Trade Desk
Dedicated server value — The two reasons a reseller buys the whole machine
Bare metal is either a cost-per-account decision about your own pool or a client who has outgrown everything else — and the two lead to very different purchases.
Straight answer first
Buy honestly specified bare metal with a control panel and real bandwidth in the price — our Xeon boxes are priced like a tool you use rather than a badge you display — and be clear about which of the two reseller reasons you are buying for.
Reason one is arithmetic: you have enough accounts that a whole machine costs less per client than renting pool space, and the saving is worth the operations work you take on. Reason two is a single client who needs guaranteed resources and will pay for them. Buying a server for reason two while telling yourself it is reason one is the classic way a small host acquires a machine it cannot fill.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 24 August 2026
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Written for resellers and agencies considering their first whole machine, or their next. This is the purchase where the difference between a hosting business and a hobby becomes visible, because a server is not a bigger plan — it is a different job.
One market fact makes shopping unusually well paid here: prices for equivalent dedicated hardware differ several times over across the market, and the spread comes from how each supplier sells rather than from what is inside the box. Nowhere else in this trade does an afternoon of comparison return so much.
Work out the cost per account first
Take the number of client accounts you run today, not the number you hope for, and divide the monthly cost of the machine by it. Then do the same sum for the pool you currently rent. If the machine does not win at today's count, it is a bet rather than a saving, and bets should be described as such in your own planning.
Add the parts people forget: the panel licence, the time you will spend patching, and the hours nobody bills for when something needs attention on a Sunday. Bare metal is cheaper per gigabyte and more expensive per hour, and hours are what a small studio is actually short of.
Specification against the shape of your workload
Bulk storage, backups and media suit large spinning drives; databases and busy client applications want NVMe latency. Both are on the shelf, so choose on your input and output pattern rather than on the biggest number in the table. A hundred small WordPress accounts and one heavy shop are different machines.
Check what is included before you compare prices at all: an IPv4 address, a control panel, and honest bandwidth figures. A cheaper box that charges for two of those is not cheaper, and the difference tends to appear on the second invoice rather than the first.
What changes the moment it is yours
You inherit the patching, the monitoring and the restore rehearsals. That is not a warning against buying one — it is a reminder to price your own time into the decision, because the machine will not remind you.
Note one commercial detail as well: VPS and dedicated servers are built to order the moment payment clears, so they sit outside the 30-day money-back guarantee that covers shared, business, WordPress and WooCommerce plans, and reseller hosting carries seven days. Plan the trial on something the guarantee covers, then commit to the metal.
Sell it, or absorb it
If the server exists for one client, put it on their invoice as its own line with its own margin. Clients who need dedicated resources generally understand why they cost dedicated money, and the ones who do not are telling you something useful about the account.
If it exists for your pool, absorb it and let the per-account saving show up in your gross margin rather than in your pricing. Cutting your prices the week you buy a server is how a host ends up with better hardware and a worse business.
We sell the hosting. That is the whole disclosure.
This page is written by the supplier and says so. No affiliate table, no ranking fee, and therefore no incentive to talk anybody into more machine than they need.
Bring an existing setup and we shift it across at no charge — usually inside 24 hours, with nothing going dark while we work.
- Tests you can run before you commit a client
- One trade price, held at renewal
- Free migration for the sites you already host
- A refund policy with no small print
Why Hosting Seller
On every plan, as standard
A panel already in the price
The control panel comes with the machine rather than arriving as a separate licence on a separate invoice.
Matched to this verdict
The Xeon Dedicated plan is this page's recommendation made concrete — one flat price, essentials included, upgradeable in place.
Disks chosen for the workload
Spinning drives for bulk and NVMe for busy databases, both on the shelf, so the choice follows your traffic rather than a spec sheet.
Bandwidth figures stated plainly
Honest numbers in the price, which is what makes a cost-per-account calculation worth doing at all.
Free migration onto the metal
Our staff move an existing setup across at no charge, usually inside a day, with nothing going dark while it happens.
One flat price, held at renewal
The order price is the renewal price, so the per-account saving you calculated does not evaporate at the anniversary.
First Steps
From choosing to live
- 1
Do the cost-per-account sum honestly
Today's client count, not next year's. If the machine only wins on projected growth, call it a bet and decide whether you want to make one.
- 2
Price your own hours in
Patching, monitoring and restore rehearsals are real costs even when nobody invoices for them. A server is cheaper per gigabyte and dearer per hour.
- 3
Trial on something the guarantee covers
Prove the platform on a shared or reseller plan inside its money-back window, then commit to metal, which is built to order and sits outside it.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- A control panel included with the machine, not licensed separately
- An IPv4 address and honest bandwidth figures in the price
- A choice of bulk spinning drives or NVMe latency
- Free migration onto the machine by our staff
- LiteSpeed caching running at the server, not bolted on by plugin
- A 99.9% uptime target, watched by monitoring day and night
- Upgrades applied to the account in place where the plan allows
- Mailboxes on your own or a client's domain, included
- Spam and virus filtering fitted to every mailbox
- cPanel, the panel the rest of the trade already knows
Across the Counter
Things people ask us all the time
At how many client accounts does a whole machine start paying?
At whatever count makes the cost per account lower than the pool you rent, including the panel licence and your own time. Do the sum on today's client list rather than the one in your business plan — a machine bought on projected growth is an expensive way to motivate yourself.
Should the server be for one client or for my pool?
Decide before you buy, because it changes the specification. A single-client box is sized to their workload and billed to them as its own line. A pool box is sized for many small accounts and absorbed into your margin. Buying one and using it as the other is how machines end up half empty.
Is a dedicated server covered by the money-back guarantee?
No. Dedicated servers and VPS are built to order the moment you pay, so they sit outside it, as do domain registrations because the registry takes that fee immediately. Thirty days applies to shared, business, WordPress and WooCommerce hosting, and reseller hosting carries seven.
What am I giving up against cloud instances?
Elastic scaling and the managed services around it. In return you get a flat bill, the full performance of the hardware, and no anxiety about a meter — which for a reseller with a steady book of accounts is usually the better trade, because your own revenue is steady too.
Read next
Hosting With Free Migration
Moving a book of client sites without a moving day anybody notices.
Scalable Hosting Upgrade Paths
Growth as a setting you change rather than a house move, planned from the reseller's side.
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Bare metal, a control panel included, and bundles priced plainly.
VPS Hosting
KVM virtual servers with root access, DDoS filtering and one flat price.
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Buy the machine on arithmetic, not ambition.
A panel in the price, honest bandwidth, free migration onto it, and a flat figure that still applies at renewal.
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