and high-performing website:

“Maintaining a website is much like maintaining a car. Imagine if you never changed the oil or checked the brakes. Eventually, it would break down. Similarly, our regular updates and checks keep your website running smoothly and prevent costly breakdowns.”

“Think of our service as a top-tier home security system. It continuously monitors your website, safeguarding it from hackers and malware just as an alarm system protects your home.”

“Maintaining a website is like tending a garden. Without regular care and attention, it can become overgrown and unappealing. We ensure your website remains vibrant and healthy, much like a well-kept garden.”

“Our service is like a health check-up for your website. Regular assessments help us catch and fix potential issues before they become serious problems, just like visiting a doctor for routine health checks.”

“Consider our plan an insurance policy for your website. It offers peace of mind knowing that if anything goes wrong, you’re covered and your website will be promptly restored.”

“Just as a building needs a strong foundation to remain stable, your website requires regular maintenance to ensure its foundation remains solid and reliable.”

“Imagine never cleaning your house. Over time, dust and clutter would accumulate, making it unlivable. Similarly, without regular maintenance, your website can become slow and prone to serious issues.”

“Think of our plan as a personal fitness trainer for your website. We keep it in peak condition, ensuring it performs efficiently and remains in excellent health.”

3 – Have Supporting Materials To Back You Up

Generate a client report from The Hub and use it to present your maintenance services to potential clients.

Use the report with the sample scripts in your proposal, presentation, web copy, or any other method used to promote your services.

Website Security

Imagine your website as a storefront; you wouldn’t want to leave it unlocked at night, would you?

Our website security and software update service acts like a guard patrolling your premises 24/7, offering continuous protection against the relentless threat of automated bots and hackers. By consistently monitoring, updating, and interpreting security data, we ensure your site remains secure, up-to-date, and fully protected against potential disruptions.

The benefits of our website security services include:

• Constant Protection: Your WordPress site is under constant threat from multiple bots every hour, round the clock, 24/7/365. Our service ensures your site is protected at all times.
• Automated Defense: Bots relentlessly attempt to hack websites, regardless of size or importance. With our service, your site is defended against these automated attacks every minute of the day.
• Comprehensive Monitoring: Hackers explore every possible vulnerability. We consistently monitor your security, run scans, review logs, and update software components to stay ahead of threats.
• Proactive Updates: Just one outdated plugin with a known vulnerability can cause massive disruptions or damage to your site and business reputation. We ensure all your software, plugins, and themes are always up-to-date.
• 24/7 Security: Our service includes 24/7 monitoring to detect vulnerabilities, malware, and prevent hacking attempts, providing you peace of mind.
• Expert Installation and Configuration: We install and configure the best security solutions tailored to your site, ensuring optimal protection.
• Data Interpretation and Troubleshooting: Security data needs expert interpretation. Our team analyzes data and troubleshoots issues to prevent compromises, keeping your site secure.

Our proactive approach enhances your website’s security, protects sensitive data, and maintains customer trust.

Website Backups

Performing regular and consistent site backups is like having an insurance policy for your data. Backups ensure that your website’s information is safe and can be quickly restored in case of data loss or a cyberattack. This also minimizes downtime and prevents the loss of crucial information, keeping your business operations smooth and uninterrupted. Think of it as a safety net for your digital assets.

The benefits of our website backup service include:

• Daily (or Hourly) Backups: Ensure your website data is always safe with regular backups. You can choose daily or even hourly backups based on your needs.
• Pre-Maintenance Backups: We perform backups before any maintenance activities, such as updating plugins or fixing issues, to safeguard against unexpected problems.
• Instant Restoration: In case of any issues, our service allows for immediate restoration of your site, ensuring no data is lost and minimizing downtime.
• Peace of Mind: With our backup services, you can focus on your business without worrying about data loss or site disruptions.

We’ll ensure your website is always secure and your data is never lost.

Website Optimization Service

Optimizing your website improves loading times, enhances user experience, and boosts search engine rankings. A faster, more efficient site keeps visitors engaged and increases conversion rates, directly impacting your bottom line. Just as a clean and organized store attracts more customers, a well-optimized website ensures a great experience for your visitors.

The benefits of our website optimization services include:

• Enhanced User Experience: Fast loading pages improve user satisfaction and engagement, leading to lower bounce rates and higher conversion rates.
• Improved SEO Rankings: Optimized site speed boosts your search engine rankings, making it easier for potential customers to find you online.
• Increased Traffic: Better search engine visibility and a superior user experience attract more visitors to your site.
• Regular Maintenance: As part of our service, we continuously optimize your site to keep it performing at its best, ensuring long-term benefits.
• Competitive Advantage: A well-optimized website gives you an edge over competitors with slower, less efficient sites.

Our website optimization service ensures fast loading pages, improved user experience, better search engine indexing, increased traffic, regular maintenance, and a competitive edge, driving your business to greater success.

Uptime Monitoring

Our website uptime monitoring services ensure your site is always online, handles issues instantly, and proactively maintains site availability 24/7.

The benefits of our website uptime monitoring services include:

• 24/7 Monitoring: Your site will always be up and running, even while you sleep, ensuring continuous availability.
• Instant Issue Alerts: We receive instant alerts if any problems arise and address them immediately, even if it’s at 3am.
• Proactive Problem Solving: Our proactive monitoring keeps your site error-free and consistently available online 24/7.

Tip: If you don’t want to fix your clients’ problems at 3 am, just use our expert services instead. We’ll handle it all for you (while you and your clients get a great night’s sleep!)

Fixing Broken Links

Having broken links on your site can seriously impact user experience, search rankings, and even your business reputation.

The benefits of our website link checking services include:

• Enhance User Experience: Fixing broken links ensures seamless navigation, making it easier for your visitors to find what they need. This keeps users engaged and reduces frustration.
• Improve SEO: Regularly checking and fixing broken links positively impacts your site’s SEO, helping to maintain and improve your search engine ranking.
• Boost Site Credibility: Broken links can harm your website’s credibility. By fixing them, you show that your site is actively monitored and maintained.
• Prevent User Drop-off: Imagine navigating a store where aisles are blocked; it’s frustrating and likely to drive customers away. Fixing broken links prevents this issue on your website, keeping visitors on your site longer.
• Proactive Maintenance: We will check and repair broken links on your site regularly, ensuring your site remains functional and user-friendly.

Additional Services

In addition to the above, include services like SEO, content writing, site performance reviews, etc.

End your maintenance services proposal or sales presentation with a statement that reinforces how the services will save your clients time and money.

For example:

Our comprehensive and proactive website maintenance services ensure your site remains secure, fast, and up-to-date all the time.

By letting us take care of your site, you can focus on growing your business with peace of mind. We’ll keep your website safe and running at its best to eliminate problems, reduce your costs, and provide an optimal online experience for your users and search engines.

Build Website Maintenance Into Your Services

The last step in this approach is to integrate website maintenance with your website building services.

There are a number of ways you can do this. For example, you can:

1. Include an initial period of website maintenance with your website development services.
2. Offer different care plans to suit different businesses and budgets.
3. Make subscribing to your web care plans cheaper as a preventative option.

Let’s briefly explore each of these options:

Include An Initial Period Of Website Maintenance With New Site Builds

Offer to include website maintenance for a period of time (e.g. 6 or 12 months) with every new website. This allows the client to fully experience the value of your service and to hopefully depend on it.

After the expiration period, you can present your client with different renewal options (e.g. auto-renew every 6, 12, 18 or 24 months).

The benefits of this approach include:

• Affordability: Adding 3 or 6 months of website maintenance to your total web development price could be enough for clients on a small budget to experience and renew the service after their initial period expires.
• Flexibility:  You can create different service periods with different pricing options (e.g. pay monthly or annually, buy 24 months of maintenance get 2 months free, etc.) and include this option for different plans (see below)

Offer Different Care Plans

Offer different care plans to accommodate different business types and needs.

As explained in our Website Care and Maintenance Guide, our reseller services lets you configure different web care packages and display these on your site with custom pricing tables.

Make Subscribing Cheaper As A Preventative Option

Think of this as business insurance for your clients.

Calculate your service and labor costs, and increase your pricing for clients who are not on your care plan(s).

Let your prospects know that if they are on your maintenance plan and something were to happen to their site:

1. Their subscription will cover everything listed in their package.
2. If any additional work is required, you will invoice them for services or labor not covered by the plan (tip: offer to charge the discounted rate for the additional work if they upgrade to the next level plan).

Sell More Web Care Plans With Total Integration

For this approach to be truly effective, make sure that all of your sales, marketing, and promotional communications are consistent:

• Publish articles on your blog to educate potential clients on why they should hire you to build and maintain their sites.
• Build an FAQ section on your site.
• Add testimonials from happy clients that have experienced the benefits of your integrated services.

DFY vs DIY WordPress Maintenance Options

Let’s suppose a client comes to you for website development. You pitch them on how you will build and maintain their sites, and they decide that they only want website development for now, citing budget constraints, etc.

Before offering web development and website maintenance as completely separate services, we’d like to suggest one more thing you can do to help your clients understand the value and necessity of using your website maintenance services, and give yourself another opportunity to increase sales of your web care plans:

Give them a guide that shows them how to perform all of the maintenance themselves.

What??? Why would you do this?

Here’s the strategy behind this method:

1. Build Trust: Your clients will see that you truly care about the long-term success of their business and that you stand by your belief in the importance of website maintenance.
2. DIY is Hard: Most businesses are too busy to perform a complete website maintenance routine themselves or to spend time learning how to do it. When your clients attempt to follow the instructions in your guide, they will realize that website maintenance is far more complex and time-consuming than they had imagined.
3. They Choose Your Solution: Clients will appreciate how much work, skills, and expertise is required to maintain their website (especially when they run into problems). This will help them value your services and appreciate your professionalism, care, and transparency.

Do the above, and when your clients are ready to commit to maintaining their sites, you will be their first and obvious choice.

So, if a client declines to take up your maintenance services, simply say something like:

That’s ok, I completely understand that you aren’t able to commit to our maintenance service right now because of [insert client’s reason here].

As we explained, it’s really important to keep your website updated, secure, and optimized, and we take this seriously. So, after we build your website, I’m going to give you a comprehensive guide with checklists and detailed step-by-step instructions that show you how to perform all of the maintenance steps yourself. This way, you can keep your site completely safe and secure, and if you need any help, just reach out and let us know.

You can create your own guide, search for resources on the web, or download this free and comprehensive WordPress site maintenance tutorial as a PDF.

After building and delivering the website, send them the guide and ask them how things are going when you have your next follow up meeting.

You will find that many clients will ask you to take over their site maintenance, especially after attempting to do it themselves, or experiencing difficulties.

Website Care Plans – Handling Client Objections

Having the conviction that website maintenance is not an option but a necessity of owning a website is not enough.

It’s also important to be prepared for any objections or concerns potential clients may have about using your maintenance services.

To help you do this, we’ve created a useful and practical guide on how to handle client objections and concerns using AI tools here: Can AI Help You Sell More WordPress Services? WPMU DEV AI Assistant vs ChatGPT

WPMU DEV Gives You Everything You Need to Succeed

If you are a WPMU DEV member, you already have everything you need to start profiting from selling WordPress maintenance services to clients, right from the starting gate.

We give you a complete web development and WordPress site maintenance “business in a box,” so you can sell more web care plans and maintenance services effectively to your clients, grow your business, and boost your recurring income.

In our Website Care and Maintenance Guide, we explain:

• What types of maintenance services you can offer to your clients.
• Why offering maintenance services can be a profitable source of monthly recurring revenue for your business.
• How to set up website care plans and maintenance service packages under your own brand with WPMU DEV.

We also provide a WordPress Maintenance Checklist so you have a starting template to work with and develop your services.

We even show you step-by-step how to resell our complete suite of web services and how to set up a white label client portal so your clients will only ever deal with you while we do all the heavy lifting in the background.

And that’s not even scratching the surface of all we offer.

We also:

• Develop, maintain, and include every plugin you need for optimal site maintenance (e.g. security, site optimization, image optimization, SEO, etc.),
• Provide you with essential maintenance services like automation, backups, analytics, and reporting,
• Include time-saving maintenance tools for 24/7 site monitoring and broken link checking,
• Provide free assisted migration services so your clients can switch over to your services with little to no disruptions, and
• Make everything accessible from one central command center that lets you manage and maintain unlimited client sites.

Additionally, with integrated hosting, firewalls, email, domains, dns management, client billing, and our “hands-free” done-for-you expert services for handling your client’s uptime monitoring, malware removal, site optimization (and whitelabel expert client support coming soon!), you could even say that we have built the “ultimate” all-in-one website care and maintenance platform.

We hope you have found this guide on how to better communicate the value and necessity of your maintenance services useful. Make your maintenance services non-optional and watch the sales of your web care plans skyrocket.

Not a WPMU DEV member yet? Our Agency membership includes everything you need to grow your WordPress business and take it to the next level.

It’s no secret that more businesses are now turning to AI-powered tools like ChatGPT to assist with their sales and marketing. You’re probably using AI tools yourself to craft emails and product descriptions, generate headlines and article outlines, etc.

We’ve previously written about how we think AI will affect the WordPress industry and listed a number of incredible AI design tools for WordPress.

But…

What about using AI as a tool to help you sell more WordPress services?

Objections from potential clients contain a hidden treasure of opportunities to sell WordPress services. They offer valuable insights into the client’s perspective and needs.

If you are a WordPress agency, developer, or freelancer selling web services, learning to address objections effectively can transform a potential client’s hesitancy into trust and a long-term commitment to using your services.

So, we set out to test both ChatGPT and our own AI Search Assistant to see how each tool handles objections that potential clients may raise when you present them with your services.

In this article, we’ll show you our test results, and provide a guide to mastering handling client objections and concerns using AI tools.

By the time you are done reading this, you will have a new secret weapon to help you improve your sales conversions and gain more clients.

We’ll cover the following:

• WPMU DEV AI Search Assistant vs ChatGPT
  • Test #1: Email Migration
  • Test #2: Maintenance Costs
  • Test #3: Plugin Conflicts
  • Test #4: Malware Removal
  • Results
• AI Search Assistant = Your New Sales Assistant

Additionally, see our comprehensive guide on How to Sell More Website Care Plans and Maximize Your Recurring Revenue for our recommended strategy on presenting maintenance services to potential clients.

WPMU DEV AI Search Assistant vs ChatGPT

ChatGPT needs no introduction, so we’ll just state that we wanted to see how the tool would handle different kinds of objections and concerns potential clients may raise to your web services.

We also wanted to see how it compares to our own AI Search Assistant tool, which has been trained on our comprehensive documentation section and blog articles related to our products.

These are the simple prompts we used to test both tools:

• “We provide WordPress services. A client has provided the following objection: “I’m worried about migrating my existing emails to your service.” How should we address the client’s objection?”
• “We provide WordPress website maintenance services. A client has provided the following objection: “We don’t have the budget right now.” How should we address the client’s objection?”
• “A client has provided the following objection: “I’m worried installing new plugins on my site might cause conflicts or issues.” How should we address the client’s objection?”
• “A client has provided the following objection: “I’ve tried malware removal services before, and they didn’t help much.” How should we address the client’s objection?”

And here are the results we obtained for each of the above prompts, presented word-for-word as given by each tool…

Test #1: Email Migration

“We provide WordPress services. A client has provided the following objection: “I’m worried about migrating my existing emails to your service.” How should we address the client’s objection?”

WPMU DEV AI Search Assistant

To address your client’s concern about migrating their existing emails to WPMU DEV’s Webmail service, you can reassure them by highlighting the following points:

Ease of Migration: Explain that WPMU DEV’s Webmail service is designed to be user-friendly and supports IMAP, which allows for easy synchronization and migration of emails from their current email provider.

Support and Resources: Let them know that WPMU DEV provides comprehensive support and resources to assist with the migration process. This includes detailed guides and access to a support team that can help troubleshoot any issues that may arise during the migration.

Security and Reliability: Emphasize the robust security features of WPMU DEV’s Webmail, including SSL encryption, spam and virus protection, and secure storage. This ensures that their emails will be safely and securely migrated and stored.

Professional Management: Highlight that WPMU DEV’s Webmail service is professionally managed, which means they won’t have to worry about the technical complexities of running their own email server.

Client Testimonials: Share testimonials or case studies from other clients who have successfully migrated their emails to WPMU DEV’s Webmail service. This can provide reassurance and build confidence in the service.

Here’s a sample response you could use:

Dear [Client Name],

Thank you for expressing your concern about migrating your existing emails to our service. We understand that email migration can seem daunting, but we are here to make the process as smooth and seamless as possible for you.

Ease of Migration: Our Webmail service supports IMAP, which allows for straightforward synchronization and migration of your existing emails from your current provider.

Support and Resources: We offer comprehensive support and detailed guides to assist you throughout the migration process. Our support team is also available to help troubleshoot any issues that may arise.

Security and Reliability: Your emails will be securely migrated and stored with our robust security features, including SSL encryption, spam and virus protection, and secure storage.

Professional Management: With our professionally managed Webmail service, you won’t have to worry about the technical complexities of running your own email server.

Client Testimonials: Many of our clients have successfully migrated their emails to our service and have been very satisfied with the results. We would be happy to share their experiences with you.

We are committed to ensuring a smooth transition for you and are here to support you every step of the way. Please let us know if you have any further questions or if there is anything else we can do to assist you.

Best regards,

[Your Name]
[Your Position]
[Your Contact Information]

For more information on our Webmail service, you can visit this link.

If you need further assistance, please feel free to contact our support team.

This response addresses the client’s concerns while providing reassurance and highlighting the benefits of using WPMU DEV’s Webmail service.

ChatGPT

Test #2: Maintenance Costs

We provide WordPress website maintenance services. A client has provided the following objection: “We don’t have the budget right now.” How should we address the client’s objection?

WPMU DEV AI Search Assistant

Addressing a client’s budget objection effectively involves highlighting the value and potential cost savings of your services. Here’s a suggested response:

Thank you for sharing your concern about the budget. I completely understand that managing expenses is crucial for any business. However, investing in professional WordPress maintenance can actually save you money in the long run by preventing costly issues and ensuring your site runs smoothly.

Here are a few points to consider:

Proactive Monitoring: For just $9 per month per site, our Proactive Monitoring service ensures your site is always up and running. We monitor your site 24/7 and fix any issues immediately, preventing potential downtime that could affect your business.

Site Speed Optimization: A faster website not only improves user experience but also boosts your SEO rankings. Our one-time Site Speed Optimization service, priced at $399, can help achieve Google PageSpeed scores of 90+ on desktop and 75+ on mobile, which can lead to increased traffic and conversions.

Malware Removal: Security breaches can be extremely costly and damaging to your reputation. Our Malware Removal service, available for a one-time fee of $250, ensures your site is clean and secure, protecting you from potential losses due to hacks or malware.

By investing in these services, you can avoid unexpected costs and focus on growing your business. Additionally, you can resell these services to your clients with a markup, creating an additional revenue stream for your business.

If you’d like to discuss this further or explore flexible payment options, please let me know. I’m here to help you find the best solution for your needs.

For more details on our services, you can visit our Expert Services page.

This approach emphasizes the long-term benefits and potential cost savings of professional maintenance services, making it easier for the client to see the value in investing now.

ChatGPT

Test #3: Plugin Conflicts

A client has provided the following objection: “I’m worried installing new plugins on my site might cause conflicts or issues.” How should we address the client’s objection?

WPMU DEV AI Search Assistant

It’s understandable to have concerns about installing new plugins on your site. Here are a few points to address this objection:

Quality Assurance: WPMU DEV plugins are thoroughly tested to ensure they work seamlessly with WordPress and other popular plugins. This minimizes the risk of conflicts.

Support: Our support team is available 24/7 to help resolve any issues that might arise. If you encounter any conflicts or problems, you can reach out to us for assistance.

Backup and Restore: Before installing new plugins, it’s always a good practice to back up your site. This way, if anything goes wrong, you can easily restore your site to its previous state.

Temporary Administrator Account: As part of our service, we may create a temporary administrator account to handle the installation and configuration of new plugins. This ensures that the process is managed by professionals who can quickly address any issues.

Optimization Report: After performing any optimization or installation, we provide a full report including pre and post-optimization results. This helps you understand the impact of the changes made.

Revert Options: Many of our plugins, like Defender, offer options to revert changes if needed. This allows you to undo any tweaks that might not work well with your site.

For more detailed information, you can refer to our Terms of Service and Defender Security Plugin Usage Documentation.

If you have any further questions or concerns, feel free to get in touch with our support team. We’re here to help!

ChatGPT

Test #4: Malware Removal

A client has provided the following objection: “I’ve tried malware removal services before, and they didn’t help much.” How should we address the client’s objection?

WPMU DEV AI Search Assistant

To address the client’s objection about previous unsatisfactory experiences with malware removal services, you can highlight the unique benefits and thorough approach of WPMU DEV’s Malware Removal service. Here’s a suggested response:

I understand your concerns about previous malware removal services not meeting your expectations. At WPMU DEV, we take a comprehensive and meticulous approach to ensure your site is thoroughly cleaned and secured. Here are some key points that set our service apart:

Expert Team: Our dedicated team of experts specializes in malware removal and security hardening, ensuring that your site is in capable hands.

Thorough Cleanup Process: We reinstall all free plugins and WordPress core files to ensure no malicious code remains. For pro-licensed plugins, we work with you to ensure they are up-to-date and secure.

Backup and Security Configuration: Whenever possible, we perform a backup before starting the cleanup. After the cleanup, we configure the WPMU DEV Defender plugin to enhance your site’s security.

Detailed Reporting: At the end of the service, we provide a full report with relevant information and any additional steps you may need to take, such as updating outdated plugins with known vulnerabilities.

7-Day Guarantee: We offer a 7-day guarantee on our malware removal service. If any issues arise within this period, we will fix them at no additional cost.

Proactive Monitoring Option: For added peace of mind, you can opt for our Proactive Monitoring service, where our team monitors your site 24/7 and addresses any issues immediately.

For more details on our services, you can visit our Expert Services page.

We are confident that our comprehensive approach will provide the results you need. If you have any further questions or would like to proceed, please let us know.

By emphasizing the thoroughness of WPMU DEV’s process and the additional security measures taken, you can reassure the client that their site will be in good hands.

ChatGPT

Results

As you can see from the above tests, using basic prompts to generate the responses, ChatGPT’s has provided reasonable answers, if somewhat generic, while WPMU DEV’s AI Search Assistant is more specific and tailored to the services we provide.

With the first test, for example, AI Search Assistant even generated an email response that you could easily cut and paste, quickly edit, and promptly send to clients to address any questions, concerns, or objections they may have.

If you are reselling our services as a WPMU DEV White Label Reseller, simply modify the responses to suit your needs, and remember to change information like pricing, plugin names, company name, links, etc.

AI Search Assistant = Your New Sales Assistant

We hope these simple tests have shown you that our AI Search Assistant can be more than just a great support tool for getting your questions answered.

With a little experimentation, you will find that it can also be a very useful sales training tool. Use the tool to help you build your own internal sales manual, generate content for proposals, presentations, emails, or web copy, and a whole lot more.

Note: While AI Search Assistant is a support tool trained to know our products, it is not an alternative to searching for information about wider topics on paid OpenAI models like ChatGPT.

AI Search Assistant is available to all WPMU DEV members. You’ll find it in The Hub by clicking on the Support tab.

We hope you have found this information practical and useful. Incorporate this time-saving method to help you overcome objections and concerns from prospective clients about your services into your sales process and use our AI Assistant tool (and tools like ChatGPT), and watch your business flourish.

Sell More Web Services with WPMU DEV

Not a WPMU DEV member yet? Our white label Reseller platform provides everything you need to succeed as a WordPress services provider. Easily resell web services like premium managed WordPress hosting, domains, business emails, and a full suite of professional web services (security, site optimization, SEO, backups, etc.) under your own brand.

We also provide everything to help switch clients over to your services with little to no disruptions … unlimited site management tools, client billing, ticket support, a branded client portal, assisted migrations, and a whole lot more!

All of this is available with an Agency membership.

If you have any questions about reselling our services or how we can help you become a more effective WordPress service provider, contact our expert and helpful 24/7 support team or see our Reseller documentation.

Save time creating forms with Forminator’s Preset and Cloud Templates.

Forminator now lets you easily create professional forms to suit all kinds of purposes in just a few clicks.

Simply select the type of form you’d like to create from the template gallery, customize it to suit your needs, copy and paste the shortcode where you would like to display your form, and voilá — the task is done … next!

In this short and practical tutorial, we’ll cover the following:

• Forminator’s Preset and Cloud Templates
  • The Template Gallery
  • How to Create A Form Using a Template
  • Saving Your Own Templates

And we’ll also explore:

• Additional New Forminator Features
  • Rating Field
  • Select Field – New Multi Select Style

Let’s jump right in…

Forminator’s Preset and Cloud Templates

From Forminator v. 1.32 onward,  you can easily create forms for different purposes using 27 pre-designed templates (more templates coming soon!).

You can also create custom form templates, save it to the cloud, and reuse these on any site that you manage via the Hub.

The Template Gallery

To access Forminator’s templates, click on the new Templates submenu in the plugin’s menu.

This brings you to the Templates section, where you can preview all templates, create new forms using any selected template, and create, save, and manage your own custom Cloud templates.

In addition to viewing and selecting templates, you can use the section’s tabs, search, and filter features to quickly locate a form template and speed up the form creation process.

The Templates section is divided into two main sections:

• Preset Templates: Here, you’ll find a well-organized collection of predesigned templates created by WPMU DEV’s Forminator team. You can filter the templates by clicking on any Category name or explore the entire range. Additionally, the smart Search field allows you to find templates quickly.
• Cloud Templates: In this section, you will find all the custom templates you’ve created from forms across all sites linked to your Hub. These templates can be used to build forms on the same site or any other site connected to your Hub.

The following basic templates are included for both Forminator free and Forminator Pro plugin versions:

• Blank – Use this template to create a form from scratch without any pre-set fields.
• Contact Form – Use this template to collect user information such as name, email, subject, and message.
• Quote Request – Customers can use a form created with this template to ask for quotes on products or services.
• Newsletter Signup – Users can subscribe to newsletters using a form created with this template.
• Registration – Use this versatile template to create registration forms suitable for events, services, or websites.
• Login – Use this template to create a typical login form for returning users with fields for username or email and password, along with links for account recovery or registration.
• Create Post – Use this template to easily create frontend forms tailored for user-generated content submissions, with fields for title, content, and attachments.

As well as the basic templates listed above, Forminator Pro includes many other useful preset templates, such as:

• Event Registration Template
• Customer Feedback Form
• Appointment Booking Form
• Order Form for Small Businesses
• Job Application Form
• Volunteer Sign-up Form
• Course Enrollment Form
• Real Estate Inquiry Form
• Medical History Form
• Restaurant Reservation Form
• Donation Form
• Travel Booking Form
• Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) Form
• Customer Complaint Form
• Course Evaluation Form
• RSVP Form
• Conference Registration Form
• Event Feedback Form
• Home Service Request Form
• Fitness Class Registration Form

How to Create A Form Using a Template

As mentioned earlier, creating a form with Forminator using templates is really simple, easy, and fast.

For this example, let’s create a Quote Request form.

Head over to Forminator’s Templates section and locate the Quote Request template in the Preset Templates tab.

Hovering over the template item brings up options to preview the template or create a form using the template.

Hover over the template to preview or create a form.

If you choose to preview the template, a full-size preview will load on your web browser, allowing you to see exactly what your form will look like.

Click on the Create Form button to create your form.

This will load the template into Forminator’s Edit Form screen.

From here, you can simply customize the template’s fields, appearance, behavior, etc. as you would when creating any other form.

Additionally, if you have Forminator Pro installed, you can easily integrate your quote request form (and all other forms for that matter) with Forminator’s PDF Addon, and all the plugin’s other add-ons and services.

If you need help editing, customizing, or publishing forms, check out these great Forminator tutorials:

• Creating the Perfect Contact Form with Forminator
• How to Get The Most Out of Using Forminator

When you’re done editing your form, save it as a draft or publish it to generate the form’s shortcode.

After creating the form, it will be listed in your Forminator Forms section with all other forms you have created for that site. Go here to edit the form, view stats and submissions, etc.

Note: You can also access the Template gallery by clicking on the +Create button in Forminator’s Forms menu or in the plugin’s main dashboard.

This will bring up a popup modal, allowing you to easily filter, search, and select any of the templates available in the Preset or Cloud template sections.

For more information on using templates, see the Forminator Templates documentation section.

Saving Your Own Templates

Forminator not only lets you create forms from preset templates, but you can also create and save any Forminator form as a custom cloud template that can be used on any site that you have connected to your Hub.

To save a form as a cloud template, simply click the Save to Cloud button at the top of the Edit Form screen.

You will be given the choice of either saving your form as a new template or overwriting an existing one.

To save your form as a new template, select New Template, give your form a name, and click the Save Template button.

All of your saved templates will be listed in Forminator’s Templates section under the Cloud Templates tab.

Creating a form using a custom template across all of your different managed WordPress sites is a simple one-click option that serves as an alternative to exporting a form from one site and importing it to another via the Import/Export feature.

For more information about this feature, see Saving Forms as Cloud Templates in our documentation section.

Additional New Forminator Features

Preset and Cloud Form Templates isn’t the only exciting new feature of Forminator.

Let’s look at what else is new in Forminator from version 1.32 onward.

Rating Field

You can now add ratings to your forms using Forminator’s new Rating field.

This is a great way to allow users to submit reviews and feedback on your site about your products, services, ideas, etc.

For example, here is a front-end form you can add to your site using the Create Post template with the Rating field added that will allow a site owner to collect user-generated submissions.

The Rating field also offers a great deal of customization options under the Settings tab.

This includes specifying a ratings value (from 0 – 50), and adjusting the style and size of the icons, including using different icons (stars, hearts, thumbs, or smiles), different icon sizes (small, medium, and large), and whether or not to display a suffix alongside the ratings (e.g. 3/5).

Forminator’s Rating field offers many customization settings.

For more information on how to use the Rating field and configure its settings, see the Rating Field documentation section.

Select Field – New Multi-Select Style

We’ve also improved Forminator’s Select field.

It now supports modern multi-selection styles and tags, allowing you to provide form users with a better experience.

With the Modern style set, users can easily add and delete selected items from a dropdown menu into forms as tags.

Selected items display in forms as tags.

For more information on how to use the Multi-Select field and configure its settings, see the Multi Select Style documentation section.

Create Even Faster Forms with Forminator

So, there you have it!

WPMU DEV’s All-in-one WordPress platform is all about helping agencies and web developers grow their business. We not only offer one-click site templates to save time, increase production, and speed up the WordPress site creation process, but we now also have one-click form templates to speed up the process of creating all kinds of forms on all your WordPress sites.

If you have Forminator installed on your site, give the new preset and cloud templates a try (and don’t forget to try out the new Rating field and Multi Select style in the Select field).

If you are a WPMU DEV member, Forminator Pro offers many more templates (and more are coming soon!)

These rules require all email senders to adhere to specific guidelines to ensure email deliverability.

This comprehensive guide explains what these new requirements are and how they affect your business.

We’ll cover:

• Google & Yahoo’s New Email Sending Requirements
• Understanding SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
  • SPF
  • DKIM
  • DMARC
• Email Verification Examples
  • Emails Not Reaching Recipients
  • Compliant Email
• Using Verification Tools
  • Check SPF, DKIM & DMARC
  • Check PTR
• Best Practices For Email Senders
• Additional Points and Useful Information
  • Bulk Emailing Tips
  • Misconceptions About SPF
  • Misconceptions About DKIM

Google & Yahoo’s New Email Sending Requirements

In October 2023, Gmail’s Security & Trust Group Product Manager Neil Kumaran announced on Google’s blog that from February 2024 email senders would need to authenticate their emails, allow for easy unsubscription (bulk senders), and stay under a reported spam threshold in order for their emails to be delivered to Gmail addresses.

As these requirements are now in effect, ignoring them will see your mail being automatically rejected or sent to the recipient’s spam folder.

According to Neil, although Gmail’s detection tools prevent 99.9% of spam, phishing and malware from reaching inboxes and block almost 15 billion unwanted emails every day, the service is now facing ever more complex threats than it did since the service launched in April of 2004.

As Neil states on Google’s blog…

“As basic as it sounds, it’s still sometimes impossible to verify who an email is from given the web of antiquated and inconsistent systems on the internet.”

The new email sending requirements are designed to help users keep their inbox safer and more spam-free.

This initiative to combat fraudulent or spammy email by placing more stringent requirements on email senders is not coming solely from Google, however. Industry partners like Yahoo have also joined in to work alongside Google and the rest of the email community to make these new requirements industry standard and a basic email hygiene practice.

Yahoo’s email sender best practices contains similar recommendations to Google’s and includes a link to a a comprehensive guide on Senders Best Common Practices from the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (M3AAWG), an organization committed to helping industries fight and prevent online abuse.

This document is aimed at anyone involved in the delivery and compliance of electronic communications, including marketing and management personnel. It is worth downloading and covers the latest and most effective recommended practices for sending commercial electronic messages.

So, what are these new requirements and how do they affect your business?

Essentially, the main requirements can be summarized as follows:

• Your spam complaint rate needs to be under 0.3%.
• Authentication using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC (Bulk email senders) is now required.
• You must have a one-click unsubscribe option and remove people requesting to be unsubscribed from your list within 1-2 days (Bulk email senders).

Additional requirements for all email senders include:

• Ensuring that sending domains or IPs have valid forward and reverse DNS records, also referred to as PTR records.
• Use a TLS connection for transmitting email.
• Format messages according to the Internet Message Format standard, RFC 5322

There are additional requirements for bulk email senders.

You can read Neil Kumaran’s post here and check out Google’s email sender guidelines and Yahoo’s email sender best practices to learn how to successfully send emails to personal Gmail and YahooMail accounts.

Understanding SPF, DKIM, and DMARC

Implementing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC protocols enhances email deliverability, safeguards sender reputation, and ensures that emails reach recipients’ inboxes securely.

If you are not familiar with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, here’s an overview:

SPF

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is a protocol that verifies sender authenticity by checking if an email originated from an authorized server.

It ensures the legitimacy of email senders by validating a sender’s identity through cross-referencing the IP address of the sending mail server with a predetermined list of authorized sending IP addresses contained within the DNS record.

DNS records essentially act as a directory that maps domain names to their respective IP addresses and can include instructions on handling requests directed towards that domain.

By verifying the authenticity of the sender’s identity against authorized sending IP addresses listed in the DNS record for a domain, SPF helps to prevent email spoofing and enhanced deliverability by reducing the likelihood of emails being blacklisted or marked as spam.

Here are the steps involved in creating an SPF record for email authentication:

1. Gather Information: Collect the IP addresses of all servers authorized to send emails on behalf of your domain. This includes your own mail servers, third-party email service providers, and any other servers used for sending emails.

2. Identify Sending Domains: Make a list of all domains used to send emails, even if not currently active. This prevents domain spoofing attempts.

3. Create SPF Record Syntax:

• • Start with the version tag: v=spf1
  • Add authorized IP addresses: e.g. ip4:192.0.2.0
  • Include third-party senders: include:thirdparty.com
  • Specify SPF policy: -all (hard fail) or ~all (soft fail).

After following the above steps, your SPF record should look like the example shown below:

v=spf1 ip4:192.0.2.0 include:thirdparty.com -all

Note: SPF records should be under 255 characters and limited to no more than ten include statements.

4. Publish SPF Record to DNS: Access your DNS management console provided by your domain registrar or hosting provider, add a new TXT record with your domain’s hostname and the SPF record syntax, and save the changes.

5. Test SPF Record: Use SPF check tools (e.g. EasyDMARC’s SPF Record Checker) to check if the SPF record is present or not and ensure that all legitimate sending IP addresses are listed and correctly formatted.

DKIM

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is an email authentication method that adds a digital signature to outgoing emails.

This signature is validated by the recipient’s mail server, ensuring the email’s integrity and authenticity. DKIM prevents email tampering and strengthens email deliverability by reducing the chance of emails being flagged as spam or phishing.

DKIM is like a digital signature for emails, a way for the sender (you) to prove they really sent the email and that it hasn’t been changed by anyone in between.

A DKIM Signature Header typically includes several elements represented by tag=value pairs.

Here’s an example that illustrates the essential components necessary for email authentication through DKIM:

DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=example.com; s=dkim1; h=From:To:Subject:Date; bh=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX; b=YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Explanation of each element:

• v=1: Version of the DKIM specification being used.
• a=rsa-sha256: The cryptographic algorithm used to generate the signature.
• c=relaxed/relaxed: Canonicalization methods used for the header and body of the email.
• d=example.com: The domain that owns the DKIM key pair.
• s=dkim1: The DKIM selector, which indicates the specific key used for signing.
• h=From:To:Subject:Date: List of header fields included in the signature.
• bh=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX: The hash of the body of the email.
• b=YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY: The actual digital signature generated using the private key associated with the selector.

Here are the steps involved in creating a DKIM record:

1. Generate DKIM Keys: Use a DKIM key generator tool provided by your email service provider or a third-party service (see list below). This generates a public and private key pair.

2. Publish Public Key to DNS:

• • Log in to your DNS management console provided by your domain registrar or hosting provider.
  • Navigate to the DNS settings for your domain.
  • Add a new TXT record with the DKIM selector as the subdomain name and the public key as the record value. The selector is usually provided by your email service provider and is specific to your DKIM configuration.

Example DKIM record:

selector._domainkey.example.com. IN TXT "v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQC2h9gFo3... (long string)"

3. Verify DKIM Record: After adding the DKIM record, verify its correctness using DNS lookup tools and ensure that the TXT record contains the correct DKIM selector and public key.

4. Test DKIM: Send test emails from your domain and verify that they pass DKIM authentication checks using email authentication testing tools.

Here are some tools you can use to generate DKIM keys:

• DKIMCORE.org
• DKIM Record Generator by EasyDMARC
• DKIM Generator Wizard by SocketLabs

DMARC

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) is a protocol that helps protect email domains from being used for phishing, spoofing, and other malicious activities, and builds on SPF and DKIM to provide additional email authentication and reporting capabilities.

DMARC helps to make sure that the emails you send are really from you. If someone tries to fake your email address, DMARC helps block those phony messages from reaching others, keeping your email reputation safe and sound.

DMARC:

• Improves email deliverability by allowing senders to monitor and enforce email authentication policies.
• Allows domain owners to specify a handling policy for emails that fail SPF and DKIM checks, enhancing transparency and security, and reducing spoofing and phishing attempts.
• Allows domain owners to receive alerts when unauthorized parties misuse the domain for email spoofing, protecting their brand’s reputation.

To pass DMARC’s criteria, SPF and DKIM must be properly configured for the email’s From domain. The From domain must then match the authenticated domain by SPF or DKIM.

How to implement DMARC

1. Define DMARC Policy: Decide on the DMARC policy you want to enforce. DMARC offers 3 policy options:

• • None: Monitoring mode only, no actions are taken if an email fails DMARC.
  • Quarantine: Suspicious emails are sent to the spam/junk folder.
  • Reject: Suspicious emails are rejected outright.

2. Generate DMARC Record: Create a DMARC TXT record with your chosen policy. Use the following syntax:

_dmarc.example.com. IN TXT "v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:your@email.com; ruf=mailto:your@email.com"

• • Replace example.com with your domain.
  • v=DMARC1: Indicates the DMARC version.
  • p=none/quarantine/reject: Defines the policy.
  • rua: Specifies the email address to receive aggregate reports.
  • ruf: Specifies the email address to receive forensic reports.

3. Publish DMARC Record to DNS: Log in to your DNS provider’s dashboard.

• • Navigate to your domain’s DNS management section.
  • Add a new TXT record with the host _dmarc and the value as the DMARC record you generated.

4. Verify DMARC Record: Use DNS lookup tools to ensure the DMARC record is correctly published and propagated.

5. Monitor Reports: Regularly check the aggregate and forensic reports sent to the email addresses specified in the DMARC record. These reports provide insights into email authentication failures and help fine-tune your DMARC policy.

Notes:

• Be very careful when creating a DMARC record, as any misconfiguration will negatively impact your email delivery. We recommend following these guidelines from Google when starting out with DMARC.
• Make sure that SPF and DKIM are authenticating emails for at least 48 hours BEFORE enabling DMARC.

Here are some free tools you can use to create, verify and validate DMARC records:

• DMARC Tools by dmarcian.
• DMARC Record Lookup and Checker by EasyDMARC
• DMARC Digests – If you set up a DMARC reporting address, using your personal or business address is not recommended, as your inbox will be flooded with unintelligible emails. Instead, consider signing up for a DMARC reporting tool to ensure that you have properly authenticated all the tools you use to send email.

Email Verification Examples

Now that we have defined what SPF, DKIM, and DMARC mean, let’s look at some actual examples of these protocols  in action, so you can better understand why your emails may or may not be reaching their intended recipients.

Emails Not Reaching Recipients

First up, let’s look at an obvious spam email sent to a Gmail address. This will help us understand how Gmail and other email providers automatically filter out junk email.

Here’s an email sent to my personal Gmail address that never even made it to my inbox. Gmail filtered it and sent it directly to my SPAM folder.

Let’s ignore the fact that this is an obvious spam email and look at the email header to see why Gmail’s automated tools detected and flagged it as spam.

To do this, view the email in your Gmail account (don’t click on any links in the email, of course!), click on the vertical ellipsis icon, and select Show original from the menu options …

As you can see, this email did not meet Gmail’s DKIM policy requirements.

Compliant Emails

For comparison, here’s the header of an email sent to my business Gmail address by a compliant sender. As you can see, this company has met all of Gmail’s requirements for safe email delivery.

Using Verification Tools

As mentioned earlier, there are a number of great tools you can use to check and/or troubleshoot whether your email domain (or the email domain of a client or third-party service) meets the required protocols compliance with email sender guidelines.

Check SPF, DKIM & DMARC

For the examples in this section, we’ll use the free tools from dmarcian.com.

Head on over to dmarcian’s free tools section, and click on their Domain Checker tool…

Enter the email domain name into the field (only the domain, no address@) and click Check Domain …

The tool performs checks similar to those done by mailbox providers like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft and displays results that show if the email domain’s records meet SPF, DKIM, and DMARC requirements or not.

If an email domain fails to meet the checks, you will see a result similar to the one shown below.

Occasionally, you may get a message similar to the one shown below. The message below infers that your emails meet the check and will still get delivered, but you may want to use the company’s services to ensure full compliance.

Here’s one more useful tip to keep in mind if you run a test on your email domains and get a DKIM check result as shown in the screenshot below…

In the above check, the tool couldn’t find DKIM records for the email domain because there’s a missing selector. A selector is normally included in the DKIM record when a compliant email is sent.

To find a selector to complete this check, do the following:

1. Fire up your email account and find an email sent by the domain you are checking. In this example, we’ll use Gmail.
2. Click on the vertical ellipsis icon, and select Show original from the menu options
3. Scroll down past the Internet headers section until you get to the jumble of code.
4. Look for the s= part of the DKIM Signature Header. This is your selector

Copy the selector portion and paste it into the DKIM checking tool, then click the Inspect DKIM button.

That should fix it and get your email to pass the DKIM check.

Click the Details link to view more details about the results.

Check PTR

A DNS pointer record, abbreviated as PTR, serves to link an IP address with its corresponding domain name. Unlike the ‘A’ record, which maps domain names to IP addresses, the PTR record performs the reverse function by associating IP addresses with domain names.

To check that sending domains or IPs have valid forward and reverse DNS records as required, first locate and copy the sending email domain’s IP address in the email header …

Then paste it into a Reverse DNS lookup tool, like MXToolbox.com to check if the PTR is valid …

While the above checks will give you the right information, we also recommend testing your email for spammyness. This will help to ensure optimal deliverability for your emails.

We recommend using a service like Mail Tester (they also have an SPF & DKIM checking tool).

Hopefully, this guide has given you a basic grasp of what SPF, DKIM, and DMARC mean and how to use tools to check the validity of email domains and troubleshoot potential issues.

If you use (or plan to use) WPMU DEV’s Webmail or Email Hosting services, then check out our guide on how to optimize email deliverability using WPMU DEV’s email services.

Best Email Sending Practices

If you plan to do any kind of bulk mailing, here’s an overview of key email sending practices to follow to stay compliant with the new guidelines:

• Subscriptions: Only send emails to those who have opted in. If you are a qualified bulk email sender, you can use a free tool like Google’s Postmaster Tools to avoid spam markings and regularly access data and diagnostics about Gmail delivery errors, spam reports, feedback loop, and more to ensure that any complaint rates remain under 0.3% .
• Subscription Management: Enable one-click unsubscribe for efficient opt-outs. Allow recipients to review and unsubscribe from specific mailing lists.
• Message Formatting: Format emails according to RFC 5322 and HTML standards. Avoid hiding content and ensure clear sender information.
• Sending Guidelines: Authenticate emails with SPF and DKIM. Maintain consistent sending IPs and categorize messages. Use a TLS connection for transmitting email.
• Avoid Sending Practices: Do not mix content types, impersonate others, or purchase email lists.
• Increase Sending Volume Slowly: Gradually increase volume and monitor delivery metrics.
• Special Considerations: Ensure compliance with guidelines, especially for third-party providers.
• Affiliate Marketing & Phishing Exercises: Regularly monitor affiliates and avoid sending test phishing emails.

For more detailed email sender guidelines, see: Google Help: Email Sender Guidelines

Additional Points & Useful Information

Covering all there is to know about email deliverability is beyond the scope of this article. However, we thought we would include some additional helpful information here to save you hours of research.

Bulk Emailing

Here are some things to keep in mind in you plan to do any bulk emailing:

• Spoofed emails count toward the bulk sender limit of 5,000. According to Yahoo, “Spoofed emails will count toward the mail we look at for enforcement. If you have a spoofing problem, you should be implementing a DMARC enforcement policy (p=quarantine or p=reject) regardless.”
• Subdomains are also subject to the requirements. Non-compliant emails sent from the subdomain of an organizational level domain that is subject to DMARC verification will be impacted.

Misconceptions about SPF (Sender Policy Framework)

Understanding SPF’s role in email authentication is important, but the protocol also has limitations. Here are some popular misconceptions about SPF:

• SPF will fully protect my domain from spoofing: SPF does not entirely protect the sender’s address visible to the user. It verifies the domain’s authorization but doesn’t secure the sender’s address. Use DMARC to protect visible domain names from spoofing.
• Implementing SPF is sufficient to prevent all spoofing and phishing attempts: While SPF is a crucial measure, it is not a complete solution against spoofing and phishing. Other email authentication methods (e.g. DMARC) are necessary for comprehensive protection.
• Including a company’s SPF record in emails ensures proper authentication: Companies sometimes mistakenly instruct customers to include their SPF record. However, this may not effectively authenticate emails and can lead to misconfigurations.

Misconceptions about DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)

As with SPF, it’s also important to understand the role DKIM plays in getting your emails sent out and delivered, but there are some misconceptions to be aware of:

• Encryption Misunderstanding: Contrary to popular belief, DKIM doesn’t encrypt emails. Instead, it focuses on verifying message integrity through hashes under “bh” and “b” tags, providing protection against modification and replay attacks, albeit only partially safeguarding against identity theft and forgery. A successful DKIM verification indicates the sender’s authorization and ensures message content integrity during transit.
• Forgery Fallacy: There’s a misconception that DKIM signatures can be forged since their details are publicly available in DNS records. However, DKIM relies on a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) with a pair of keys – public and private. While the public key is accessible in DNS records, the private key resides securely on the email service provider’s server, ensuring message authenticity. Therefore, DKIM signatures cannot be forged as the private key is kept confidential and solely used for message signing.
• Spam Solution Illusion: While DKIM aids in verifying sender authorization and message integrity, it doesn’t provide a definitive solution to spam. While it reduces the likelihood of spammers using forged or stolen email addresses, it doesn’t prevent them from purchasing domains and setting up DKIM records to continue their activities. Consequently, this may inadvertently legitimize spam to some extent. However, authentic domain usage can mitigate phishing attacks, enhancing email security against malicious attempts, such as fraudulent emails purportedly from legitimate companies.

For the latest updates on Google’s guidelines for sending emails to personal Gmail accounts and bulk emailing requirements, check out Google’s Email Sender Guidelines FAQ

Have You Got The Message Yet?

As the increasingly complex and ongoing battle against email spam and phishing from sophisticated malicious actors continues to escalate, major providers like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and others have begun enforcing stringent email sending requirements for all users to ensure the safe delivery of emails to intended recipients.

Hopefully, this article has given you all the information you need to understand and comply with all guidelines and requirements for sending emails that will reach your recipients’ inboxes.

Refer to our guide on how to optimize email deliverability using WPMU DEV’s email services to learn how your business can easily comply with these new email sending rules.

Since its inception, WordPress has allowed users to interact remotely with their sites using a built-in feature called XML-RPC. This is not only wonderful for smartphone users who want to blog on the go … but hackers too!

In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about XML-RPC and show you how to easily and automatically protect WordPress sites hosted with WPMU DEV from hackers exploiting XML-RPC vulnerabilities using our latest hosting security tool.

We’ll also show you how to protect WordPress sites hosted elsewhere.

Read on or click on a link below to skip the basics and get to the good stuff:

The Basics:

• What Is XML-RPC?
• What Is XML-RPC Used For?
• XML-RPC and WordPress Security

The Good Stuff:

• Automate Your Hosting Security with WPMU DEV’s Block XML-RPC Tool
• Not Hosted with WPMU DEV? We’ve Got You Covered

Let’s jump right in …

What Is XML-RPC?

XML-RPC is a remote procedure call (RPC) protocol that uses XML to encode its calls and HTTP as a transport mechanism.

In simple and practical terms, XML-RPC is used for enabling external applications to interact with your WordPress site. This includes actions like posting content, fetching posts, and managing comments remotely, without using the WordPress web interface.

WordPress supports XML-RPC through a file called xmlrpc.php, which can be found in the root directory of every WordPress install. In fact, WordPress support for XML-RPC has been a part of WordPress even before WordPress officially became WordPress.

You can learn more about XML-RPC and WordPress on this post: XML-RPC and Why It’s Time to Remove it for WordPress Security.

What Is XML-RPC Used For?

If you need to access your WordPress website, but you’re nowhere near your computer, XML-RPC facilitates remote content management and integration with third-party applications and streamlines the process of managing WordPress sites without direct access to the admin dashboard.

WordPress users can benefit from using XML-RPC in areas like:

• Mobile Blogging: Publish posts, edit pages, and upload media files remotely using the WordPress mobile app or other mobile apps.
• Integration with Desktop Blogging Clients: Applications like Windows Live Writer or MarsEdit allow users to write and publish content from their desktops.
• Integration with Services: Make connections to services like IFTTT
• Remote Management Tools: Enable the management of multiple WordPress sites from a single dashboard.
• Trackbacks and Pingbacks used by other sites to refer to your site.

Despite losing its popularity to newer, more efficient, and more secure APIs built on standards like REST or GraphQL and no longer being supported by PHP from version 8.0 onward, XML-RPC is still widely used in WordPress as it is integrated into many existing systems.

XML-RPC and WordPress Security

If you are using the WordPress mobile app, want to make connections to services like IFTTT, or want to access and publish to your blog remotely, then you need XML-RPC enabled. Otherwise it’s just another portal for hackers to target and exploit.

Pros and Cons of Using XML-RPC

The pros of using XML-RPC are mostly convenience and efficiency.

Though most applications can use the WordPress API instead of XML-RPC, some may still require access to xmlrpc.php and use it to ensure backward compatibility with actively installed older versions.

It’s important, however, to know the cons of using XML-RPC.

Basically, XML-RPC is an outdated protocol with inherent security flaws.

These include:

• Security Risk: XML-RPC can be exploited for large scale brute force attacks, as it allows unlimited login attempts. Attackers have used XML-RPC functionality to execute widespread brute force attacks against WordPress sites. By leveraging the system.multicall method, attackers can test thousands of password combinations with a single request.
• Performance: XML-RPC can be a vector for DDoS attacks through the pingback feature, turning unsuspecting WordPress sites into bots against targeted domains, and potentially slowing down or crashing the site.

How to Check if XML-RPC is Enabled/Disabled on WordPress Sites

You can use an XML-RPC validation tool to check whether your WordPress site has XML-RPC enabled or disabled.

Enter your URL into the Address field and click the Check button.

If XML-RPC is enabled, you will see a message like the one shown below.

As explained above, XML-RPC can make WordPress sites vulnerable to spam and cyber attacks.

This is why the best hosting companies block XML-RPC by default and why we recommend you should disable XML-RPC on your WordPress site(s), unless you have applications installed that require it to be enabled.

Let’s take a look, then, at a couple of options you can use to automatically disable XML-RPC on your site (see this post for a manual method that involves adding code to your .htaccess file).

Automate Your Hosting Security with WPMU DEV’s Block XML-RPC Tool

We’ve recently launched a hosting tool called Block XML-RPC that automatically blocks incoming requests on /xmlrpc.php when enabled.

If the tool is disabled, your WordPress site will allow applications access to the /xmlrpc.php file.

Note: New sites hosted on WPMU DEV are created with the Block XML-RPC tool enabled by default.

To access the tool and enable XML-RPC blocking on existing sites, go to The Hub and select the Hosting > Tools tab.

Click On/Off to toggle the feature and save your settings when done.

That’s it! Your site is now protected from XML-RPC exploits and attacks at the server level.

Not Hosted with WPMU DEV? We’ve Got You Covered

If your site is not hosted with WPMU DEV (tsk, tsk…), you can use our free Defender security plugin to disable XML-RPC.

The Disable XML-RPC feature is located in the plugin’s Recommendations section.

You can check if XML-RPC has been disabled in the Status section.

For additional ways to protect your site from DDoS attacks, see this tutorial: How To Protect Your Site From DDoS Attacks.

Note: WordPress plugins only block XML-RPC at the WordPress PHP level, so if an attack occurs, the request will still reach WordPress PHP, subsequently increasing server load.

In contrast, when you enable Block XML-RPC at the server level, the requests will never reach your site and return a “403 Forbidden” error message to the attackers.

For more information and detailed tutorials on the above, see these doc sections: Block XML-RPC tool (Hosting) and Disable XML RPC (Defender plugin).

R-E-S-P-E-C-T XML-RPC

Given the potential security risks, WordPress site owners should carefully consider whether the convenience offered by XML-RPC outweighs its vulnerabilities.

For WordPress sites that benefit from XML-RPC, we recommend implementing strong passwords, limiting login attempts, and using a security plugin like Defender to help mitigate the risks.

However, if the functionality is not needed and your sites run on any of our hosting plans, we strongly recommend disabling XML-RPC at the server level using the XML-RPC tool to further reduce the possibility of DDoS and brute force attacks.

A PDF receipt/invoice template was highly-requested by Forminator users. Learn everything you need to know about the new addition and see it in action in this post.

But wait, there’s more… Forminator 1.29 also added another handy ‘slider’ form field feature, perfect for forms where selecting a range is required or beneficial – you can now add one in a few clicks!

Here’s what we’re covering:

• Why use the PDF receipt template?
• How the PDF receipt template works
• Try Forminator’s new free slider form field!

Why use the PDF receipt template?

Many Forminator users collect on-site payments directly through their forms via integrated PayPal and Stripe fields.

So, we knew it was essential for us to provide an easy and streamlined way for you to create professional receipts/invoices for clients.

The new PDF receipt template does exactly this…

You can easily create professional PDF receipts that automatically and accurately output with form data and can be sent to clients after on-site form payment.

No more manual work or sending receipts via a third-party payments provider – now it’s all easy and automated for you.

How the PDF receipt template works

A few PSA’s before we continue…

To use the PDF receipt template you must:

• Use Forminator Pro
• Have the Forminator PDF Addon installed.
• Use a form with a Stripe or PayPal payments field.

Cool? Let’s continue!

After creating your on-site payment form, navigate to Edit Form > PDF, then click Create New PDF.

…Give your PDF a name.

…Select the brand new Receipt PDF template.

After confirming the details, you’ll be taken back to the Edit PDF screen where you can also edit your PDF header, footer, and add any additional fields if needed.

Next, you can customize the appearance of your PDF and adjust page size and margin settings.

We’ll be adding more advanced customization options soon. In the meantime, you can manually adjust the appearance of your PDFs with the Custom CSS option.

When you’re happy with the appearance, layout, and info included, you can preview your receipt with one click.

That’s it! Your PDF receipt template is now ready to be sent to your client via email.

To do this, just go to Edit Form > Email Notifications.

Here you can add and edit email notifications to be sent to admins or form users.

Simply create a new email notification and you’ll see you can add your newly created PDF as an attachment to your confirmation email.

You can also edit more settings, such as the recipients and conditions of the email, depending on your particular form.

Try Forminator’s new free slider form field!

As mentioned earlier, another handy feature Forminator 1.29 introduced was a new slider form field.

This was another hotly requested addition and it’s available with the free version of Forminator, so anyone can use and benefit from it.

You can use the slider field for anything from mortgage or loan calculators and donation forms, to price filtering and product customization.

Adding a slider to a form is easy, just go to Edit Form > Fields > Insert Field, and select the Slider field.

…Edit the type of slider you want to display, and label it.

…With Settings you can also adjust the slider size, values, and advanced settings like default value, and suffix/prefix text.

…You can also choose whether or not to enable calculations, and set your own visibility rules based on your form.

Easy as that! Here’s an example of a simple rating slider in action:

Upgrade your forms with these new game-changing additions

We hope you enjoyed this overview of Forminator’s new PDF Receipt Template and Slider field features.

If you’re interested in trying them, they’re both available with Forminator Pro and the Forminator PDF Generator Addon.

Forminator Pro also comes free with any paid WPMU DEV membership, along with a whole lot of other amazing WordPress tools, services, plugins, and 24/7 support from our expert team.

Or, if you’re looking for the lowest barrier of entry, trying the free version of Forminator is also a great option. Just note that the free version will not have the full functionality available with Pro (including the new PDF Receipt Template).

Want to know what’s coming next for Forminator? Check the WPMU DEV Roadmap, where we add regular progress updates.

WPMU DEV’s Reseller gives you everything you need to build a profitable reseller business and generate recurring income — from reselling white label hosting and site management tools, to Pro plugins, integrated client billing and management, branded client portal, reseller support … and over 100+ professional website templates covering a wide range of niches and industries!

Build websites faster with a choice of 100+ beautiful and modern premium templates.

This guide shows you how to boost and automate your reseller business using our growing library of professionally-designed website templates and how to sell your own website templates using our enhanced templates feature.

We’ll cover the following areas:

• 100+ Beautiful Modern Website Templates
• Website Templates for Popular Page Builders and Themes
• Fast and Easy Deployment with One-Click Templates
• Templates to Use and Resell
• Adding Templates to Reseller Products

Let’s jump in…

100+ Beautiful Modern Website Templates

Website templates are a game-changer for digital resellers. Templates reduce development time and offer an affordable alternative to custom development by providing clients with accessible high-quality web design.

Templates can also transform how agencies approach web development where the need for fast and cost-effective solutions is key to attracting and keeping clients.

A WPMU DEV membership includes access to a vast template library with over 100 professionally-designed website templates catering to different niches and industries (e.g. corporate, creative, healthcare, e-commerce, and more).

Use these templates to reduce your project costs, speed up your web design process, and provide your clients with an on-brand finished product … automatically!

To access the template library, go to The Hub > Site Templates.

In the Site Templates screen, you’ll find two tabs:

• WPMU DEV Templates – This is where all of our pre-configured templates are stored.
• My Templates – This section lets you create and manage your own custom site templates.

Click on the WPMU DEV Templates tab to access all of our pre-configured templates.

We’ve designed our templates page to help you find templates suitable for your next project quickly and easily.

For example, to select a range of templates, use the Sort (by Recently Added, A-Z, Z-A), filter (by category, themes, or builders), and search features located at the top of the page.

Filtering templates by Category, Themes, or Builders is especially handy if you are building a site for a specific industry or niche, or have a favorite theme or page builder that you prefer working with.

Filter templates by clicking on items to select or deselect categories, themes, or page builders. To clear all filters just click the link at the bottom of the Filter Templates by panel.

You can also tag your favorite templates by clicking on the star icon to have them listed at the very top of the page. Just make sure to enable Pin favorites to top in the Recently Added feature menu.

Website Templates for Popular Page Builders and Themes

The versatile themes available in the Templates section are built with various popular page builders and themes.

These templates provide a wealth of options, features, and functionalities unique to specific industries, a broad selection of modern and beautiful designs to ensure that you can meet the needs and requirements of your clients, and integrate seamlessly with popular page builders and themes including:

• Gutenberg
• Elementor
• Brizy
• Colibri
• Astra
• Neve
• Kadence WP
• Beaver Builder
• Zakra

If you’re unsure which page builder or theme was used to create the template, refer to the icons below the thumbnail.

Note: To save custom templates created with a paid or licensed page builder or theme, use the My Templates section.

Fast and Easy Deployment with One-Click Templates

To quickly create a new site using a specific template (or just preview how the template looks), hover over the template’s thumbnail and click on the Preview Template and Create Site buttons.

All of our hosting plans include rapid one-click template deployment to simplify the process of setting up websites. Simply select a template when creating a new site and these will automatically be set up for you or your clients in minutes.

Templates to Use and Resell

Templates are available to members on all plans and are included with WPMU DEV’s Reseller platform, so you can use them in your own projects to build client sites or resell them.

Note: To resell custom or built-in templates with Reseller to clients as part of your web development and digital service offerings requires being on the Premium plan.

Adding Templates To Reseller Products

Including templates with Reseller is easy.

Go to The Hub and click on the Reseller tab …

Create a new hosting reseller product or edit an existing one and navigate to the Reseller Configurations screen …

Choose whether to allow clients to choose a template when purchasing hosting or specify a selected template when new sites are created.

Select all the templates you want to make available to clients using the “Templates Available to Clients” dropdown menu and search feature.

You can build a gallery of templates to offer your clients using any WPMU DEV template and your own custom templates.

For more information on how to create and save custom-built templates, see our custom templates documentation or check out this article on how to create and sell your own site templates.

If you want clients to use a specific template when creating a new site, make sure to select the “Force selected template on new sites” option.

Only the templates you have selected for your reseller products will display to clients purchasing your products.

For full details on creating reseller products with templates, see our Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up Reseller.

Transform Your Business with Website Templates

Website templates can revolutionize and transform your business by streamlining the web development process and boosting efficiency, ensuring client satisfaction, an additional revenue source, and business growth through automation.

Whether you are a newcomer to the industry seeking an easy start to web development or an experienced developer looking to fast track projects by focusing on customization and advanced features, having over 100 one-click templates at your disposal can be especially useful for urgent projects, clients with small budgets, and an indispensable asset to boosting your reselling business.

Our diverse template library caters to various client needs and will ensure quicker website launches, eliminate the need for extensive coding and design, expedite project completion, and provide your clients with a cost-friendly alternative to custom development.

Ongoing updates, instant website creation, easy setup and customization, easy replication of saved customized designs, and rapid deployment with any of our hosting plans are just some of the many benefits to bundling templates with your website building services.

If you’re not a WPMU DEV member yet, sign up today for our all inclusive Premium membership and start reselling services like hosting, templates, plugins, domains, and more under your own brand. It’s 100% risk-free and the best business decision you’ll make.

If you are a digital services agency or a web developer looking to generate additional revenue by providing web hosting to clients, you could lease your own server and handle all of the technical areas yourself, or simply partner with a reseller hosting company and let them take care of all the hosting issues and headaches, leaving you free to grow your business.

But…with so many hosting companies offering reseller hosting, which one provides the best platform for your agency? What should you look for in a hosting reseller program? What traps and pitfalls should you avoid when deciding which hosting provider to partner with?

This guide will answer all of these questions. You will learn what to look for in a reseller hosting partner to ensure your long-term success, understand the pros and cons of different reseller platforms and programs … we’ll even provide a list of reseller hosting companies with links to their reseller pages.

We’ll cover the following areas:

• Pitfalls to Avoid When Choosing Reseller Hosting Companies
  • 1. Beware of Affiliate Reviews
  • 2. Avoid Reseller Platforms That Won’t Integrate Fully with Your Business
• The Ideal Reseller Hosting Platform
• Reseller Hosting Companies – What To Look For
  • 1. Pricing & Profitability
  • 2. Quality Hosting Products
  • 3. Reseller Hosting and Website Management
  • 4. White Label Branding and Customization
  • 5. Client Portal and Automation
  • 6. Client Billing, Invoicing, and Management
  • 7. Reseller and Client Support
  • 8. Additional Reseller Features
• Best Hosting Reseller Programs

Let’s jump right in…

Pitfalls to Avoid When Choosing Reseller Hosting Companies

There are many different companies offering reseller hosting to choose from and you will want to partner with the provider that is best suited for your business.

Before embarking on your journey of research, let’s look at two common pitfalls to avoid when choosing a reseller hosting company.

Pitfall #1 – Beware of Affiliate Reviews

If you search Google for anything related to reseller hosting, eg:

• best reseller web hosting
• best hosting reseller program
• top reseller hosting company
• etc.,

You’ll find that all of the articles in the organic results section recommending the “best reseller web hosting companies” use affiliate links.

You aren’t necessarily going to find the best reseller hosting company for your business by searching Google, because:

1. Most reseller hosting review articles won’t recommend companies that don’t offer an affiliate program, and
2. The companies these articles recommend as “the best” are often the ones that pay them the highest commission.

So, when researching a reseller hosting partner, keep in mind that most of the articles listed in Google’s results are aimed primarily at lining the publishers’ pockets with affiliate commissions.

Pitfall #2 – Avoid Reseller Platforms That Won’t Integrate Fully with Your Business

Unless you have a burning desire to set up your own reseller hosting (and love tinkering with scripts, installing server applications, troubleshooting issues, fixing problems, and spending time reading technical documentation), we recommend choosing a company where the hosting and the tools you’ll need to run your hosting accounts and client sites is already set up, optimized, pre-installed, configured, fully managed, supported, and 100% ready to use.

This will allow you to focus more of your time, effort, and resources on growing your agency and scaling your business instead of dealing with technical issues and headaches.

Having someone take care of all the technical aspects of your hosting is great, but there’s still a business side to running a reseller business and there are a myriad of things to figure out, such as:

• Which hosting plans and packages you’ll create to sell,
• Which software and tools you’ll use to manage your hosting account and client sites,
• How to integrate client billing and management systems,
• How to provide clients with access and support,
• How to formulate profitable pricing strategies,
• How to handle various business legalities (e.g. refunds, site suspensions for non-payment, etc.),
• How to protect your client relationship,
• And so on.

Following these tips will help to eliminate many problems when running your reseller business:

• Choose a reseller hosting company with an integrated platform for seamless client management.
• Opt for automation to minimize manual tasks and maximize efficiency. This ensures a smooth client experience, fostering loyalty and long-term relationships.
• Prioritize a reseller platform that offers automation, integration, and simplicity to run a profitable business with minimal effort
• Avoid fragmented platforms, as these will be prone to issues.

So, how can you grow a profitable reseller business without all the hassles and headaches?

The Ideal Reseller Hosting Platform

Imagine having the ultimate dropshipping business where:

• Your supplier won’t charge you until a purchase is made.
• Your provider instantly delivers the product to your client.
• Everything happens through a fully branded and integrated platform.
• Your clients only interact with you, not the provider.
• You get paid instantly upon completing the sale.

Additionally, imagine owning an automatic vending machine for selling digital products like hosting, domain registrations, site templates, and other services, where customers can visit your site at any time (even at 3 am) and purchase from you without you being involved in the process (or even awake).

Can you really own a fully automated reseller business that runs under your own brand, integrates seamlessly with your business, delivers your clients top-notch products, allows you to focus on acquiring more clients … and makes you money while you sleep?

With the right reseller platform … Yes, you can!

Reseller Hosting Companies – What To Look For

Take a look at the chart below. We’ll use this as your blueprint for choosing the best reseller hosting company for your agency or web development business.

Let’s go over each of the above components to understand how these will benefit your business when fully integrated.

1. Pricing and Profitability

When working out whether a specific reseller program will help you turn a profit, it’s important to look at all the factors that can affect your profitability.

These include:

• Comparing the pricing structures of different hosting providers and analyzing the profit margins offered to resellers.
• Looking for providers that offer competitive pricing without compromising on the quality of their services.
• Finding out if you can set your own pricing on the hosting itself.

You don’t want a glorified affiliate program where all you’re really doing is referring clients to your hosting company and earning a sales commission. You want to be able to set your own pricing and sell the hosting as your own (and on its own).

With WPMU DEV Reseller, for example, you have complete freedom when it comes to pricing. You can purchase hosting (and domains too) at a deep discount, create your own plans, set your own pricing per product, sell hosting on its own under your brand, or bundle it with your services and sell your service packages with hosting included (your client’s hosting will be automatically set up when they purchase your service at the bundled price you have set).

Here are other areas to look at that will impact reseller hosting profitability:

• Explore potential discounts or incentives for resellers and consider the flexibility of providers when it comes to pricing strategies.
• Consider factors that can impact your profits if overlooked. Evaluate potential setbacks such as set-up fees, recurring costs, and additional license fees. Hosting management tools like cPanel, WHM/WHMCS, Plesk etc. charge license fees, often on a per user basis. Some companies also charge annual fees for accessing their reseller programs, while others have no cost to join, but you cannot set your own hosting prices and have to purchase add-ons like client billing or white labeling separately, adding to your costs.
• Consider how the reseller model of a particular provider will impact your cash flow when it comes to receiving your share of the sale. For example, with some reseller models you have to wait a month after a sale is made, whereas you get paid instantly with a platform like WPMU DEV Reseller.
• Make sure that the reseller agreement you enter into means that the partnership remains between you and your client. Otherwise, your supplier can take over the relationship (tip: research web hosting forums for discussions between resellers about owning their client accounts). WPMU DEV’s fully brandable Reseller platform means that your clients will never know that their sites are hosted with us, so the relationship with your clients remains yours.

2. Quality Hosting Products

It goes without saying that any products you resell to clients should be of the highest quality possible, so choose products from hosting providers with a solid award-winning reputation, a long-standing presence in the industry, and loads of positive customer reviews.

After creating a short-list of the top hosting providers, look for reseller hosting features in their product offerings that include the following:

• Server reliability and uptime guarantee: Ensure that the hosting provider offers a high uptime guarantee, as frequent downtime will negatively impact your clients’ websites, affect their user experience, and this will reflect poorly on you.
• Scalability: Consider whether your provider can accommodate your growth plans and handle increased demands as your reseller business expands.
• Additional features: Consider other features such as domain registrations, backup solutions, security measures, SSL certificates, and email services. These value-added features will greatly enhance the appeal of your hosting packages.

Consider also reaching out to other resellers or industry professionals for recommendations and check out user review sites like G2.com, Trustpilot, Reviews.io, Sitejabber, even review sections on social platforms like Facebook, and Google.

No doubt you’ll want to research WPMU DEV’s world-class web hosting, as this is the same award-winning suite of hosting products we offer to resellers.

To save you time researching different hosting options, check out how WPMU DEV hosting compares with other companies.

3. Reseller Hosting and Website Management

So, you have found an excellent and reliable hosting company with top-notch hosting services you can resell.

The next step is to look for web hosting administration tools that will allow you to easily create hosting packages to suit your business and manage your client sites quickly and effortlessly.

Since the website management process is largely controlled by the control panels used in your reseller platform, use the following questions to help you evaluate the reseller platform:

• Are the management tools simple, easy, and intuitive to use?
• Does the hosting control panel provide an “at-a-glance” dashboard that lets you quickly see and manage everything and access detailed reports, logs, settings, etc.?
• Is the reseller platform well-supported and regularly updated?
• How much input do resellers have on the platform’s development? Can they request new features and improvements?
• Can the client-facing features of the management tool be accessed from your website or do they need to log in from an external URL?

With the above in mind, let’s take a look at some of the more popular control panel applications available to WordPress hosting resellers for managing web hosting and client websites:

WHM/cPanel/WP Toolkit

WHM (WebHost Manager) and cPanel is a very popular choice for hosting resellers, especially among Linux-based hosting providers and server administrators.

WHM is a web-based administrative console. It allows server administrators and resellers to manage various aspects of web hosting, including user account creation, and server-related tasks including server configuration and server maintenance.

WHM provides a graphical interface for server administration and is often used in conjunction with cPanel to manage web hosting services and server resources for multiple websites in a centralized manner.

cPanel provides tools for server and website management, making it suitable for advanced users, and is known for its extensive features, robust performance, and large user community.

WP Toolkit is included with cPanel and is a WordPress management interface that allows you to install, configure, and manage WordPress sites, plugins, themes, and more.

As a reseller using this platform, you would manage your hosting account and configure your hosting packages using WHM, use cPanel to manage individual sites and features like email management, and file handling, and use WP Toolkit to perform WordPress management tasks within those sites.

While the pros of using WHM and cPanel include being very popular programs that are widely implemented, very flexible, and have extensive documentation, some of the drawbacks are that these can be hard to set up and configure, and require a lot more hands-on management.

Also, working with these separate applications can be a little overwhelming and confusing for beginners, and their interfaces tend to feel a little cluttered.

Additionally, WHM is dependent on cPanel, and cPanel requires paying license fees to use on a per-account and per-server basis, which can add to your running costs (many reseller hosting plans include the cost of cPanel licenses).

Plesk

Plesk is another popular control panel designed for managing web hosting and WordPress sites.

Unlike cPanel which runs on Linux, Plesk supports both Windows and Linux servers. However, like cPanel, Plesk also offers features like automated updates, security tools, and WordPress toolkit for efficient website management.

The Plesk interface resembles more that of WordPress, with all features listed within left-hand panel menus.

Like cPanel, the Plesk interface offers customizable modules, so you access those that you use more frequently from the interface’s home page without having to go through layers of menus.

Plesk also lets you view its interface differently depending on how you want to run your reseller business with two options: the Service Provider and the Power User view.

The Service Provider view is the recommended option for resellers who plan to provide shared hosting services to different customers.

Power User view suits web developers and web designers who create and manage websites for customers who won’t be logging into Plesk. It  removes the ability to manage customer accounts, service plans, and subscriptions, and includes the Tools section, which contains various tools and utilities for managing your account.

If you are just starting out on your reseller journey, you’ll need to consider the cost of using Plesk to manage your clients accounts.

To use Plesk as a reseller, you’ll need the Web Host Edition license.

As we will see later, many reseller hosting programs run on the above applications.

Open Source Control Panels

For more technical users, using open-source hosting control panels like Webmin, CyberPanel, and others with Linux servers can provide great flexibility and customization options.

The downside of choosing these applications to manage your hosting and client sites is that you will need technical expertise to combine and configure the various systems required to run your hosting reselling business.

As stated earlier, we don’t recommend this option unless you really like tinkering with the technical stuff and want to spend time reading loads of documentation to figure out how to make everything work.

Proprietary Control Panels

Here is where we start to get closer to the ultimate dropshipping and automated vending machine model described earlier that will let you run a profitable reseller business with the least amount of technical know-how and hassle involved.

Some hosting providers offer custom control panels with unique features and integrations, tailored to their hosting plans and specific services.

The key benefits to choosing proprietary control panels to manage your hosting and client sites is that these are often designed for simplicity and user-friendliness, eliminating the need to deal with technical complexities, and allowing you to invest your time and effort into focusing on servicing customers and growing your business.

Additionally, proprietary control panels can offer cost-effective alternatives for smaller reseller businesses without the high licensing fees of general control panels.

For example, WPMU DEV’s Reseller platform eliminates all of the complexities of configuring and managing reseller hosting and websites for your clients as well as the need to pay high licensing fees by combining award-winning hosting plans with a proprietary, intuitive, and user-friendly site management control panel, The Hub, via an all-inclusive and affordable Premium membership, which covers all the licensing costs you need for your reseller business and so much more.

It’s also worth noting that web developers, agencies, and WordPress users consistently rate WPMU DEV’s The Hub as a leading WordPress hosting and site management tool, so WPMU DEV offers not only hosting products of outstanding and award-winning quality, but also the tools to manage your hosting and client sites.

For more details on everything The Hub lets you easily manage in your reseller business, see The Hub documentation.

Now that we have covered the main technical areas to look for when assessing reseller hosting platforms (i.e. quality hosting and hosting management tools), let’s look at what the best platforms should include to help you manage and grow your reseller business.

4. White Label Branding and Customization

The ability to white label services allows you to establish your own brand identity in the market.

Ideally, you want to be able to white label and customize the entire reseller platform to match your unique brand and have this all be fully integrated with your business.

Unfortunately, with many reseller platform setups this isn’t possible.

For example, if you are managing your hosting account using Plesk and want to make the control dashboards available to your clients, you can brand the Plesk dashboard with your own logo and make it clickable to point to your company’s website. You can even change the page’s title so your customers see your company name or other relevant text in their browsers’ title bars when they work in the Customer Panel.

cPanel offers similar branding options, with additional links to your support and documentation pages, and the option to add your logo to webmail and create a favicon.

However, your clients will still need to log into an external URL in order to access these dashboards.

If you want your clients to experience the full benefit of your brand, your reseller hosting platform should include additional brandable components, such as an integrated white labeled client portal, accessible via your own website.

This is included in WPMU DEV’s Reseller and is the next component of your reseller platform that we’ll explore.

5. Client Portal and Automation

Unless you plan to fully manage every aspect of your client’s online presence, you will want the client-facing areas of your reseller platform to offer complete white labeling options for your brand and be fully integrated with your website.

Additionally, you will want the platform to automate as much of the client administration as possible so you can scale your business and grow your client base.

Ideally, your platform would also automate various sales processes so clients could choose to upgrade services within their client portal without requiring your assistance. This increases your revenue with no additional effort on your part.

As discussed earlier, if your reseller platform is comprised of a mashup of third-party components where your clients have to log into a different URL than your website to access their information, this will present a challenge as it can lead to an inconsistent user experience.

With a white-label platform like WPMU DEV’s Reseller and The Hub Client plugin, you can create a fully branded professional client portal that your clients can access from your own domain without ever leaving your website.

Additionally, The Hub Client includes built-in automation that puts more money into your pocket, like site templates, domain registrations, and more.

Speaking of automation and putting money into your pocket, let’s now turn to the component of your reseller platform that will ensure you get paid for your services.

6. Client Billing, Invoicing, and Management

So far, we’ve covered all of the technical components you need for your reseller platform… white label hosting, hosting management, and client portal.

The next step is to figure out how to get paid for supplying your clients with your reseller products and services.

Remember, being a reseller involves:

1. Buying products and services from your supplier,
2. Marking up your cost price to resell these for a profit,
3. Allowing clients to make one-time and/or subscription purchases,
4. Setting up invoicing and/or automatic payments,
5. Managing the entire client payment process, including the creation of accounts, suspension of unpaid invoices, subscription cancellations, report generation, etc.

All of these processes can and should be fully automated, including purchasing products at cost price from the supplier only when and if a sale is made and having the markup difference after the sale (i.e. your profit) be automatically transferred to your business and deposited into your bank account.

There are many software packages and solutions available that you can use to set up client billing, invoicing, and management for your reseller business, so let’s focus on just two examples: one for a reseller platform built using separate components, and the other, an integrated reseller client billing solution.

WHMCS

If your reseller platform is built using separate components like WHM, cPanel (or Plesk), WPToolkit, etc., you may want to consider using WHMCS (Web Host Manager Complete Solution).

WHMCS is a web hosting management and billing software script that includes features designed to automate various aspects of a web hosting reseller business, such as:

• Billing and Invoicing: Automates billing processes, setting up taxes, generating invoices, and managing payment collections.
• Provisioning: Facilitates the setup of hosting packages, domain registration, and management.
• Automation: Automate workflow tasks related to the creation, suspension, and termination of hosting accounts.
• Customer Management: Manage customer accounts, support tickets, and client communication.

While WHMCS is the most widely adopted billing automation solution for hosting providers, there are some cons, such as:

• Adding custom branding requires editing server files
• Having to purchase hosting from your supplier independently of selling hosting and collecting client payments.
• Paying software licensing fees (plus optional installation, configuration, and integration fees to ensure a smooth setup), which can make this a costly option for small reseller businesses.

WPMU DEV Clients & Billing

A solution like WPMU DEV’s Automated Clients & Billing offers you everything that a solution like WHMCS offers with additional advantages, such as:

• Integrated client and billing platform: With Clients & Billing, there’s no need to set up a separate component to handle billing management. Clients & Billing lets you manage all aspects of your billing process with Stripe, right from your Hub or Hub Client plugin installed on your own site.
• Sell all products and services: WPMU DEV’s Clients & Billing portal is not limited just to reseller products. You can create and sell any kind of product or service packages to your clients.
• Save on fees: Clients & Billing is included for free with a WPMU DEV membership. Even better, members on a Plus or Premium plan incur 0% transaction fees, and so pay no fees whatsoever.

The video below provides an overview of WPMU DEV’s Clients & Billing platform:

7. Expert 24/7 Support for Resellers and Their Clients

Running a fully branded reseller business means that if your clients only deal with you, the buck also stops with you, and you will be blamed if anything goes wrong.

It’s really important to know, then, that the company you choose to partner with will always and immediately be there to support you at all times, especially if there’s an issue with your clients.

You need excellent reseller and technical support for your business and your clients will need excellent hosting and technical support for their businesses.

When evaluating the hosting support you can expect to receive as a reseller, it’s important to consider the following areas:

• Proactive Customer Support: Does the support team anticipate potential challenges and address these before they become issues? Tip: Check real customer reviews for unbiased information in this area (see the list of review sites provided earlier).
• 24/7 Availability: Is customer support available 24/7 to ensure assistance is accessible when needed?
• Multi-Channel Support: Is personalized support for resellers offered through various channels, e.g. live chat, email, phone?
• Chatbots for Quick Responses: Does support enhance responsiveness and efficiency with chatbots for quick responses to common queries?
• Community Forums: Are there established community forums where resellers can connect, share experiences, and seek advice from peers?
• Expert Technical Support: Is expert technical support available to resellers for help with complex issues?
• Self-Help Resources: Are there informative blog posts, how-to guides and tutorials, documentation, videos, etc. to empower resellers with self-service options?
• Regular Updates and Communication: Are resellers kept informed of industry trends, best practices, system changes, maintenance schedules, and new features through regular updates and clear communication?

Again, it’s worth noting that WPMU DEV’s support is rated by thousands of fanatical members as one of the best available in the WordPress ecosystem, providing 24/7 expert technical assistance for resellers for all web hosting and WordPress-related issues by a live team of trained staff all around the world via live chat, member support forums, email, and an AI-powered assistant specifically trained on our comprehensive documentation.

In terms of providing support to your clients, WPMU DEV also has you covered, with tools like integrated video tutorials and our soon to be launched white label reseller client support (coming real soon!)

8. Additional Reseller Features

Everything we’ve discussed so far should be included and be able to be fully integrated with your business.

However, don’t just stop there.

You are looking for a long-term partner you can trust and rely on to grow your reseller business, so find out what else is included in their reseller program.

For example:

• Does the reseller platform include an exclusive IP address for each hosting account?
• Can you also integrate domain reselling into your platform?
• What about emails, customized website templates, white label premium plugins, and branded reports?

Can you also combine reseller products with your own products and services to create unique packages and bundles for your clients? Or set up different subscription plans to give your clients easier options to purchase from you?

Check their roadmap to see what new features or products are in the pipeline for resellers, and how responsive and open they are to receiving requests for new features and improvements from their members and resellers.

Best Hosting Reseller Programs

Now that you know what to look for in a hosting reseller platform, let’s look at some of the more popular hosting reseller companies and their programs.

WPMU DEV Reseller

WPMU DEV’s Reseller provides the ideal reseller platform for any digital agency or web development business and includes:

• World-class dedicated hosting plans capable of handling sites of any size and purpose, from micro businesses to large enterprises
• Award-winning hosting and site management tools
• White label customization and branding
• Client portal with admin/sales automation that runs on your own domain
• Integrated client billing, invoicing, and management,
• Expert 24/7 support for resellers (and reseller clients too…coming soon!)

WPMU DEV’s fully integrated reseller platform not only blends seamlessly with your brand, but it also provides a simple and unbeatable pricing model that is guaranteed to boost the profitability of your reseller business.

A reseller license is included at no additional cost with a Premium membership plan. This automatically gives you a 50% discount on all hosting plans, plus additional annual hosting credits which you can apply to any hosting plan (e.g. you can set up 3 x Quantum sites at no cost).

Premium members also benefit from a range of additional inclusions, such as wholesale domain pricing, a suite of premium plugins, directory listing, and a whole lot more.

As a WPMU DEV reseller, you can set your own pricing and create packages from a wide range of discounted hosting plans (10GB – 1,600GB+), starting from as low as $4 p/mo.

When you make a hosting sale, the full amount of your client’s payment is credited to your Stripe account. The payment method you have set in your profile is then charged for the hosted site, just as if you had created it yourself in your own WPMU DEV account.

So, there’s no waiting a month or so to get paid … just set up your payouts on Stripe and you’re done!

To learn about all that WPMU DEV’s Reseller offers your agency or web development business, check out our extensive documentation.

GoDaddy Reseller

The GoDaddy Reseller program is another very popular reseller hosting program.

GoDaddy’s Reseller program includes a range of nice features like a website builder, a family of integrated tools that lets you sell domains, hosting, SSL certificates, etc. and manage your customers’ websites and clients from one dashboard, a brandable storefront, and dedicated teams to support your customers 24/7 by phone or email (and even try to close the sale for you).

However, there are some things to be aware of.

For example, there is a cost to join.

GoDaddy offers two reseller programs: Basic Reseller (for up to 25 customers, starting at $107.88/yr) and Pro Reseller (for unlimited customers, starting at $179.88 /yr). There is no option to pay monthly.

While both programs include a white-label eCommerce storefront, credit card processing, 24/7 support, free GoDaddy software for email marketing, and sales and commission reports, they both charge resellers standard buy rates with Basic Reseller offering up to 20% off the retail price, while the Pro plan offers up to 40% off retail pricing.

Note that site management tools are only included with the Pro Reseller plan.

In terms of customization, there’s not much available when it comes to WordPress hosting reselling plans. All hosting plans are based on shared — not dedicated — hosting, so you’ll have no control over the number of customers sharing your server resources.

You can add a markup on top of GoDaddy’s prices (either globally or set a price per product), but you can’t create custom products or combine other services to create a unique package tailored to the needs of your business (and unlike WPMU DEV’s Reseller, GoDaddy customers don’t get premium plugins included with their hosting).

Additionally, reseller storefronts are hosted by default on a GoDaddy URL (secureserver.net). While you can set up your storefront to point to a subdomain on your existing website, GoDaddy limits this feature to certain pages of your storefront for security purposes, so when customers enter secure areas of your storefront, the default URL will display instead of your custom domain.

Finally, keep in mind that payments are handled through GoDaddy’s own payment system and resellers have to wait a month to get paid sales commissions (for example, the commission you earned during December will be paid out at the end of January).

SiteGround

SiteGround provides 3 reseller hosting plans ranging from 20GB to 40GB+ disk space, starting from $4.99/month (first invoice only with prepaid purchases of a 12-month hosting plan).

SiteGround’s hosting is built on Google Cloud servers and the management of your hosting account and client sites is done using SiteGround’s custom-built tools, Site Tools and Client Area.

A chat with their sales team confirmed that SiteGround currently does not have an option for billing or an alternative to WHMCS, so as a reseller, you would manage your client websites from the main user area but handle the billing manually from your end.

Note that for white label hosting, you will need to opt for their GoGeek plan at $7.99/month, or Cloud plan, starting from $100/month. Configurable hosting packages are only available with the Cloud plan.

Hostinger

To resell hosting from Hostinger, you will need to sign up for their partner program and manage your hosting account and client sites through their custom tools Pro Panel (for managing hosting and clients) and hPanel (a scaled-down version of cPanel for managing client sites).

With Hostinger’s reseller hosting you can sell shared, cloud, or VPS hosting, but you cannot set your own hosting prices, as it operates on a commission-based model, so the pricing structure of your reseller hosting plans is fixed and pays you a 20% commission for first-time purchases and 10% commission for user upgrades, renewals, or purchases of different plans.

Hostinger’s reseller setup is also not as integrated as WPMU DEV’s fully white-labeled platform where your client perceives to be only dealing with you.

With Hostinger’s reseller setup, if you’ve marked up the hosting and bundled it with your services, you will have to make purchases on behalf of your client, or you can send a cart of the reseller hosting plan directly to your client’s email for them to complete the payment, but your client will then purchase hosting at the price advertised on Hostinger’s website.

InstaWP

The InstaWP reseller model is based on setting up WordPress sites for clients using a template and then migrating the sites to one of their hosting partners or to any other hosting provider.

Their full Website As A Service (WaaS) offering is still in beta. It currently allows you to create templates and sell them at your own price.

However, InstaWP doesn’t have their own hosting, so their reseller model is commission based depending on which of their hosting partners you purchase from. They will take a percentage of the sale and pay you your commission at the end of the month.

WPUltimo

WP Ultimo is a WordPress plugin that allows you to create a WordPress multisite network and offer a white-label, multi-website hosting solution to your clients.

The WP Ultimo reseller model enables web developers to become hosting providers and offer website creation, hosting, and domain reseller services to their clients by emulating self-managed Website as a Service (WaaS) platforms on WordPress similar to Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress.com.

While WP Ultimo is a versatile solution for WaaS, it runs on WordPress Multisite (unlike WPMU DEV’s single-site solution, where every site is built and hosted on its own dedicated virtual server and individual IP), which is harder to manage (as one of the largest multisite hosts on the planet, we know the challenges of managing sites on this platform).

Other Reseller Programs

The following are some popular hosting companies that offer reseller hosting programs with pre-installed management software like cPanel, Plesk, WHM, WHMCS, etc. They don’t include components like premium plugins or a client portal like our white labeled Hub.

Note: Prices shown below may reflect promotional/discount pricing and vary from the actual prices charged by the hosting companies on their website.

InMotion

InMotion reseller features include:

• Hosting Products: 4 reseller plans (80GB SSD – 300GB NVMe SSD)
• Hosting Management: cPanel/WHM
• Client Billing: WHMCS
• Starting Price: $6.99/month

A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting reseller features include:

• Hosting Products: 4 reseller plans (60GB SSD/NVMe SSD – 250GB SSD/NVMe SSD)
• Hosting Management: cPanel/WHM
• Client Billing: WHMCS or Blesta
• Starting Price: $15.99/month.

HostGator

HostGator reseller features include:

• Hosting Products: 3 reseller plans (60GB – 140GB)
• Hosting Management: cPanel/WHM
• Client Billing: WHMCS
• Starting Price: $19.95/month (first month only)

InterServer

InterServer reseller features include:

• Hosting Products: 5 reseller plans (80GB – 280GB)
• Hosting Management: DirectAdmin
• Client Billing: Install via a script (e.g. WHMCS, Blesta, HostBill, etc.)
• Starting Price: $19.95/month

AccuWeb

AccuWeb reseller features include:

• Hosting Products: various plans (10GB – 200GB)
• Hosting Management: cPanel/WHM
• Client Billing: Not included. You will need to set up your own.
• Starting Price: $11.99/month (with annual purchase)

Hostwinds

Hostwinds reseller features include:

• Hosting Products: 3 shared hosting reseller plans (unlimited space)
• Hosting Management: cPanel/WHM
• Client Billing: Not included with Reseller
• Starting Price: $5.24/month (first billing cycle only, then $6.99/mo)

ResellerClub

ResellerClub reseller features include:

• Hosting Products: 4 reseller plans (40GB – 200GB)
• Hosting Management: cPanel/WHM
• Client Billing: can purchase WHMCS as an add-on
• Starting Price: $16.99/month (with 3-year purchase, otherwise $23.99/mo)

HostPapa

HostPapa reseller features include:

• Hosting Products: 5 reseller plans (50GB – 250GB)
• Hosting Management: cPanel/WHM
• Client Billing: WHMCS included for up to 250 clients.
• Starting Price: $30.99/month

Grow Your Reseller Business, Not Your Headaches

Hopefully, this comprehensive guide has given you all the information you need to find the ideal reseller hosting company and platform for your WordPress and web services agency or web development business to partner with for long-term success.

We’ve covered the pitfalls to avoid, looked at everything the ideal reseller hosting platform should provide you with, and even included a list of the top reseller hosting companies you can check out to save time with your research.

If you agree that the ideal reseller hosting platform for your business should comprise the following:

1. Provide a fully managed hosting service so you don’t waste time worrying about the technical issues of hosting and managing servers,
2. Be seamlessly integrated with your agency or web development business so it runs completely under your own brand on your domain,
3. Include everything from superior-quality web hosting plans where you can set your own pricing and easy hosting and site management tools to client billing and invoicing, a white label branded client portal, 24×7 expert support for resellers and their clients, and other additional services you can resell (e.g. domains),
4. Offer you the customization, automation, flexibility, and scalability you need to grow your business with no hassles or headaches, and
5. Provide you with maximum profit potential (e.g. ability to buy services at deeply discounted or even wholesale prices and mark these up without restrictions),

Then we guarantee you won’t find a better reseller hosting solution to partner with than WPMU DEV’s Reseller.

WPMU DEV Reseller is the culmination of years of effort by a global team comprised of hundreds of dedicated staff members, all united by a single common purpose: to develop and support the best all-in-one fully integrated, automated, white-label WordPress platform available anywhere that agencies and web developers can resell as their own to grow and scale their business to unlimited heights.

Take our reseller platform for a 30-day risk free test drive, do your due diligence, and see for yourself why we are not just tooting our own horn.

Running a profitable reseller hosting business can be challenging and filled with headaches and complications, but with WPMU DEV’s Reseller, it doesn’t have to be.

Integrate reseller hosting with your business today.

If you run your own web development business or digital agency or plan to start one  (tip: see our guide on launching a successful web development business), you may want to think about ways to generate recurring revenue from your existing client base.

One great way to generate regular income for your business is to offer clients website care and maintenance services. Another is reseller hosting.

Reseller hosting can be confusing for some. This guide will help to eliminate any confusion. We’ll cover what reseller hosting is, how it works, and the best, easiest, and fastest way to get started.

Here are all the areas we’ll be covering:

• Why Resell Hosting?
• What is Reseller Hosting?
• Reseller vs Affiliate – Differences Explained
• Different Types of Reseller Hosting
• Reseller Basics – Benefits of Reselling Web Hosting
• How Reseller Hosting Works
• Reseller Hosting Pricing Models
• Who Should Consider Reseller Hosting
• What You Need To Succeed as a Reseller
• WPMU DEV – The Ideal Reseller Platform For Your Business

Let’s get right into it…

Why Resell Hosting?

With more businesses going online to expand their reach and remain competitive in the global digital economy, the demand for websites just keeps increasing.

According to G2.com, the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace, the web hosting industry has consistently outperformed analysts’ predictions for annual growth and revenue.

If your services involve building websites for clients, a major part of your business will be setting up and configuring web hosting and domains, so … why not have them buy from you?

What is Reseller Hosting?

Setting up and running web hosting and domain registration services is complex and astronomically expensive. In fact, it’s an impractical undertaking, even for large agencies.

Setting up and providing a web hosting service, for example, requires owning and operating the servers and infrastructure required to host websites. It also involves providing storage space, server resources, and network connectivity to ensure websites remain accessible 24/7.

And becoming a domain registrar requires going through accreditation processes and proving your technical readiness to perform all the necessary administration and compliance processes associated with registering domain names and following accurate and secure protocols.

To maximize your profitability and minimize your risks and expenses, the smarter, cheaper, and easier way is to use external hosting providers and domain registrars for their secure infrastructure, maintenance, and administration systems, so you can focus on growing your web development services business.

Reseller hosting (and domain reselling) are unique services that can empower you to offer web hosting solutions (and domain registration/renewals) to your clients and share in the profit.

Instead of managing your own servers, becoming a reseller allows you to purchase server resources in bulk from a hosting provider and then redistribute (i.e. resell) these to your own clients.

This not only allows you to provide a comprehensive solution encompassing website development and hosting services, but it also gives you the opportunity to create recurring income.

As a web developer or digital agency, then, you can earn money from hosting and domain names by referring clients to web hosts and domain name registrars by becoming either an affiliate or a reseller of their services.

Reseller vs Affiliate – Differences Explained

An affiliate is essentially someone who introduces customers to a business via their website, email, banner ad, etc., using a special link encoded with a unique trackable affiliate ID. If a sale occurs, they receive a commission after a certain amount of time has elapsed (to cover money-back guarantee periods, processing of payment accounts, etc.)

A reseller, on the other hand, can integrate the hosting provider’s product or service into their business, add a markup to the customer’s cost of purchasing these products or services, and have more control over areas like pricing and profit margins, product naming, payment terms, etc.,

Also, depending on the type of reseller hosting, you can resell another company’s services under your own brand name and on your own website.

Different Types of Reseller Hosting

Now that you understand the basic difference between earning a sales commission by referring someone to a hosting company (affiliate) and reselling their hosting, let’s take a brief look at the different types of reseller hosting available:

1. Traditional Reseller Hosting

With traditional reseller hosting, you buy a chunk of server space and allocate it to your clients. Even if you sell it under your brand, your clients can generally tell that you are the middle agent in the deal.

2. White Label Reseller Hosting

With white label reseller hosting, you can rebadge and sell the hosting service as your own without revealing the original hosting provider to your clients.

3. Cloud Reseller Hosting

Cloud reseller hosting lets you resell hosting on cloud infrastructure with flexibility and scalability.

4. VPS Reseller Hosting

Virtual Private Server (VPS) reseller hosting lets you provide clients with services with dedicated resources for enhanced performance and control.

5. Shared Reseller Hosting

Resell shared hosting plans with multiple users on the same server.

Note: While this type of reseller hosting allows you to offer cost-effective hosting solutions for small websites, we don’t recommend it, as there are potentially inherent risks that you have no control over.

For example, if another site being hosted on your shared server cause the server to go down, all sites on that server will also be affected.

If you are considering shared reseller hosting for cost reasons, a better option would be to offer your clients inexpensive hosting on WPMU DEV’s Quantum plans, which provide more benefits to small websites, including compartmentalized hosting with their own dedicated IP address.

Now that you understand what reseller hosting is and the different types of reseller hosting available, let’s look at the benefits of becoming a reseller.

Reseller Basics – Benefits of Reselling Web Hosting and Domains

Choosing to resell web hosting and domains rather than starting your own hosting company or setting up a domain registrar business from scratch offers several advantages to web developers and digital service agencies:

• Low Startup Costs: Reselling allows you to enter the web hosting and domain market with minimal to no upfront investment. Instead of building and maintaining your own infrastructure, you simply leverage an established hosting and domain provider’s resources and focus on improving your own sales and customer service processes.
• Time Efficiency: As discussed earlier, setting up a hosting company or domain registrar from scratch requires significant time and technical expertise. By becoming a reseller, you can bypass the complex setup process and focus entirely on developing your services and growing your business.
• Technical Support and Maintenance: When you join a reseller program, you gain access to technical support and maintenance services provided by the hosting provider. This relieves you of the burden of managing web hosting servers, infrastructure, and software updates and having to perform all necessary domain registration admin and compliance tasks, allowing you to focus all of your time, efforts, and resources on servicing your clients.
• Established Reputation: If you decide not to whitelabel the services and market these under your own brand, then partnering with a reputable hosting provider means you can leverage their brand reputation and reliability. This can help to instill trust and confidence in your potential customers and help you attract new clients more easily.

How Reseller Hosting Works

A reseller hosting provider acts as the middle agent between companies that own and manage the hosting technology and users looking for reliable hosting for their businesses and websites.

The key role of a hosting reseller is to provide users with access to the following:

• Server Management – Interfacing with the hosting providers that own and manage the servers, hardware, and data centers so users don’t have to worry about the technical aspects of server maintenance, security, and uptime.
• Technical Support – Providing users with technical support when they encounter problems with their hosting services, ensuring that any server-related issues are resolved quickly.
• Scalability – Offering users scalable solutions to easily accommodate their growing needs. This includes helping users upgrade resources like disk space, bandwidth, and RAM as their client base expands.

As a web developer, you can significantly boost your business and revenue by partnering with a reseller hosting provider that allows you to focus exclusively on your core expertise and your clients. This is done by having access to solutions that take care of everything else you need to run your business.

Let’s look at these main solutions:

Server Infrastructure and Resource Allocation

Understanding server infrastructure and resource allocation is vitally important because it affects the performance of the websites you host.

You will want to make sure that the hosting is right for your clients’ requirements and budget and provides access to sufficient server resources like CPU, RAM, and bandwidth to prevent overloading servers and ensure smooth website performance.

Another factor to consider is data center locations, as the physical location and quality of the data centers used by the hosting provider impact website speed and reliability.

White-Labeling and Branding Options

Having access to white-labeling and branding options allows you to create a consistent and professional online presence for your clients.

As a hosting reseller, you will want to rebrand the hosting services under your own company name to maintain a cohesive brand identity.

Another key factor in this area is the ability to create custom hosting plans that align with your brand’s aesthetics and services. This flexibility will enable you to provide a more tailored hosting experience for your clients.

White-labeling and branding options also give you a marketing advantage and a competitive edge by allowing you to present hosting services as your own, enhancing your credibility and trustworthiness with clients.

Billing and Customer Management

Efficient billing and customer management are critical aspects of a web developer’s business, so look for reseller hosting that offers the following:

• Billing Automation: Billing automation tools streamline the process of invoicing and payment collection. This reduces your administrative overhead.
• Client Onboarding: Look for platforms that allow you to effectively manage client accounts, making it easier to onboard new clients, set up hosting packages, and assign resources.
• Monitoring and Reporting: Having access to tools that allow you to monitor server performance and generate reports helps you keep track of your clients’ hosting usage and identify opportunities for improvement.

In summary, understanding your role in providing reliable hosting services to clients as a reseller hosting provider will allow you to focus on your core expertise in web development, build a successful hosting business, and offer comprehensive solutions to your clients.

Reseller Hosting Pricing Models

Understanding different reseller pricing models is the key to effectively pricing your products or services to align with market demands and maximize your profit potential.

Here are the main reseller pricing models and some basic examples of how to calculate your pricing using these models:

Cost-Based Pricing

Calculate all costs including server expenses, support, and overheads. Add a suitable markup for profitability.

Example: Server costs $100/month + Support costs $50/month. Markup of 30%. Total pricing: $100 + $50 + ($150 * 0.3) = $225.

Percentage-Based Pricing

Set prices based on a percentage of the hosting service cost.

Example: For a 25% profit on a $50 hosting plan, reseller price is $50 + ($50 * 0.25) = $62.50.

Tiered Pricing

Create different service tiers with varying features and prices and let your clients choose based on their needs.

Example: Basic tier at $20/month with limited features, Standard tier at $40/month with more features, Premium tier at $60/month with all features.

Competitive Pricing

Analyze market rates and set prices to compete. This may involve offering additional services or lower prices.

Example: Market average for reseller hosting is $30/month. Set pricing at $25/month with additional support to be competitive.

Bundle Pricing

Combine hosting with other services (e.g., domain, security) into a package for a single price.

Example: Basic bundle includes hosting and domain for $50/month. Premium bundle includes hosting, domain, and security for $75/month.

Who Should Consider Reseller Hosting

In addition to the general benefits discussed earlier, reseller hosting provides benefits and opportunities to businesses such as:

Web Developers and Web Designers

Including web hosting as part of your packages lets you expand your service offerings and create a one-stop-shop for your clients.

For example, you can target specific niches or industries and offer clients a comprehensive package that includes website development, hosting, and maintenance, providing expertise and reliability, and ensuring ongoing revenue from hosting fees.

By reselling hosting services to clients as a bundled offering, you can establish a steady stream of passive income to complement project-based earnings.

Agencies and Freelancers

As an agency or freelancer, you can easily scale your hosting infrastructure to accommodate the needs of multiple clients without the hassle of managing physical servers by branding and reselling hosting services as your own, diversify revenue streams by offering hosting alongside design, marketing, or development services, and centralize the management of your client accounts to simplify billing, support, and maintenance.

Also, as a reseller you will be accessing bulk discounts, enabling your business to offer competitive pricing while maintaining healthy profit margins.

Entrepreneurs, Business Owners, and Anyone Seeking Income Generation

While leveraging existing skills, resources, and client networks certainly makes it easier to build a profitable reseller hosting business, the opportunity is not confined only to web developers, designers, agencies, or freelancers.

The growing web hosting industry also provides a stable and expanding market for entrepreneurial and business-minded individuals seeking income generation opportunities.

Reseller hosting requires minimal upfront investment and allows you to generate a steady stream of passive income without the need for extensive technical knowledge.

The recommended approach here would be to identify underserved niches or industries and provide specialized hosting services tailored to their needs, such as providing hosting for small firms or local businesses in that niche.

You could even explore strategies like adding an affiliate program and recruiting affiliates to refer clients to your services.

What You Need to Succeed As a Reseller

While you don’t need advanced technical skills to start a web hosting and domain reselling business, having a basic understanding of web hosting, domains, and internet technologies can be beneficial.

If you currently offer (or are planning to start) a web development services business, your business structure should be able to quickly and easily accommodate the provision of these additional services.

A great way to start is to choose a reputable hosting and domain provider offering a great reseller program and a platform that meets your infrastructure, pricing, features, and support needs.

WPMU DEV – The Ideal Reseller Platform or Your Business

Choosing the right hosting and domain provider is crucial for the success of your reselling activities, so it’s important to research your options.

As a leader in the managed WordPress web hosting space, WPMU DEV has developed a solid, well-supported, and fully automated whitelabel reseller platform that provides you with an instant revenue add-on where you can resell hosting and domains under your own brand for maximum profit, with little effort.

Here are some of the great reasons to partner with WPMU DEV to resell web hosting and domains:

1. Our All-In-One WordPress Platform Provides Everything You Need

At WPMU DEV, our focus is to help WordPress web developers grow their business successfully.

We provide a seamlessly integrated end-to-end platform you can use to build, launch, and grow your web development business.

The platform provides everything you need under one roof:

• Blazing-fast hosting – resell the best hosting available, with all the hosting features your clients need, and additional services included, such as downtime monitoring, broken link checking, CDN, emails, and more.
• The Hub – manage unlimited sites from one central dashboard and provide your clients access to their accounts with a fully-branded client portal,
• Award-winning premium plugins – provide everything your client sites need, from hardening security, improving performance, and performing automatic backups, to marketing, SEO, analytics, and more,
• Integrated client billing and management – a streamlined payment system for your business that lets you manage and bill your clients.
• Templates – offer your clients a huge selection of professionally designed and fully optimized time-saving templates that will greatly speed up their site-building process,
• Automation – keep all your clients’ sites updated, backed up, and error-free, and send them customized reports…all done automatically for you!
• And much more.

2. Award-Winning Fully Managed WordPress Web Hosting

If you’re going to resell hosting to your clients, why not give them the very best hosting available?

G2.com, a leading company for trusted real user software reviews, consistently rates WPMU DEV a leader in the web hosting and managed WordPress hosting space.

Every WPMU DEV hosting plan you resell comes with enterprise-grade hosting features already preconfigured and fine tuned for optimum performance and speed, plus options you can turn on or off to create upsell packages.

There are simply way too many great features to list here, so check out how we compare with other hosting companies.

3. Time-Saving Automation Everywhere

Imagine owning an automated vending machine that never needs restocking of products or servicing. A vending machine that can be fully set up and configured in a few clicks to deliver your clients the highest quality hosting available, fully optimized, fully managed and fully supported for you.

Let’s take this automation up a notch.

Imagine having the option to automatically set up and configure every website hosted on your own fully-branded reseller account for optimal speed, performance, security, SEO, backups, updates, downtime monitoring, emails, client reports, and client billing and invoicing.

You don’t even have to imagine this. It’s already baked into our platform and ready to go.

But WPMU DEV pushes automation even beyond hosting, website, and client billing setup.

With Reseller, you can also instantly connect purchased domains with their websites (and have their DNS records be automatically configured without having to lift a finger), and provide your clients (and their clients) with access to white-labeled support [coming soon].

Yes, with WPMU DEV Reseller, you truly can have a fully digital automated vending machine working 24/7 for you.

4. Highest Profit Margins Anywhere

Have you ever looked into how Costco, the giant wholesale company makes its money? They sell their products to members with very low profit margins and make money from the renewal of yearly membership subscriptions from their loyal customer base.

WPMU DEV operates on a very similar model. We offer our members hosting and domains almost at cost price and we let you set your own pricing on top so you can make the maximum profits as a reseller of our products.

Additionally, we charge resellers zero client billing administration fees, so you keep all of your client’s payments after the payment processor’s charges (e.g. Stripe).

5. 24/7 Expert Support That Will Never Let You Down

As mentioned earlier, trusted product review sites like G2.com consistently rate WPMU DEV as a leader in the web hosting and managed WordPress hosting space.

While we are chuffed to be recognized for our hosting and site management tool, the area where we absolutely shine above all other industry competitors is in our commitment to provide every customer with 24/7 expert support that goes above and beyond expectations.

Don’t take our word for it…check the user reviews at G2, Trustpilot, and other review sites.

As a WPMU DEV reseller, you’re not only reselling our products but our reputation, so it’s vitally important that we provide you the very best of support and help in all areas of growing your reseller business.

From onboarding you as a member to supporting your business 24/7, we employ a range of support methods, including live chat access to a global team of WordPress and hosting experts, custom-trained AI assistant, detailed product documentation, in-depth blog articles and tutorials, an active member community forum, and more.

Soon, we’ll be extending our best-in-class support to Reseller clients too! (Coming soon)

The Next Step: Set Up Your Reseller Hosting Business

As stated earlier, the web hosting industry is growing and reseller hosting presents a lucrative opportunity for a wide range of individuals and businesses looking to tap into this ever-expanding industry.

Whether you choose to bundle web hosting with your web development or design services, scale hosting operations for multiple clients, or enter the digital services industry as a side venture, reseller hosting offers a gateway to sustainable income and business growth.

If you need help choosing a hosting company to partner with to start your reseller hosting business, check out our comprehensive guide on how to find the best reseller hosting for your WordPress business or digital agency. It covers eight major areas to look for in a reseller hosting company that will guarantee the best fit for your agency’s needs and long-term success as a reseller.

If you are ready to start generating recurring revenue with reseller hosting, WPMU DEV’s Reseller platform provides everything you need to succeed and boost your revenue with the least amount of effort and hassle involved.

This includes:

• Award-winning discounted hosting services (and domain registrations too!)
• End-to-end white label reselling
• Automated client billing and invoice management
• Pre-configured and optimized site templates
• Integrated site management and client portal
• Expert 24/7 support (for your clients too… coming soon!)
• And a whole lot more!

To get started immediately with Reseller, refer to our guide on how to set up your hosting reseller business.

Or, visit our Reseller page and go through our Reseller documentation to learn about all of the platform’s features and benefits.

We’ll keep this short and sweet because there’s a lot to take in.

We’ve made significant changes to our award-winning hosting, which we’re sure you will love:

• Increased Bandwidth Limit
• Doubled SSD Storage Space (and then some!)
• Removed Visitors Limit

Let’s get right into it…

Increased Bandwidth Limit

We have increased the bandwidth on all hosting plans by a whopping 10X.

So, whereas the Bronze plan had a 1TB bandwidth limit, it is now 10TB.

Do you have any sites hosted on our Silver, Gold or higher plans?

The old 2.5TB, 10TB and higher bandwidth limits have been automatically bumped too, so Silver is now 25TB, Gold is now 100TB, Platinum is now…well, you get the picture – everything is now 10X!

Here’s another upgrade that’ll make you want to immediately jump on the bandwidth wagon…

Doubled SSD Storage Space (and then some!)

Every site hosted on WPMU DEV’s Managed WordPress hosting is created on a highly configured Virtual Private Server with dedicated resources and storage space.

We know you care about SSD storage, so we have increased SSD storage space on the selected plans below by at least 2X or more:

• Silver = 65GB (old=25GB)
• Gold = 160GB (old=60GB)
• Platinum = 320GB (old=155GB)
• Titanium = 1,280GB (old=640GB)
• Palladium = 1,600GB (old=640GB)

Great news…we have also increased the storage space on all existing sites currently hosted on the above-listed plans by 2x…at no additional cost!

Removed Visitors Limit

Say goodbye to our old hosting plans with 10x less bandwidth and visitor limits…and hello to the new plans with unlimited visitors!

There’s Never Been a Better Time To Host With WPMU DEV

More bandwidth, double SSD storage space (or more) on almost all hosting plans, and unlimited visitors…with all these new improvements, there’s no better time or reason not to jump on board with WPMU DEV hosting!

Check out everything that our hosting plans include. Even better, become a Premium member and get access to everything we make available, including hosting from just $4/mth and $144 free annual credit for even bigger savings.

And if you are hosting WordPress sites elsewhere, get in touch with us today to learn more about our full hosting buyout with free expert site migration.