Margin Brief
Annual billing value — Your term, their term, and the gap in between
You are prepaying a year of capacity and collecting it back in twelfths, which is fine until a client leaves in month four.
Straight answer first
Buy annually where the renewal is flat and the refund terms are clean, and keep anybody you have not tested on a monthly term. Commitment should follow evidence, and on a reseller book the commitment you are making is on behalf of clients who have made no such promise to you.
The rest of this page is about the gap between the two terms: what the mismatch does to cash flow, what an annual discount is genuinely worth, what happens when a client cancels in month four, and how to bill so that none of it is a crisis.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 24 August 2026
NVMe
Disks under every client account
Free
Domain on annual orders
99.9%
Uptime target we hold
Flat
Renewal, no year-two rise
For an end user this is a simple question about a discount. For a reseller it is a working-capital decision, because you are buying in one rhythm and selling in another.
The dark pattern to know about is the long teaser: a deep discount on a multi-year term with a tripled renewal waiting at the end of it. That converts your commitment into an ambush scheduled by calendar, and on a book of clients it converts into a repricing exercise you have to explain.
The mismatch: you buy in years, they pay in months
An annual reseller term is money out today against revenue that arrives in twelve instalments. That is perfectly sound arithmetic and a genuine cash-flow event, particularly in the first year when the book is small.
The mismatch is manageable while the book is growing, because new monthly revenue covers the gap. It bites when growth pauses and a renewal lands at the same time as a quiet quarter.
The practical answer is to keep the term you buy on and the term you sell on in deliberate proportion rather than by accident. Annual up, annual down, wherever the client will wear it.
What the discount is actually worth
Honestly, about one to two months' worth against the monthly rate. Our prices are quoted as the annual-equivalent monthly figure with no renewal games, which is the number worth comparing.
Savings much larger than that are a signal rather than a bargain. A discount that only makes sense if the renewal is much higher is a teaser structure, and the cost lands at the exact point where moving is most disruptive.
Set against that, the operational saving is real and often larger than the discount: one invoice a year instead of twelve, one card expiry to chase, one reminder per client.
The client who cancels in month four
This is the scenario the whole decision turns on. You have prepaid twelve months of capacity and the client has paid you for four.
It only hurts if the capacity is stranded. On a reseller pack it is not: the account is deleted, the allocation returns to your pool, and the next client uses it. That is the argument for buying capacity annually and selling accounts monthly.
It does hurt where you have prepaid something client-specific. Domain registrations are the obvious one, because the registry takes that fee the moment the name is placed and no refund exists. Bill those through to the client at the point of purchase rather than absorbing them.
How we would bill it
The plan for this is Pro. One flat price with the essentials already in it, and a renewal that matches the order price, so an annual commitment is a commitment to a known number rather than to a discovery.
Take the annual term on your own pack, where the capacity is fungible and the saving is real. Offer clients monthly by default and annual as a choice, priced so that you are indifferent between the two.
The refund window covers the trial risk on shared, business, WordPress and WooCommerce plans at thirty days, with reseller at seven. Read that clause on any supplier before an annual purchase, because it is the term that decides everything else.
Why our renewal price is boring
A supplier whose renewal jumps forces you to reprice a book of clients and explain it to each of them. We would rather be dull: the figure you order at is the figure you renew at, and your price list can stay where it is.
Real people answer the counter at any hour, including the awkward questions other hosts wave off as out of scope.
- The renewal price is the order price
- Capacity returns to your pool when a client leaves
- Refund terms printed, not negotiated
- Annual-equivalent pricing you can compare like for like
Why Hosting Seller
On every plan, as standard
The plan behind this page
Pro carries the essentials in one flat price, so an annual term commits you to a figure you already know.
No repricing exercise
The order price is the renewal price, which means a published client price list survives the end of your term.
Capacity you can reuse
A cancelled client account returns its allocation to your pool, so an annual pack is not stranded by a mid-term exit.
Refund terms in writing
Thirty days on shared, business, WordPress and WooCommerce, seven on reseller, stated rather than negotiated.
A supplier you can name
IGI Security Services Ltd, registered in England and Wales, with a public record and terms published under English law.
One shelf, every size
Shared, VPS and dedicated under one account, so a term commitment never boxes in where a client can grow to.
Price Tags Compared
How we compare with the household names
Typical sign-up and renewal prices across the market, set next to ours — the second number most comparison charts leave off.
| Line item | Hosting SellerBest seller | Typical big-brand host | Typical budget host | Typical loss-leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price / mo* | $2.42/mo | $4–$6 | $2–$4 | $1–$3 |
| Price at renewal / mo | $2.42/mo | $10–$15 | $8–$12 | $4–$6 |
| Renewal price on the entry plan is unchanged | ||||
| SSL on every plan | ||||
| Site migration included | ||||
| The entry plan uses NVMe storage | ||||
| Entry plan gets a backup daily | ||||
| Live human support, 24/7 |
*The number in our column is the cheapest plan on our shelf, priced on an annual term and pulled live from the very catalogue that feeds the pricing page, so it cannot drift out of date. Other columns show the ranges shared hosting tends to advertise inside each bracket: introductory rates that normally ask for a one-to-four-year commitment, then climb once that term expires. Naming individual competitors and printing their prices is something we have stopped doing. A figure we cannot re-check on the day you read it has no business sitting in front of you. So compare us with whoever you are genuinely weighing up, and read the renewal line first. That line tells you more than the headline ever will.
First Steps
From choosing to live
- 1
Compare the annual-equivalent figure
Convert every candidate to a monthly-equivalent price at the renewal rate. A discount worth more than a month or two of the monthly price is a teaser rather than a saving.
- 2
Buy capacity annually, sell accounts monthly
Your pack is fungible and a client account is not. That asymmetry is where the term decision actually lives.
- 3
Pass client-specific prepayments straight through
Domain registrations and anything else the registry or a vendor takes immediately should be billed to the client at purchase, not absorbed against a monthly fee.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- The renewal price on the tag matches the order price
- A domain free for year one when you order annually
- Nothing added at setup, no joining fee ever
- Upgrades apply to the account in place, with no move between plans
- A 30-day money-back guarantee on hosting plans, 7 days on reseller
- Invoices in the client area, with auto-renewal a toggle rather than a phone call
- Daily backups with restores you run yourself
- A 99.9% uptime target, watched by monitoring day and night
- Free SSL on every site you host, reissued before it lapses
- cPanel for every client, the panel the rest of the trade already knows
Across the Counter
Things people ask us all the time
Should I buy my reseller pack annually or monthly?
Annually, once you have tested the supplier, because pack capacity is fungible: a client who leaves frees allocation for the next one. Keep an untested supplier on a monthly term until the daily experience has proved itself, then commit.
Is the discount worth the working capital it ties up?
Usually, but check the size of it first. About one to two months' worth against the monthly rate is the honest range, and our prices are quoted as the annual-equivalent monthly figure with no renewal games. Anything dramatically larger means the renewal is doing the work. Set that against a year of cash going out while revenue arrives in twelfths, and the answer depends on how full your book already is.
What if I commit for a year and a client leaves in month four?
On a reseller pack, very little happens: the account is removed and the allocation returns to your pool for the next client. The exposure is on client-specific prepayments such as domain registrations, where the registry takes the fee immediately, so bill those through at the point of purchase.
Can I offer clients annual terms if I am on a monthly one?
You can, and plenty of resellers do it deliberately to improve their own cash position. Just price the annual option so you are indifferent between the two, and remember that you are then holding a commitment to a client that your own supplier term does not match.
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