Handover file · Beginner · an afternoon
How to take payments online — One Afternoon, Two Completely Different Problems
You are setting up a client's checkout and, separately, working out how to bill thirty hosting accounts every month without doing it by hand.
Straight answer first
Separate the two jobs before you start, because a one-off cart and a recurring hosting invoice are different animals: the client's checkout wants a gateway with hosted fields so no card number touches their site, while your own billing wants a system that raises the invoice, takes the renewal and provisions or suspends the account on its own. Card fees sit in the region of 1.5 to 3 per cent plus a few pence per transaction either way, and your hosting adds nothing to that.
The rest of this page is the runbook: what to do, what your client sees while you do it, and the point at which doing it by hand stops scaling.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 24 August 2026
Beginner
Hand on the keyboard
an afternoon
Billable time, per account
5
Stages in the runbook
24/7
Cover for you and for them
You are here because a client is waiting, or because the same job is about to repeat across every account you run. Either way an afternoon is the honest budget for the first site.
Nothing in here needs the platform underneath to become visible to the client at any point. Where a step would expose it, the leak is named.
The client's checkout, in the client's name
Match the tool to how they sell. A full shop wants WooCommerce and a gateway; a service business usually converts better with a payment link in the invoice email than with any cart flow you could build. Donations want a giving embed and nothing more.
Whatever the shape, the gateway account belongs to the client and card details never touch their site. Hosted fields and redirects mean the processor handles the number and carries the card-data compliance, which is exactly where a small business wants that liability to sit.
Your own billing is a different animal
Selling hosting is recurring revenue, which means invoices, renewals, failed cards, reminders and suspension. Doing that by hand works to about ten accounts and then quietly eats a day a month, usually the day you had set aside for selling.
A billing system wired to provisioning is what changes it: the invoice clears, the account is created, the client gets their own login, and a card that fails follows a sequence you configured once. A standalone WHMCS licence sits on our shelf for exactly this, and the reseller platform is ready to wire into it.
What the fees actually cost you
Compare gateways at your real volume rather than on the headline rate. In the region of 1.5 to 3 per cent plus a few pence per transaction is the normal band, and the differences compound once you are past hobby scale. Payout timing and dispute handling matter as much as the percentage does.
For your own hosting invoices the arithmetic differs again: small amounts, high frequency. The per-transaction penny charge matters more than the percentage when the average invoice is a monthly hosting line rather than a shopping basket.
Closing the loop, twice
For the client: payment, receipt to the customer, notification to them, record in the dashboard. Test that loop in sandbox until it is boring to watch, then put a screenshot in the handover file.
For you: invoice raised, payment taken, account provisioned or renewed, and a clear sequence when a card fails. Trust signals belong on both — clear prices with the tax position stated, a refund policy linked at checkout, the padlock present. Ours runs to thirty days on hosting and seven on reseller plans, and saying so plainly converts better than not saying it.
What you are actually reselling
Overselling is switched on from the first account, and you decide what each package gets rather than accepting somebody else's tiering. Build the packages, name them, price them, and sell them as yours.
Softaculous sits in every account you create, so a client asking for WordPress is a two-minute job rather than a slot in your week.
- NVMe underneath, LiteSpeed in front
- Account caps of 100, 250 or 500 by tier
- Migration in, done by our staff, free
- Real people answer, round the clock
Why Hosting Seller
On every plan, as standard
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.
Two problems, kept apart
A one-off cart and a recurring hosting invoice need different machinery, and the runbook refuses to pretend otherwise.
Templated where templating pays
Settings that belong in a build script are marked as such, so account number two takes minutes rather than the same hour again.
Nothing here leaks the supplier
The instructions keep the platform underneath out of the client's view, because the white label is what they are paying you for.
Provisioning wired to the invoice
The billing half is written for someone whose account creation should happen the moment a payment clears.
The handover note is part of the job
Each runbook ends with what to write down, because an account you cannot document is an account you cannot hand on or sell.
First Steps
From choosing to live
- 1
Separate the two jobs on paper first
The client's checkout and your own recurring billing share almost nothing except the word payment. Deciding which one you are solving this afternoon prevents a stack that does neither well.
- 2
Match the client's tool to how they actually sell
Shop, service invoice or donation. A payment link in an invoice email often outperforms a cart for a service business, and it takes an hour rather than a week.
- 3
Keep card numbers off both sites
Hosted fields and redirects, so the gateway touches the card and neither your site nor the client's ever does. That is the compliance position you want on both sides of the relationship.
- 4
Compare gateways at your real volume
The band is in the region of 1.5 to 3 per cent plus pence. Weigh payout timing and dispute handling alongside the rate, and remember the penny charge dominates when your invoices are small and monthly.
- 5
Automate the renewal, then test both loops
Wire billing to provisioning so a cleared invoice creates the account and a failed card follows a set sequence. Then run the client's checkout in sandbox until it is thoroughly boring.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- Client-account caps of 100, 250 or 500 by tier
- A 7-day guarantee on reseller plans, 30 days on hosting
- A 99.9% uptime target, watched by monitoring day and night
- WordPress Toolkit, with updates applied for you
- Upgrades applied in place, with no move between plans
- Overselling switched on from the first account
- Free SSL on every site you host, reissued before it lapses
- 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
Across the Counter
Things people ask us all the time
How do I bill thirty hosting accounts a month without doing it by hand?
With a billing system wired to provisioning: invoices raised automatically, renewals taken at the price first paid, accounts created when payment clears and suspended on a schedule when it does not. A standalone WHMCS licence is on our shelf, and the reseller platform is ready to wire into it.
What does taking card payments actually cost?
Typically a percentage plus a few pence per transaction, in the region of 1.5 to 3 per cent depending on the gateway. Your hosting adds nothing to that. Compare at real volume, because the differences compound once you are past hobby scale.
Should a client's gateway be connected to their account or mine?
Theirs. You should never be an intermediary in a client's revenue — it complicates their bookkeeping, exposes you to their disputes, and makes an exit far messier than it needs to be. Take an operator role where you need visibility.
What happens when a client's hosting payment fails?
Whatever sequence you configure: a reminder, a grace period, then suspension. Setting that out in advance and telling clients what it is turns a difficult conversation into an expected one, and a published policy is far easier to enforce than an improvised one.
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