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Remember Master and Alpha Resellers?
raindog308
Administrator, Veteran
in General
Saw an old offer today and had almost forgotten about these kinds of shared hosting reseller accounts.
They were hot about 10 years ago or so...haven't seen anyone advertise them in ages.
Not sure really how many people used "alpha" resellers (which means you had multiple masters, who had multiple resellers)...I always thought those were kind of silly. Even master resellers were pushing the boundaries of reality. I understand a reseller might be adding some value in terms of closer support, design services, etc. but not sure what a master added. It's not like a physical franchise where someone buys a territory...a reseller could just buy from the original host.
What changed in the industry that made these kinds of accounts go extinct?
Comments
cPanel licensing?
Francisco
Request: Alpha DAs
Apart from cPanel licensing, maintaining a decent master reseller stack was a tedious task. Most providers with decent quality discontinued it after gaining a client base. It was not worth the effort.
I do not know about Alphas.
Not extinct. Still many hosting providers sell master/alpha cpanel reseller accounts. 100s may not 1000s, but still they are!
One of the main companies that provided Master for cPanel has done it for DA as well, I have seen a few providers using it.
Zamfoo even had Super Alpha Resellers (resell a reseller of resellers)!
The industry likely died back as a lot of the providers who used to provide this service have been acquired by larger companies (i.e SmartHosting by Krystal) and unfortunately prior to their acquisitions they were often poorly managed and barely profitable.
The software used by a lot of hosts was poorly made and had a lot of flaws which made maintaining a master reseller node worthwhile. E.g. WHMPHP would allow a user to set their own reseller limits, essentially allowing a user to upgrade themselves for no cost. Plus, accounts created by WHMPHP were not killed when the reseller was killed. There are lots of cases of people making a subreseller, cancelling the master and using that for years and years at no charge. Larger/more premium providers would do occasional audits, but until cPanel licensing change - most never did and as a result made their margins unsustainable.
cPanel licensing probably killed it off to obscurity totally now (nobody who was buying an Alpha reseller really cares about DA - well, very few people).
Don't forget the Super Alpha Resellers
With Super Alpha You could create Alpha Resellers as well. And those Alphas could create master and reseller haha.
Seems the cpanel plugin still exists
https://zamfoo.com/new/
Master Resellers like Zamfoo were more of a security risk rather any advantage.
https://rack911labs.ca/advisories/zamfoo-multiple-reseller-security-vulnerabilities/
Infact Such plugins are now available for DirectAdmin as well.
I was reading up some articles the other day regarding shift in web hosting business.
There's definitely couple of reasons why alpha and master went away.
From a host perspective:
Managing reseller client base along is a rather tedious task. Adding master and alpha reseller on top of that, managing overall resource allocation (memory, cpu etc) as well as controlling abuse becomes a chore instead of business.
Cpanel licensing is also another reason.
From a clients perspective:
With the rise of quality and affordable control panel such as ApisCp, DirectAdmin, KeyHelp etc,.it has became much more easier and simpler to manage your own tasks.
Client has better control over there resource and in many cases, getting a vps/dedicated server might actually become cheaper comparing to what one would pay of Alpha and Master.
There's definitely a market for Alpha and Master though. That is the uneducated non techy demographic who wants to own a "web hosting business". But for sanity reason, you don't want that pool.
Reseller all the way down!
I'm looking for a VPS with unlimited CPU, unlimited RAM, unlimited disk, unmetered network at 100Gbps, and /32 IPv6.
If I get my wish, I'll make alpha alpha alpha alpha alpha alpha alpha alpha reseller.
Every little VPS gets an on-link /64 and a routed /48.
I wouldn't worry about WHMCS plugins or cPanel licenses.
Panels are for the weaklings.
I'm a stallion coder and I can make anything I want!
Support will be handled by AI.
I bought an Echo Dot and I'll hook it up to the support telephone line.
Bingo! They would build up their client base & then discontinue it like 2 of the big 3 "Alpha Kings":
EZPZ & CodyWithLove (your old "friend").
The 3rd "Alpha King" still has "Master Resellers but their whole network has taken a turn for the worse with negative reviews everywhere:
https://skynethosting.net/master-reseller-hosting.htm
MisterHost still offers Alpha and Masterreseller. Unlimited cPanel Alphareseller is 40$/mo (starts from 20$/mo if longer contract) including free Blesta iirc. Afaik they are also the devs of either WHMPHP or WHMAMP or at least are/were involved in the development.
I used them a couple years back with a regular reseller and can't complain. No idea about alpha/master, though.
I actually started out in Hosting with a standard reseller account, and my next step was a Master reseller account (had actually forgotten the name until I read this thread, it's been ages!)
Agree - they've made a proper mess out of it.
How they are still able to sell unlimited cpanel accounts?
The other team member is a decent guy
You got me laughing. Apparently "cPanel Shared License" is a thing. And I find people advertising them on other popular hosting forums. Not sure about LET, though.
It's pirated/hacked licenses, so no, they aren't allowed on here.
Francisco
Pirated cpanel licences is harm for server anytime hacked and your precious data will be loss
I think at some point they mentioned it just works out because ppl don't abuse it or smth like that but I don't really remember since it's been years. You could ask support though, or sign up for the cheapest plan to try. They are hosted at OVH iirc so the hosting is fairly good (not superv, but it workes good enough when I used them).
Never heard that term before lol. Guess there are so many license models out there now of cPanel, I have no idea😅
Edit: just read @Francisco comment. Does not seem so nice, then. I have no idea if they are using this type of offers for their product, but obviously that would be ethically questionable. Then again, we are talking Oakley here who killed loyal clients' lifetime license sooo while it does not justify the usage of a pirated license, I kinda feel less sorry for Oakley in that regard. Security risks are, obviously, also to be taken into account.
We are selling masters and alphas since years successfully. There is a huge market if you are good ranked.
@raindog308 Since the cPanel price increase the times are getting better for senior providers. Over 30% of small providers deadpooled or just waiting for someone to ask if they sell the business. For us as a leader on the alpha/master industry the cpanel price increase was a good move. Believe it or not, since July last year we are growing ~15% per month.
Volume makes the profit.
All legit at Misterhost.net
Thanks for chiming in. Good to see you guys are still around. Hope all is well in Austria (considering the current situation)
With EZPZ it was almost entirely due to the cPanel licensing change and acquisition by THH more than anything else. They actually had a fairly well maintained Master Reseller stack (towards the latter part of 2010s at least) and operated with it for well over 10 years.
EZPZ was probaly the best of the ones mentioned. It was bittersweet when Dan sold the company.
I remember when I fist heard about Alpha Reseller, I thought to myself why would anyone wants a dedicated server to run a hosting company anymore.
Boy I didn't no any better back then...
alpha reseller plan is not good enough
Zamfo..that one was like a walking zombie lol.
Just wondering have anyone actually bought hosting off eBay, I did in the past think about it as a joke to test since it probably would be totaly junk.
When I first started out I purchased a hosting plan from ebay back in 2003. Basically they where resellers or resellers of resellers and were maxing out their recourse like crazy. One guy I talked to that quit said one of his "Servers" were hosting 500+ accounts (Shared, Reseller, and Master) with 4 CPU's, 4GB RAM and it showed. cPanel Server status was like a Christmas tree with all the different colors
That is part of why I sacked off the hosting business. I got tired of people wanting the sort of prices that were offered by such hosts and wouldn't take "I can't give you that with any decent performance and I refuse to sell something that performs that bad" as an answer. Some got quite angry when I asked, that if other hosts could offer so much more than I did for so much cheaper, why they were even talking to me?
I didn't have enough clients to be worth the effort of pursuing the "sell the company" option so I just stopped taking orders for a couple of months then as income died down towards no-better-then-break-even¹ told everyone left "I'm shutting in three months, sorry, here are some suggested alternatives, I can give you full backups and other minimal transfer assistance".
[1] people moving to cheaper hosts in many cases², some getting kicked for spam, repeated resource abuse, or other AUP violations
[2] I had a couple try to come back and get snotty when I wasn't taking new orders any more!³
[3] "but what about customer loyalty?!", "erm, you were not a loyal customer?", "well, I never"...