buzzword to compete in this business? Would anyone actually CHOOSE a reseller over another due to this "feature"?
So many here recommend getting a reseller account to begin learning about this business. Wouldn't that mean you would want a reliable ethical reseller so that you could offer your new clients QUALITY hosting? So that you could retain them and have them recommend others?
So, doesn't UNLIMITED or OVERSELLING this or that tend to attract warez, bit torrent types that HOG the server an bring all others down along with them?
So wouldn't a quality reseller actually want to advertise that they DID NOT HAVE UNLIMITED and/or OVERSELLING enabled to attract QUALITY resellers?
Seems to me I would want a reseller that would NOT oversell or sell unlimited accounts on MY SHARED SERVER.
I eman, by the time I had ten or maybe even 25 resellers signed up under me I am thinking I would want my own server anyways, yes?
So, help em out here, maybe there is something that I do not understand. Thanks, Dave And man, let me tell you, I would sure love to have 10, 25, 50, 100 or even just 1000 accounts under me. If I had UNLIMITED accounts, you could just call me Mr. Gates :)

Overselling Enabled is for example, if you had the 5 GB space and 50 GB transfer plan and you decided to offer plans such as 1 GB space and 10 GB transfer on your site, you would only be able to offer it to 5 clients.
With overselling enabled, you would be able to offer as many as you want as long as the aggregated amount USED does not go over the 5 GB space and 50 GB transfer
"Overselling Enabled" I believe is kind of a must if you want to have any hope at competing with established hosts. Why should I signup for a new host offering 500mb space and 5gb bandiwdth for 15$/Per Month? They have no track record of a great service and they are overpriced compared to the majority of hosts. Why set such a hard limit when some clients may only use 20mb of their allocated 1GB package? Overselling done correctly is FINE and Overselling from a resellers standpoint should do no harm to the server.
Their are providers who chose not to offer "Overselling Enabled", and maybe they are successful, maybe their not. A few years ago, before becoming part of Aquarius, I had a reseller account with A Small Orange. They didn't allow overselling. You would think no overselling would be a more stable hosting environment, right? One word, no. You would be wrong if you assumed this. You can thank the server "desmond" for this.
Simply put, like I stated above, oversell and do it smart. Manage it correctly and don't EVER let it effect the service of your customers. If you begin running low on space, it's time to upgrade. Go with a provider that will grow with you. Don't ever get your account or service suspended simply because you didn't calculate their bandwidth and space usage correctly.
You are right, unlimited hosting may attract warez, however unlimited hosting and "Overselling Enabled" are two different things. "Overselling Enabled" simply allows you to create accounts up until your AGGREGATED amount USED is reached.
Aggregated - 1 : to collect or gather into a mass or whole
2 : to amount in the aggregate to : total

OK, EXCELLENT! Thanks for the clarification. I now understand and would actually WANT "overselling enabled" for my reseller. And I realize that I was grouping together for no particular reason "Overselling enabled" and "UNLIMITED Reseller accounts".
Is Unlimited Reseller Accounts what would attract the "bad" element like unlimited HOSTING, or is it more like "overselling enabled" in that it is a good thing?
BTW Aquarious, whatever you paid your web site designer, THEY WERE WORTH IT!

Yes, on the subject of "overselling-enabled" I think you're missing the point. If a host offers overselling-enabled reseller accounts then he should assume that all the resellers will keep on adding clients until they use up all their allocated disk space and / or transfer. Provided the host himself isn't overselling this shouldn't be a problem - all the resellers (the hosts clients) should be able to use all of their allocations.
By contrast if the host offers overselling-disabled reseller accounts then he can be sure that most of his clients (the resellers) won't use their full allocations, so the host can safely sell more accounts at lower cost, or larger accounts at the same cost. ie. the host can oversell [more] because the resellers can't oversell.
So no, overselling enabled isn't a must-have for a reseller but it is a value-add. All other things being equal (which they rarely are) I'd expect to pay more or get smaller allocations on an account with overselling enabled.
Some degree of overselling is normal at some / all levels in budget hosting. You should probably just accept it unless you're willing to pay a heck of a lot more.

BTW Aquarious, whatever you paid your web site designer, THEY WERE WORTH IT!
Thank you for the kind words :). Most of which was done in house, however we had some serious help from Harzem, and a bit of help from Coreymade and Swiftmodders. All three great designers from this community.
OK, EXCELLENT! Thanks for the clarification. I now understand and would actually WANT "overselling enabled" for my reseller. And I realize that I was grouping together for no particular reason "Overselling enabled" and "UNLIMITED Reseller accounts".
Is Unlimited Reseller Accounts what would attract the "bad" element like unlimited HOSTING, or is it more like "overselling enabled" in that it is a good thing?
When you speak of unlimited hosting, I think of offering unlimited space & bandwidth. Unlimited space is impossible, as no "unlimited" hard drive has yet to be invented. Unlimited bandwidth is still impossible at this point as well, because... it's limited.
It seems we're speaking about different things however when you refer to unlimited hosting. Having say for example, "Unlimited Reseller Accounts" allows you not to have a number limit of the amount of clients you are able to offer your services too. That way your provider is not like, "hey, since you're a reseller, we're only going to allow you to have 5 clients and that is it". I don't see how by advertising "Overselling Enabled" or "Unlimited Accounts" would attract warez or spammers or anything. The thing that will tend to attract the warez, the spammers, ect. would be someone offering the unlimited space & bandwidth, which as I pointed out earlier, is impossible. Your only "limit" per say would once again, be hitting your allocated space and /or transfer. Neither "Overselling Enabled" nor "Unlimited Reseller Accounts" is really frowned on by anyone, as it really does not do any harm to offer these services if your capable of providing them. The thing that is frowned upon however is "unlimited hosting" which refers to space and /or bandwidth.

it's not really a "must have" but as others said, it is necessary to some degree for you to sell more accounts without having a lot of limits. This will allow you to pay for what you use instead of paying for resources you will never use at all.
Probably 90% of all reseller accounts have overselling enabled. Just a guess.

Again, thanks. Now I can breath a little easier. I thought maybe everyone was going nuts. Not I know it was just me :) I blame my fever as I currently have one. This also completely explains why a QUALITY host could offer Unlimited accounts and Overselling enabled" and still be a QUALITY host.
The fact that YOU as a host offer good backup included and what I consider in my admittedly limited but yet well read experience to be the industry standard/best Control panel and billing software, as well as CentOS is impressive. You are on my shortlist for when I decide to take my hobby to the next level :)

offering unlimited is a very different thing because you have people believing that unlimited actually exists
the overselling I was talking about was where you get let's say 20gb space to resell, and you sell 6 packages of 5gb each which is 30gb. That's overselling but not by a huge margin.
Unlimited brings it up to a whole new level

Realistically, all "unlimited" offers do have limits. But you may not know in advance what they are. ;)

Thanks to all, I get it now. Was confused there for awhile :)

I am actually surprised at how many people do not choose to enable overselling on their accounts. We offer it, but it is less popular then I expected it to be - I'd say 25% +/-
So by my experience it definitely not a necessity, but so long as it is done responsibly it is a valuable addon to offer. If overselling is not enabled for a reseller that reseller ends up with unused resources that are essentially wasted. But a reseller must be on their toes and not walk the line too closely else disaster may strike.
The same story goes for the person supplying the resellers if overselling is not used then depending on the clientele there could be a large percentage of wasted resources. My guess/experience is that generally speaking only half of whats allocated is ever used which means if one oversells by 20-25% then that still leaves a 25-30% safety net.
The other side to this is that as far as hard drive space goes... it is getting so dirt cheap that overselling space is hardly a concern anymore, and for aging servers its a cheap and easy fix for the most part. Overselling the processing power of the server can be a greater challenge (as this is not easily fixed), but that depends greatly on your clientele... are they heavy database users?... Overselling your Disk IO is another concern now adays, but again with SAS and RAID options developing the way they are, technology is staying ahead of the overselling concerns.

Yes, the term is a bit misleading :) But I think that in the spirit it is meant and that is to be able to use the combination of the resources you have paid for in the way that works for you is a good thing. It seems that any reputable host that actually wants to stay in business would know not to overload servers, disk IO, etc. I mean especially these days, it is not so easy to get new customers, may as well do your best to keep them once you get them.