When the size and type of your next upgrade in hosting becomes the next dilemma, you need to take note of what you actually need. The number and type of your websites will dictate to a certain extent the kind of account you will need. So which will it be and why?
Shared Account
If you intend only to maintain a handful of sites and expect them to grow in terms of physical size and traffic, you can often stay with a shared account until your sites have become too big for the amount of server resources and bandwidth your sites are taking up. Simply requesting an upgrade to the account can pose the simplest option because it will mean no moving of sites, IPs or nameservers.
This is the solution favored by many because it involved zero work on behalf of the website owner apart from contacting their host's support people to request the upgrade. This usually happens seamlessly and you simply carry on as before. It's a great way to continue as you were and still save money on web hosting.
Reseller Account
If your intention is to grow the number of sites you own to more than around 50 or so, then it becomes a lot more manageable to opt for a reseller package. You can get one for under $25 a month from Hostgator (it's a lot less with our discount 25% Off Hostgator coupon code) so it's actually very affordable considering the additional functionality you get over a shared account.
The most obvious difference is that you can place each website into its own hosting account within your reseller. This is a big step up from allocating an add-on domain for each site with shared hosting. In fact, a reseller is just like having your own master host with a load of smaller shared accounts attached to it.
It also means you can recoup some or all your expenses by hosting other people's websites for which you can charge them a monthly amount. They get their own shared account with cPanel and all the features you had with you basic shared account!
With a reseller, you can allocate resources to each internal account so if one site is getting lots more traffic than another, you can allocate more resources to that sub-account and less to another.
Another big benefit of a reseller over a larger shared account is the way in which the host allocates resources to its accounts.
Benefits of Reseller Over Shared
Shared accounts get loaded together onto each server by the hundreds or even thousands. So if one account starts getting a lot of traffic and exceeds its limit, it will quickly be disabled to protect the other accounts on that server.
A reseller account on the other hand will be placed with other resellers and not so tightly packed onto the server. So if one account exceeds its limits, there is some leeway where the customer can be contacted to rectify the situation themselves and not have their account taken down right away.
This is pure gold if you absolutely cannot afford to have one or more sites on your reseller go down, or be taken down by someone else's site. You can get into the admin panel and suspend the offending sub-account before any further damage is done, then work it out with the owner of the site (if it is not you) later on.
Your Choice
The final choice will be yours as to which way you decide to go for you hosting needs. It will depend on the number of sites you have or intend to have as you business expands online.
It will also depend on whether you are happy with the simplicity of a shared account and your intention is to only host a few sites, or would prefer the extra power and control available with a reseller if your intention is to host a lot of sites and keep that number growing.
Cost and resources will ultimately govern your final decision, but which way you choose to go should be the right one for your individual circumstances. Either way, you will be able to upgrade as your needs increase over time, so you never need to feel limited by what you have when you choose Hostgator as your host.
