Resellers are those who do not own the datacenters but have rented servers from datacenters and are reselling them as shared web hosting plans or reseller hosting plans. Apart from this fact, you can call them full-fledged hosts because they take care of security of the servers, manage the servers and give customer support to their customers. So, if they are resellers, they have the power to do most of the things involved in hosting a website.
Now the question is whether you should buy web hosting from resellers or from direct hosting providers. I cannot answer this straightforward but I am highlighting both the positive and negative aspects of buying from a reseller.
Why You Should Not Buy Hosting from a Reseller Negative Points
The reliability, speed, and performance of the servers do not depend on the reseller. They depend on the upstream provider, that is, the original host behind the reseller. If the reseller has rented the reseller server from a good host, then things would be fine. However, in order to compete with other reseller hosting providers and make a huge profit, most of them buy hosting servers from the cheapest companies with overcrowded servers. This makes performance slow with frequent downtime. Thus, you (the end user who has purchased web hosting from a reseller) will suffer and may not get quality service.
Another problem of buying hosting from a reseller is the lack of knowledge of the reseller. Not all resellers have excellent web hosting knowledge. So, there may be a communication gap between you and the reseller when a problem arises, and the time of resolution will get longer, as the reseller will contact the upstream provider to get a solution to your problems.
Since resellers are a one-man army, they might not be able to provide customer support for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. Some resellers outsource this customer support job, but still this is not a cost-effective solution. So, you cannot reach most of the resellers 24X7.
Why You Should Buy Hosting from a Reseller Positive Points
Resellers sell web hosting packages or webhotel pakker as the Danes refer to it, at really cheap rates because of the stiff competition with other resellers and with the upstream providers. The prices they set are affordable to everyone. So, if money is a factor you cannot afford to neglect, getting hosting from a reseller is the best option. You can buy from them and afterwards shift to some other provider as your business grows. Remember, not all bloggers or webmasters have the same budget to start.
Resellers often create a close relationship with their clients, as they get to understand the needs of the clients. So, a friendly and open conversation with the reseller solves many unknown problems, even if it gets done a bit late. For many people, a close conversation is more important than 99.9% uptime of the site.
What is more important to you quality of service or price and friendliness?