We offer one FREE WHMCS license with all our reseller packages except with "Reseller STARTER" plan, so that users can manage multiple accounts via the same WHMCS panel.
To get started with your reseller business let’s get started and configure WHMCS:
Step 1: Adding a Server
The first step would be to connect your reseller account with WHMCS itself to allow the software to automate the process of setting up, suspending, terminating etc… hosting accounts.
Navigate to: Admin CP –> Setup –> Product/Services –> Servers
Click “Add New Server” and fill in this form to match your reseller account details which you should have received in your welcome email:
Name: This is simply for you to reference to. It is strongly recommended you input the name of the actual server to make it easier to reference to in future should you add more than 1 server (You can find the name on the left sidebar of your cPanel control panel
Hostname: You will find this in your welcome email, if you are unsure of this simply create a ticket to our support team and they will help you. This must be accurate so ensure this is correct.
IP Address: Insert your dedicated IP address in this field. If you have not yet received your dedicated IP address create a ticket with our technical support team
Datacentre/NOC: Nobody but your clients can see this so feel free to insert Arvixe or something you can easily reference to us – this makes it easier for you to know where your accounts are located should you have multiple reseller/servers with different providers.
Nameservers: You should have received your nameserver details in your welcome email. As a reseller it is strongly recommended you register your own private nameservers to the IP addresses we have provided in the welcome email. So these should be: ns1.yourdomain.com – IP address 1 & ns2.yourdomain.com – IP Address 2.
Type: From the drop down menu select “Cpanel”
Username & Password: This is your cPanel login details we have provided you in your welcome email / you selected during the order form.
Access Hash: To get your access hash login your WHM control panel (details in your welcome email), once in WHM locate the “Setup remote access key” option in the left navigation menu. Copy this long key and paste it as is into the access hash field in your WHMCS admin area
Click “Save Changes” to have completed your first server setup
Step 2: Creating Your Packages
Login your WHM control panel
Locate “Add A Package” in the left navigation menu and fill in the form to complete the quotas (for unlimited packages simply click the “unlimited” icon otherwise enter quotas in MB)
Login your WHMCS admin area and navigate to: Setup –> Product/Services –> Product/Services
Click “Create A New Group” and fill in the form:
Product Group Name: Your clients will see this when choosing different product categories, set this easy to understand such as: Web Hosting
Order Form Template: Set the template for this order form. Each category can now have a different order form template so simply choose the one you feel fits your design best for shared web hosting.
Available Payment Gateways: Ignore this for now, we’ll add these later
Scroll down and click “Save Changes” to add this new group
Click “Create A New Product” and fill in the form
Package Name: Enter the package name you set in cPanel (Ex. Bronze, Business, Pro etc…) and click next
Fill in the “Details” tab:
Welcome Email: From the drop down menu select “Hosting Account Welcome Email”
Click on the “Pricing” tab and select the “Recurring” option to constantly invoice clients when due – insert the prices you wish to charge in the table below
Click “Module” tab and from the drop down menu select “cPanel” and fill in the form that pops up:
WHM Package Name: Make sure this is EXACTLY as your WHM packages (This should be: yourcpanelusername_yourpackagename format) – if this is not correct then packages won’t be created automatically
Set the quotas as your set in WHM when creating the package for: Web Space Quota, Bandwidth Limit, Max FTP Accounts, Max Email Accounts, Max MySQL Databases, Max Sub Domains, Max Parked Domains & Max Add-on Domains. In the cPanel theme field set that to: “X3” & tick the “FrontPage Extensions” box.
Package Setup: Choose how you want to have packages setup, I personally recommend: “Automatically setup the product as soon as the first payment is received” which is the industry norm & best for clients.
Click “Save Changes”
Repeat all of step 2 to create more packages. It is recommended to have 2 – 3 packages.
Step 3: Adding a Payment Gateway
We need to setup a payment gateway now for people to be able to pay you for the hosting services. This article will be based on the PayPal gateway because quite simply this is the most popular payment gateway in existence today.
Navigate to your WHMCS Admin Area –> Setup –> Payments –> Payment Gateways
From the drop down menu select the payment gateway you would like to add. The most commonly used payment gateway is PayPal (be sure to use the correct PayPal module as there are many!)
Display Name: This is what clients will see when checking out so set this to: PayPal to prevent confusion. If you accept PayPal via 2CheckOut you can set this to something like: PayPal (via 2CheckOut) to attract attention as the majority use PayPal so this works best for you
PayPal Email: This is the email address you used to register with PayPal. This is ultimately where your client’s money will go to.
You can leave the rest of the fields blank and click save. We will create an article for setting up the PayPal API in future (to automate refunds)
Scroll down and click “Save Changes”
Step 4: Create departments
The next best step is to create a way for clients to easily contact you.
Navigate to: WHMCS Admin Area –> Setup –> Support –> Support Departments
Click “Add New Department” and complete the form:
Department Name: This is what your clients will see when creating a ticket so keep it short & simple (Example: Support, Sales, Billing, Abuse etc…)
Description: A simply description for your clients to see to ensure they get the right department. You can always leave this blank if you wish.
Email Address: Ensure every department has a different email address for the purpose of piping emails to tickets at the right departments. Keep this simple so “Sales” department has the email: [email protected]
Assigned Users: Select all the operators you want to have access to this department. Those unchecked won’t be able to see the tickets in this department.
The rest of the fields should be self-explanatory. Ignore the POP3 Configuration as this article is based on email forwarding piping.
Once the department has been created login your cPanel control panel (NOT WHM) and click “Email Accounts”
Create an email account for each department you just created
Go back to your cPanel control panel homepage and click “Forwarders”
Click “Add Forwarder”
Enter the email address for each department and click “Advanced Options” –> Pipe to Program and in this field enter “public_html/WHMCS-DIRECTORY/pipe/pipe.php” & click “Add Forwarder”
Ensure /pipe/pipe.php is chmoded to 0755
Step 5: Enabling Automation
For automation to work we need to setup a cron job. To do this navigate to:
WHMCS Admin Area –> Setup –> Automation Settings
Copy the contents of “Create the following Cron Job using PHP
Login your cPanel control panel & find “Cron Jobs” icon
In the field “command” enter the content you have just copied from your WHMCS admin area. From the “Common Settings” drop down menu select “Once per day”
Click “Add New Cron Job” to create the new cron job which should now enable all of the automation settings to work in WHMCS
