Reseller Hosting in Kenya: Build Your Own Hosting Brand on the Side (2025)

Built a few websites for clients already? Each of those clients pays somebody for hosting, usually KSh 5,000 to 15,000 a year, yet when the site breaks, they ring you. Reseller hosting in Kenya changes who gets paid: you buy server space in bulk, sell it under your own brand, and the invoice comes from you. The income repeats every month, and the numbers work out better than most people expect. Below is how to set it up properly.

How reseller hosting works

An upstream provider such as SiteBoma sells you a block of server resources: disk space, bandwidth and a set number of accounts. You then carve that block into separate hosting accounts, one for each client, from the DirectAdmin reseller panel. Every client gets a personal login, a personal DirectAdmin control panel and a fixed share of the resources.

Your client sees an ordinary hosting account. You see all of them side by side in one panel, you decide what each one pays, and you keep the difference between what we charge you and what you charge them.

On our side, things stay simple. SiteBoma sends you one bill a month for the reseller plan. We never deal with your clients, and we have no idea who they are.

Does the money add up?

Here is a worked example with real figures.

What you pay for a SiteBoma entry-level reseller plan: about KSh 3,000 a month, with room for roughly 20 to 30 small client websites.

What a small Kenyan business usually pays a host: KSh 5,000 to 10,000 a year, which is about KSh 400 to 800 a month.

Now say you sign up 15 clients at an average of KSh 600 a month:

• Money in: 15 × KSh 600 = KSh 9,000 a month
• Money out to SiteBoma: KSh 3,000 a month
• What you keep: KSh 6,000 a month, or KSh 72,000 over a year

Once it is set up, that margin arrives every month with little extra work. At 30 clients on a larger reseller plan, you keep KSh 12,000 to 15,000 a month.

Who will buy hosting from you?

Small Kenyan resellers tend to win customers away from the big brand-name hosts in three ways:

1. The clients you already design for. They already ask you where to host. Send them to a big host and the monthly income leaves with them. Keep it.
2. Businesses that want a person, not a logo. Plenty of Nairobi SMEs would rather deal with someone local who picks up the phone. If you are that someone, faceless foreign hosts cannot match you on trust.
3. Referrals. Three to five happy hosting clients will start recommending you, and the list grows on its own.

Five things to put in place before launch

1. The reseller plan itself

Prices for reseller hosting from SiteBoma begin at KSh 3,000 a month. You get white-label DirectAdmin with no SiteBoma logos, nameservers in your own name, and nothing that shows our brand to your clients.

2. A name and a website

Choose a business name and register a matching domain, for example yourbrandhosting.co.ke. Then put up a simple five-page site that says what you offer, or let our website design team build it for you.

3. Nameservers carrying your brand

When a client opens their DNS settings, they should read ns1.yourbrand.co.ke, not ns1.siteboma.co.ke. You configure this once inside DirectAdmin, and from then on your hosting looks like an independent company rather than a SiteBoma storefront.

4. Your price list

Three packages are a sensible place to begin:

• Starter at KSh 500 a month: one website, 5GB of storage, free SSL and business email
• Business at KSh 1,000 a month: up to five websites, 20GB of storage and daily backups
• Pro at KSh 2,500 a month: unlimited websites, 50GB of storage and priority support from you

Resist the urge to be the cheapest. Help from someone local has real value, so build it into your prices. A worried client whose site is offline at 9pm is not hunting for a bargain. They want a host who answers.

5. A way to bill

There are two routes:

• By hand: send each client an M-Pesa invoice every month. This is manageable for up to about 10 clients.
• Automated: billing software such as WHMCS, Blesta or HostBill takes care of invoices, renewals and suspensions. Expect to pay around USD 15 a month, which pays off once you pass 10 clients.

Mistakes new resellers make

Pricing too low

Margin is the whole reason to resell. At KSh 200 a month there is nothing left over to pay for support, and support is now your job. Set prices high enough that a client's call at 10pm on a Sunday feels like part of the business, not a reason to quit.

Overpromising on support

Advertising "24/7 support" is easy until a client phones you at 3am on a Sunday. State what you can actually deliver, for example: "We answer on WhatsApp from 8am to 10pm. Urgent server problems are handled 24/7 by SiteBoma." Clients then know exactly what to expect.

No plan for escalating problems

Problems on the server side, such as a full disk, blocked mail or the PHP version, go to SiteBoma, and we will back you up. What you need is a quick way to tell the two kinds of problem apart: is it a broken WordPress install on a client's site (yours to fix) or a server that is down (ours to fix)? Write yourself a short checklist.

Leaving your contact details public

Switch on domain WHOIS privacy for your business domain. Without it, your personal phone number sits in a public record where spammers and competitors can find it.

Your launch checklist, step by step

1. Register a domain for your brand, such as yourbrandhosting.co.ke. About 10 minutes and KSh 1,200 a year.
2. Buy a SiteBoma reseller plan, paying by M-Pesa or card on Paystack's secure checkout. Roughly 5 minutes.
3. Configure your branded nameservers in DirectAdmin. Around 30 minutes if you follow our guide.
4. Put up a basic five-page site describing your packages. About a day in WordPress, or hand it to our Website Design service.
5. Decide on your three price tiers. Around 15 minutes.
6. Sign your first two clients, ideally existing customers or your own side projects, so you can test the process on low-risk accounts.
7. Track clients and payments. A Google Sheet will do for the first five.
8. Spread the word in Kenyan freelancer WhatsApp groups, SME groups on Facebook and among your current clients. "I now offer hosting" is a strong message.

Common questions

Could SiteBoma go after my clients?

No. We cannot see who your clients are, and they only ever see your brand. Your agreement for the reseller plan is with us; your clients' agreement for their hosting is with you.

What happens when a client needs more than shared hosting?

Move them to a bigger plan inside your reseller account, or put them on a separate SiteBoma VPS that you still manage and still invoice.

Can the control panel carry my branding?

Yes. DirectAdmin accepts custom skins and logos, so you can apply your own colours and logo and clients see "Powered by YourBrand" in place of "DirectAdmin".

Do I need to register a business for tax?

KRA requires VAT registration once your taxable sales pass KSh 5 million in any 12 months. Speak to a tax accountant when you reach KSh 50,000 a month in revenue. Below that level, you can declare it as freelance income in your usual tax returns.

Thinking of starting?

As a Kenyan side business in 2025, reseller hosting has a lot going for it: it costs little to start, the income repeats every month, and it grows as your network does.

Compare SiteBoma Reseller Plans →

Not sure which tier suits you? Get in touch with us and we will help you choose. We would much rather you begin on the plan that fits than sell you more than you need.