Seven hosting companies run a program built for agencies and freelancers who host client sites under their own brand: WP Engine, Cloudways, Liquid Web, Flywheel, ScalaHosting, SiteGround, and hosting.com (formerly A2 Hosting). Entry pricing across the seven ranges from $14/mo (Cloudways Micro) to $169/mo (Liquid Web Silver), and two of the seven ship with a catch that matters before you sign up: Liquid Web has no live affiliate or referral link on HostingDive today, and hosting.com will not show you a dollar figure for its reseller plans anywhere on its own pricing page. Neither issue is a knock on the hosting itself: both are disclosed in full below, not buried in the fine print.
This page is the entry point to HostingDive's agency-hosting coverage. It ranks all seven programs by fit, not by commission size, and links out to a full spec breakdown for each host and to head-to-head pages for the comparisons agencies ask about most.
Liquid Web ships ranked but unmonetized. Its Impact affiliate contract expired June 24, 2026, and HostingDive has no active tracking link for it. We still rank it on merit because its reseller hardware and discount structure are real and competitive, but there is no "Get Liquid Web" button anywhere on this site, and none of our other agency-hosting pages will show you one. That is a disclosure about our own monetization, not a mark against the product.
hosting.com does not disclose its reseller pricing on its own site. We captured its Reseller 30/60/120/150 plan page three times, including a same-session recapture in a real Chrome browser, and every attempt rendered the price cells as bare "Buy" buttons with zero dollar figures attached to any tier. We are not filling that gap with a number scraped from a review site. hosting.com ships unranked for pricing in every comparison on this site; its account limits, disk space, and feature set are still fully specified below.
The Short Answer
For a typical small-to-mid agency managing 5-30 WordPress client sites and wanting one dashboard, one support line, and a real referral-commission structure, WP Engine's Agency Partner Program is the strongest overall fit: it is the only one of the seven with a fully sourced, tiered recurring-commission structure (8%-12% per plan for 12 months) alongside enterprise-grade white-label reporting. If your agency runs a mix of CMS stacks (not just WordPress) and wants to control per-server cost with unlimited sites per server, Cloudways is the cost-leading alternative starting at $14/mo. If you are running a dedicated reseller business (reselling hosting itself as a product line, not just hosting your own client work), ScalaHosting and hosting.com are built for that model with cPanel/WHM and WHMCS support; ScalaHosting discloses its full pricing, hosting.com does not.
No single program is "best" across every agency profile. The rest of this page breaks down why.
Spec and Pricing Comparison: All 7 Programs
Every intro price below is followed by its renewal price where the source discloses one. Where it is not disclosed (WP Engine's Startup/Essential tier and hosting.com's entire Reseller line), that is stated plainly instead of guessed at.
| Program | Entry price | Renewal | Reseller model | Affiliate link on HD | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WP Engine (Startup/Essential) | $30/mo (first-year coupon price) | Not disclosed on the page | Managed WP, per-site tiers, Agency Partner Program referral commissions | Yes: Get WP Engine | Best for WordPress-only agencies wanting real commissions + white-label reporting |
| Cloudways (Micro) | $14/mo | Flat, no promo/renewal split found | Per-server, unlimited sites/apps per server, multi-CMS | Yes: Get Cloudways | Best for cost-per-server efficiency and non-WordPress client stacks |
| Liquid Web (Silver) | $169/mo | Flat, no promo/renewal split found | Dedicated-server reseller (cPanel/Plesk/InterWorx), tiered list-price discounts up to 20% | None: unmonetized, ranked on merit only | Best for agencies that want dedicated hardware and can live without a referral incentive |
| Flywheel (Freelance) | $96/mo, billed $1,150/year (no monthly-pay option) | Annual-only; no separate renewal figure disclosed | Managed WordPress, WP Engine's own sub-brand, up to 10 sites at this tier | None yet: affiliate destination is a bare homepage with no tracking URL | Best for freelancers/small agencies who want WP Engine's stack at a smaller scale |
| ScalaHosting (Entry Cloud) | $14.95/mo (intro, "SAVE 63%") | $39.95/mo (2.67x) | SPanel cloud (unlimited accounts) or cPanel/WHM (capped accounts) | Yes: Get ScalaHosting | Best budget dedicated-reseller platform, if you can plan for the renewal jump |
| SiteGround (GoGeek) | $7.99/mo (intro, "SAVE 82%") | $44.99/mo, prepaid 12 months (5.6x) | Mainstream hosting + inquiry-gated Agency Hosting Program layered on top | Yes: Get SiteGround | Best for a lightweight collaborator/white-label workflow, not a dedicated reseller build |
| hosting.com (formerly A2 Hosting; Reseller 30-150) | Not disclosed: UNRANKED for pricing | Not applicable | cPanel/WHM reseller, 30/60/120/150 accounts per tier, WHMCS/Blesta/Upmind API | Yes: Get hosting.com (button-eligible despite pricing being unranked) | Full-spec cPanel reseller if you're comfortable getting the price via signup instead of the page |
Disclosure: HostingDive earns a commission when you buy through our links, at no extra cost to you. Liquid Web and Flywheel carry no such link on this site (see disclosures above); their placement in this ranking is unaffected by that.
WP Engine: The Referral-Commission Leader
WP Engine's entry tier (sold as both "Essential" and "Startup" on the same pricing page) lists at $30/mo, first-year coupon pricing for new customers. The page's own footnote states "Product renewal pricing subject to change" but never states the renewal dollar figure itself, so budget for an increase of unknown size rather than assuming the $30 rate holds past year one.
What separates WP Engine from the rest of this list is its Agency Partner Program, which is the only one of the seven with a fully sourced, tiered recurring-commission structure: four tiers (Member, Preferred, Advanced, Strategic), qualification by referral count or referred monthly recurring revenue ($1,200 or $5,000 thresholds), and recurring commissions of 8% / 8% / 10% / 12% per plan for 12 months, with tier status reassessed on a rolling 12-month basis. Program features beyond the commission percentages (Dedicated Account Manager, Slack community access, directory listing tier) are listed per-tier on WP Engine's site, but which specific tier unlocks which feature could not be confirmed from the capture used for this comparison; treat the commission numbers as the certified part of the offer.
Buyer-relevant features actually confirmed: a unified "All Accounts View" dashboard, White Labeled Reporting, Global Edge Security with DDoS mitigation, and a free automated migration plugin. Full breakdown: WP Engine agency hosting review.
Cloudways: Per-Server Economics
Cloudways prices per server, not per site: the Micro plan at $14/mo (DigitalOcean Basic tier, the default configuration) includes "Unlimited Websites" and "Unlimited Visits" on that single server. No promo-to-renewal split was found on this plan: the $14/mo price is the flat monthly rate, which is itself a point in Cloudways' favor against hosts whose entry price resets hard after year one.
One gap worth naming rather than papering over: Cloudways' own pricing page has no sourced claim about Stripe-integrated billing or native white-label invoicing. The only artifact present is a bare "Client Billing & Reporting" footer link with no descriptive text attached. If your agency specifically needs client-facing branded invoicing built into the platform, that capability is not confirmed by anything Cloudways states on its own pricing page. Verify directly with their sales team before assuming it exists at the depth some competitors market. Full breakdown: Cloudways agency hosting review.
Liquid Web: Ranked, Unmonetized
Liquid Web's reseller hosting program lists two tiers: Silver at $169/mo and Gold at $259/mo, both flat starting prices with no promo/renewal split disclosed. Each tier includes a dedicated Intel Xeon server (6-core on Silver, 16-core on Gold), 32GB RAM, RAID 1 SSD storage, a free WHMCS license, and a partner portal.
The real incentive mechanic here is "tiered discounts up to 20%" off list price for reseller customers: a list-price discount, not a revenue-share commission. An earlier internal summary of this program referenced "15-20% MRR commissions" and a "Partner+" program name; neither string appears anywhere in Liquid Web's own reseller-program pages, so this page does not repeat those claims.
As stated at the top of this page: Liquid Web's HD affiliate link is retired (its Impact contract expired June 24, 2026), so there is no merchant link or button for it anywhere on HostingDive, including here. It remains ranked because the hardware and discount structure are real and buyer-relevant. The absence of a link is a disclosure about HostingDive's monetization, not a downgrade of the product. Full breakdown: Liquid Web reseller hosting review.
Flywheel: WP Engine's Own Smaller-Agency Product
Flywheel is legally WPEngine, Inc. Its own site footer reads "(c) 2013-2026 WPEngine, Inc. All rights reserved." That means the real choice between WP Engine's agency program and Flywheel is not a comparison between independent competitors; it is a choice between WP Engine's flagship agency product and its own sub-brand aimed at a smaller client list.
Flywheel's Freelance plan runs $96/mo, billed at $1,150/year with no monthly-pay option shown anywhere on the pricing page, covering up to 10 sites, 100,000 monthly visits, 20GB storage, and 200GB bandwidth. Its own Agency Partners program has two tiers: Silver (refer or resell $0-99/mo in Flywheel business) and Gold (refer or resell $100+/mo), with a referral commission of "3x the first month's payment" for both.
Flywheel does not get a merchant link on this page or anywhere else on this site: per HostingDive's affiliate rail check, its tracking destination is a bare brand homepage with no live tracking URL, so there is nothing to point a button at yet. Treat any Flywheel mention on HostingDive as plain-text product information only. Full breakdown: Flywheel agency hosting review, and see WP Engine vs Flywheel for the full parent-and-sub-brand breakdown.
ScalaHosting: The Budget Dedicated-Reseller Platform
ScalaHosting runs two separate reseller lineups on two separate pages: a proprietary SPanel cloud line (Entry Cloud, Build #1/#2/#3) with unlimited cPanel-equivalent accounts, and a traditional cPanel/WHM line (Scala 1/2/3) with hard account caps.
Entry Cloud is the plan that matches the "renewal shock" pattern this guide tracks closely: $14.95/mo intro ("SAVE 63%") renewing at $39.95/mo, a 2.67x jump. The same pattern repeats up the SPanel line: Build #1 goes $29.95 to $54.95 (1.83x), Build #2 goes $44.95 to $96.95 (2.16x), Build #3 goes $69.95 to $170.95 (2.44x).
The cPanel-branded Scala 1/2/3 tiers behave differently, and it is worth flagging as an observed inconsistency rather than quietly smoothing it over: all three display a "SAVE 20%/13%/9%" discount badge, but the intro price and the stated renewal price are identical on every one of them ($19.95=$19.95, $34.95=$34.95, $49.95=$49.95). Whether that is a stale label or an actually flat renewal on the cPanel line could not be resolved from the capture; either way, the cPanel tiers cap accounts at 20/40/60 respectively, while the SPanel/cloud line advertises unlimited accounts. Full breakdown: ScalaHosting reseller hosting review.
SiteGround: Bolt-On Agency Layer Over Mainstream Hosting
SiteGround runs two distinct constructs that both lead to the same underlying plans: a self-serve "Flexible Reseller Hosting" page with direct checkout, and a separate, inquiry-gated "Agency Hosting Program" (no self-serve signup; the primary CTA is "Send an Inquiry") that markets account-manager access and commission-style language on top of the same GrowBig/GoGeek/Cloud SKUs.
GoGeek, SiteGround's higher tier, runs $7.99/mo intro ("SAVE 82%") renewing at $44.99/mo, prepaid 12 months, a 5.6x gap. GrowBig is actually the larger renewal jump in percentage terms: $4.99/mo intro ("SAVE 83%") renewing at $29.99/mo, a 6.0x gap, even though it costs less than GoGeek at both the intro and renewal price point. SiteGround's Cloud tier shows only "Starts from $100.00/mo" with no renewal figure disclosed in the capture, so it cannot be placed in this intro-vs-renewal comparison.
On white-labeling specifically: SiteGround's own plan-card checklists list "White-label Site Tools" under all three tiers, but the page's prose consistently recommends GoGeek or Cloud for agencies that want to hide SiteGround branding from clients and does not extend that recommendation to GrowBig. Lean on the prose distinction, not the checklist, when deciding whether GrowBig covers your white-label need. Full breakdown: SiteGround agency hosting review.
hosting.com (formerly A2 Hosting): Full Specs, No Price
hosting.com, rebranded from A2 Hosting and confirmed by a verbatim customer testimonial on its own reseller page referencing "hosting.com (formerly A2)," runs a four-tier cPanel/WHM reseller line: Reseller 30, 60, 120, and 150, named for the number of client cPanel accounts included (30/180GB disk up through 150 accounts/500GB disk). Every tier includes unlimited bandwidth, daily backups, free SSL, and WHMCS/Blesta/Upmind API integration for automated billing and provisioning.
What it does not include anywhere on the reseller page is a price. All four tiers render as bare "Buy" buttons with zero dollar signs attached, confirmed across three separate captures of the page, including a real-Chrome recapture run specifically to rule out a bot-detection block, and the same defect reproduced identically. hosting.com ships unranked for pricing in this comparison. No third-party review-site number is substituted here; if you need the actual price, you will get it by starting the signup flow, not by reading the marketing page. Its affiliate link is live and button-eligible on HostingDive despite the pricing gap; monetization status and pricing certification are tracked separately. Full breakdown: hosting.com reseller hosting review.
Which Program Fits Your Agency
- You run a WordPress-only shop and want the strongest documented referral-commission structure: WP Engine. The 8%-12% recurring commissions and four-tier partner structure are the most fully sourced incentive program of the seven.
- You host a mix of CMS platforms (not just WordPress) and want to control cost per server: Cloudways. Unlimited sites per server at $14/mo undercuts every other entry price on this page.
- You want dedicated hardware and can operate without an active referral incentive from HostingDive: Liquid Web. Real tiered discounts up to 20%, but no merchant link here or anywhere on this site.
- You're a freelancer or small agency who wants WP Engine's platform at a smaller scale: Flywheel, understanding it is WP Engine's own sub-brand, not an independent competitor, and carries no affiliate link yet.
- You want to run reselling itself as a business line, with full account-level control, and you're fine with a real renewal-price jump: ScalaHosting: SPanel cloud tiers for unlimited accounts, cPanel tiers if you need a lower entry cap and prefer familiar tooling.
- You already like mainstream shared/cloud hosting and just want a lightweight collaborator/white-label layer, not a dedicated reseller build: SiteGround.
- You want full cPanel/WHM reseller specs and are willing to get the price during signup instead of on the page: hosting.com.
See the full spec breakdown for each program linked above, or go straight to the head-to-head that matches your shortlist: WP Engine vs Cloudways, WP Engine vs Flywheel, ScalaHosting vs hosting.com, Cloudways vs ScalaHosting, SiteGround vs ScalaHosting, or WP Engine vs Liquid Web. For the renewal-shock pattern that shows up across several of these programs, see which of these headline prices are real, and which reset hard at renewal.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Liquid Web a bad choice because HostingDive doesn't have an affiliate link for it?
No. The rank here reflects the hosting itself: dedicated hardware, tiered discounts up to 20%, a free WHMCS license. The missing link is about HostingDive's own retired Impact contract (expired June 24, 2026), not a defect in Liquid Web's product.
Why doesn't this page show a price for hosting.com's reseller plans?
Because hosting.com's own reseller-hosting page doesn't show one. Three separate captures of the page, including a real-Chrome recapture specifically meant to rule out a bot-detection block, all rendered the price cells as bare "Buy" buttons with no dollar figure attached to any of the four tiers. Rather than substitute a number from a third-party review site, this page states the gap plainly.
Which of these programs has the biggest gap between intro price and renewal price?
SiteGround's GrowBig plan, at 6.0x ($4.99/mo to $29.99/mo, prepaid 12 months), is larger in percentage terms than its own higher-tier GoGeek plan (5.6x) or ScalaHosting's Entry Cloud (2.67x). WP Engine doesn't disclose a renewal figure at all for its $30/mo Startup tier, so it cannot be scored on this measure either way.
Is Flywheel a genuine alternative to WP Engine, or the same company?
Same company. Flywheel's own site footer states "(c) 2013-2026 WPEngine, Inc." Treat the choice between them as picking which of WP Engine's two agency products fits your client list size, not as evaluating two independent competitors.