WHM runbook · Beginner · an hour
How to install WooCommerce — The Account Most Likely to Ring You on a Sunday
Every account on your list is quiet except the shop, and the shop only ever calls when money is involved.
Straight answer first
A client shop needs three decisions made before it goes live: which plan it belongs on, whose name the payment gateway is in, and who receives the order emails when the default mail route fails — because a store is the one account that genuinely uses its resources and the one whose failures cost the client money directly. The install itself is a wizard; the sign-off is a real end-to-end test purchase on a desktop and on a phone.
You get the steps in the order a paid job needs them, the snag that quietly eats the margin, and what to record so the account can be handed on. The parts WHM and the panel already handle are marked as handled.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 24 August 2026
Beginner
Hand on the keyboard
an hour
Billable time, per account
5
Stages in the runbook
24/7
Cover for you and for them
This runbook assumes you are doing the job on somebody else's site and billing for it. Allow an hour, and read the whole thing once before you open a live client account.
Where a step is safe to template across every account on your list, it says so. Where it changes what the client sees, it says that too.
Which account a shop belongs in
Overselling is switched on from the first account and it works because most accounts sit well inside their limits. A shop does not. It runs uncached pages for every logged-in customer, holds a growing database of orders, and spikes whenever the client sends a newsletter.
Put it on store-tuned hosting rather than the cheapest slot you have free. Caching that respects carts, object caching for the dynamic pages and NVMe underneath are the difference between a shop that copes at Christmas and a ticket you take on a bank holiday.
Whose gateway, whose money
Connect Stripe or PayPal inside the client's own account, in their business name, with their bank details. You should never be an intermediary in a client's revenue, and you certainly should not be the account holder that disputes are raised against.
Ask for an operator role if you need to debug a failed order. That gets you the information without putting you between a customer and their refund, which is not a place any reseller wants to stand.
Order emails are the failure that costs real money
Set up SMTP sending before the first sale rather than after the first complaint. Order confirmations are the most important emails a shop sends, and the default mail route is exactly as unreliable for those as it is for everything else.
Then buy something yourself. Browse, add to cart, check out, receive the confirmation, find the order in the dashboard — the whole loop, in test mode, on a desktop and on a phone. That test is the sign-off document, and the confirmation email goes in the handover file.
What to agree before you hand over the keys
Say in writing who answers a broken checkout at the weekend and what that costs. A shop with no agreed out-of-hours position becomes an unpaid on-call rota inside a month, and the resentment builds on both sides of it.
Support answers at any hour for the hosting layer, and that cover extends to the clients you hand it to. What it does not cover is the client's own plugin choices, so be explicit about where the line sits before there is an incident to argue about.
The reseller platform this runbook is written on
Every runbook on this shelf is written against the platform we actually run: WHM for you, a cPanel of their own for every client, LiteSpeed cache in front and NVMe underneath. The screens in the instructions are the screens your client will see.
Private nameservers run under your own brand, so nothing in the panel, the account or the login page points a client anywhere except back at you.
- Ready to wire into WHMCS billing
- Softaculous in every account you create
- Free SSL on every site you host
- Setup free, nothing due up front
Why Hosting Seller
On every plan, as standard
The out-of-hours position, agreed early
The runbook makes you settle who answers a broken checkout at the weekend before there is a broken checkout.
Costed in your time, not just described
Each stage says what it takes out of your week, so the job can be quoted before it is agreed.
Escalation that runs both ways
Support answers you at any hour and answers your clients too, which is what keeps a small operation off a permanent on-call rota.
A sign-off you can point at
The test purchase and its confirmation email go into the handover file, so working-at-handover is documented rather than remembered.
Limits named before you hit them
Where a ceiling exists on accounts, storage or bandwidth, the runbook names it rather than letting a client find it for you.
What the client sees, spelled out
Every step names the client-facing consequence, so nothing arrives in their inbox as a surprise you then have to explain.
First Steps
From choosing to live
- 1
Choose the plan before you install anything
A shop is the account that actually uses its allowance. Put it on store-tuned hosting with caching that respects carts and object caching for the dynamic pages, not the cheapest free slot.
- 2
Install from the account and run the wizard on their details
One click from the installer, then the wizard with the client's real trading address, currency and tax position. Placeholder details have a way of surviving all the way to the first invoice.
- 3
Connect the gateway in the client's own name
Stripe or PayPal in their business account with their bank details, and an operator role for you if you need to investigate. Never sit between a customer and a refund.
- 4
Wire SMTP before the first sale
Order confirmations matter more than any other email a shop sends, and the default route is the least reliable way to send them. Do this before the shop is announced.
- 5
Buy something yourself, then file the evidence
Browse, cart, checkout, confirmation email, order in the dashboard — in test mode, on a desktop and on a phone. Put the confirmation email into the handover file as the sign-off.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- Imunify360 standing guard on every client site
- Ready to wire straight into WHMCS billing
- 30 GB, 60 GB or 100 GB of NVMe by tier
- cPanel, the panel the rest of the trade already knows
- PHP versions picked per site from the panel
- Webmail plus IMAP, POP and SMTP on every mailbox you create
- WHM for you, a cPanel of their own for every client
- You set the limits every client account gets
- Setup free, with nothing due before you start selling
- NVMe SSD underneath, LiteSpeed cache in front
Across the Counter
Things people ask us all the time
Should the payment gateway be in my account or the client's?
Theirs, always, in their business name with their bank details. Take an operator role if you need to investigate failed orders. Being the account holder puts you between a customer and their money, which has no upside for a reseller.
How many client shops can I sensibly put on one reseller plan?
Fewer than the account cap suggests. The tiers allow 100, 250 or 500 client accounts, but shops serve uncached pages and grow their databases steadily, so treat them as heavy accounts and watch the usage figures rather than the headline number.
Which plan does a client shop belong on?
Store-tuned hosting: caching that respects carts, object caching for the dynamic pages, and NVMe storage underneath. A shop on generic hosting works perfectly well right up until the day it matters, which is always the least convenient day.
Who takes the call when a checkout breaks on a Sunday?
Whoever you agreed in writing, and the time to agree it is before launch. Our desk answers at any hour for the hosting layer and answers your clients too; the client's own plugin and theme choices are yours to scope, price and defend.
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