Registrant Brief
Hosting for agencies with care plans — The renewal you overlook belongs to somebody else's business
You bundle hosting, updates and support into one monthly figure per client, and buried inside that figure is a registry expiry date nobody quoted for.
The short answer
Pair reseller hosting with WordPress Toolkit — isolation for the billing model, bulk tooling for the margin, at $0.40 per active client account each month — and settle the registration question in writing before the first invoice, because holding a client's name is either a service you charge for or a liability you carry for nothing.
Tooling decides whether a care plan makes money; ownership decides whether it makes enemies. The gap between a profitable retainer and a break-even one is usually updates measured per fleet rather than per site. The gap between a clean ending and a legal letter is usually one field on a registration.
By the Hosting & Domains team · Reviewed 24 August 2026
Free
Inbound site move
24/7
Answers at any hour
Daily
Account copies
$0
Set-up charge
This page is for agencies bundling hosting, updates and support into one monthly retainer per client, and it starts with the part of the bundle that is not yours.
A client's website can be rebuilt. A client's domain cannot. Which means the registration is the single item in a care plan where a mistake is unrecoverable, and it deserves a paragraph in the contract rather than a habit.
Three ways agencies hold a client's name
The first is the client as registrant, with the agency given access. This is the cleanest arrangement and the easiest to defend: they hold the asset, you do the work, and an ending is a handover rather than a dispute.
The second is the agency as registrant, billing the client for renewals. It is common, it is convenient, and it makes you the counterparty in every argument about who owns what. If you do it, say so in writing and price it as a service.
The third is the accident: registered years ago on a personal card by somebody who has since left, renewing quietly, contact address unread. That is the one that produces the emergency, and every agency has at least one.
What a care plan should say about renewals
Name the registrant. State who pays the renewal and at what figure. State what happens if a card fails. And state the expiry date, because a client who has seen their own expiry date on an invoice understands what they are buying.
Then put auto-renew on everything and keep a four-column list: name, registrar, expiry, who reads the admin contact. Sorted by date. Across a portfolio that list prevents more incidents than any update policy, because an update failure is visible and an expiry is silent until nothing resolves.
The exit clause that protects both sides
Write down what a departing client receives: their files, their databases, their mailboxes and — if you hold the registration — an unlock and the EPP authorisation code on request. Set a deadline for it. Agencies that do this well get referrals from clients who left.
Two registry rules shape the timing, so put them in the clause rather than discovering them under pressure. A registration must be at least 60 days old before it can change registrar, and the same 60-day bar applies after any transfer. Neither prevents you handing over control of the DNS immediately, which is usually what the client actually needs.
Nothing goes dark during a handover. A transfer changes who administers the name; the records ride across untouched, so the site and the mailboxes keep answering throughout.
Where the margin actually comes from
One isolated account per client, which contains incidents and keeps invoicing unambiguous. Fleet tooling for bulk updates, monitoring and staging, so the labour buried in a care plan stays profitable. White-label surfaces throughout, so yours is the only name the client ever meets. A margin structure that widens as the list grows rather than flattening at twenty accounts.
The trap is pricing retainers on optimistic labour estimates over hosting with no fleet tooling, where the margin quietly drains into maintenance hours nobody costed — and then into renewal admin nobody costed either.
Concretely, that is our Reseller 2 option — one flat rate carrying the certificate, the migration, the daily copies and the mail that this market prefers to invoice separately, with upgrades applied in place.
Check us the way your clients check you. Ask for an EPP authorisation code and time the reply. Read the renewal figure against the order rate. Read the refund terms — 30 days on hosting plans, 7 on reseller — and note that registrations are excluded, here and everywhere, because the registry fee is spent.
Then look the company up: Azaanex Inc., federally incorporated in Canada, with a public filing. Support means a person at any hour, and the remit covers the awkward practical questions other hosts hand straight back.
The clause that costs us reseller revenue
Telling agencies to leave registrations in the client's name is not the advice that maximises our reseller revenue. It is the advice that produces fewer disputes and longer relationships, which turns out to be the same thing over a decade.
Every tier sits on NVMe with LiteSpeed caching in the server, the entry plan included — there is no faster hardware being held back.
- Registrant recorded, in writing, per client
- EPP codes released on request
- Renewal figures visible per name
- White-label surfaces the client never sees past
Why Hosting & Domains
Standard on every plan
Isolation per client account
One walled-off account each, which contains incidents and makes invoicing unambiguous when a client asks what they pay for.
A renewal list beside the fleet list
Names, expiry dates and renewal figures in the same client area as the accounts, with auto-renew a single switch per name.
Handovers that end well
Unlock and an EPP authorisation code on request, records exportable, and nothing going dark while a transfer runs.
Fleet tooling that protects the margin
WordPress Toolkit across every account, so care-plan labour is measured per fleet rather than per site.
White-label throughout
Yours is the only name the client meets, from the panel they log into to the mail that reaches them.
The verdict, turned into an order
Everything above points at the Reseller 2 plan: a single rate, the essentials inside it, upgradeable without a migration.
Quick Start
Order placed to site online
- 1
Write the registrant into the contract
Client or agency, named explicitly, with who pays the renewal and at what figure. One paragraph now in place of a dispute later.
- 2
Build the expiry sheet before the next invoice
Name, registrar, expiry, admin contact. Sorted by date, auto-renew on. It is the cheapest risk reduction an agency can buy.
- 3
Publish your own exit terms
What a leaving client gets and how fast, EPP code included. Agencies that hand over cleanly are the ones clients recommend.
Built In
Fitted to every plan
- One isolated account per client, walled off from the rest
- Registrant recorded per name, with the expiry beside it
- EPP authorisation codes released on request
- Auto-renew, one switch per registration
- WordPress Toolkit, with updates rehearsed on a clone first
- Moving up a tier is an account setting rather than a move
- The inbound move handled by our own engineers rather than a plugin, free
- Support staffed round the clock, with records inside the remit
- The renewal figure equal to the joining figure, in writing
- Flood filtering standing permanently in front of the network
Frequently Asked
Questions we field again and again
Should the agency or the client be the registrant?
The client, unless you are deliberately selling domain management as a service and have said so in writing. Holding a client's name by default makes you the counterparty in every ownership argument, and it earns nothing. Access is what you need to do the work; ownership is what they need to sleep at night.
A client is leaving. What do I actually owe them?
Their files, databases and mailboxes, and — if you hold the registration — an unlock plus the EPP authorisation code on request. Hand over control of the DNS straight away, since that is usually what unblocks them. The registry's 60-day rules may delay the registrar change itself, which is worth explaining rather than letting them assume you are stalling.
How should domain renewals appear on a care-plan invoice?
As their own line, with the name and the expiry date on it. Bundling them invisibly into a monthly figure is what makes clients believe the domain came free with the website — and that belief is the origin of most ownership disputes in this trade.
What happens if a client's card fails and their name lapses?
The name stops resolving, taking the site and their mail with it. Most endings then allow a grace period of around thirty days for an ordinary renewal, followed by redemption at several times the price and finally an open auction. Since a failed card is the commonest cause, keep the expiry sheet and check anything falling due inside ninety days.
Keep reading
Reseller Hosting
White-label WHM reseller hosting — your brand in front, the billing behind, clients walled off.
Web Hosting
cPanel hosting on NVMe with the certificate, the move and year one of the name inside.
Changing provider? Work through this checklist beforehand.
A straightforward running order for a migration your visitors never spot: which files travel first, how to bring the mail across without dropping a single message, the right moment to repoint DNS, and the two errors that sit behind almost every outage we get called in to fix.
Settle the ownership, then scale the fleet.
Reseller accounts with WordPress Toolkit, every registration and expiry in one client area, and renewals at the order rate.
View Reseller Hosting plans