Suggested Hosting Plan Limits (Templates for Shared Hosting Tiers)

Choosing plan limits is one of the first decisions when you start selling hosting. The templates below are a practical starting point for typical shared hosting tiers on OpenPanel - copy them, then adjust to your server and market.

In OpenPanel, every limit is enforced per account: CPU and RAM are real container limits, disk and inodes are quotas, and the number of domains, websites, databases, mailboxes and FTP accounts is checked by the panel. See User Packages.

Plan Templates​

Notes:

• Subdomains don't count toward the domain limit, as long as the main domain is in the account - see Subdomains, addon and parked domains.
• Websites counts installed apps (WordPress, Node.js, Python, Website Builder, ...), not plain folders.
• 0 means unlimited for any limit. Avoid unlimited CPU and RAM on shared servers - one busy site could slow down everyone else.
• Max hourly emails protects your IP reputation if a customer's site is hacked and starts sending spam.

Create the Plans from the Terminal​

Paste these commands to create all four plans at once (plan names without spaces):

opencli plan-create name="Starter" description="1 website, 10 GB NVMe" emails=5 ftp=1 domains=1 websites=1 disk=10 inodes=150000 databases=2 cpu=1 ram=1 bandwidth=100 feature_set=basic max_email_quota=2G max_hourly_email=100

opencli plan-create name="Business" description="5 websites, 30 GB NVMe" emails=25 ftp=5 domains=5 websites=5 disk=30 inodes=400000 databases=10 cpu=2 ram=2 bandwidth=200 feature_set=default max_email_quota=5G max_hourly_email=300

opencli plan-create name="Pro" description="20 websites, 75 GB NVMe" emails=100 ftp=20 domains=20 websites=20 disk=75 inodes=1000000 databases=50 cpu=4 ram=4 bandwidth=500 feature_set=default max_email_quota=10G max_hourly_email=500

opencli plan-create name="WordPressPro" description="Managed WordPress, 3 sites" emails=10 ftp=3 domains=3 websites=3 disk=40 inodes=500000 databases=5 cpu=2 ram=3 bandwidth=200 feature_set=default max_email_quota=5G max_hourly_email=200

Or create them in OpenAdmin → Hosting Plans → User Packages → Create New. See opencli plan.

Use a Feature Set that matches the tier - for example hide advanced features like the web terminal, containers or PHP.INI editor on the Starter plan, and enable them on Pro.

How Many Accounts Fit on a Server?​

CPU and RAM limits are maximums, not reservations. Most sites are idle most of the time, so you can safely sell more total limits than the server physically has (overselling). A common rule of thumb:

• Sell up to about 3-4× the server's RAM in total plan RAM for mixed small sites.
• Stay closer to 1.5-2× for WordPress/WooCommerce-heavy customers.
• Keep disk closer to 1:1 - files actually use the space, and you need room for backups.

Example: a server with 8 cores, 32 GB RAM and 500 GB NVMe could comfortably host around 60-80 Starter accounts, or 30-40 Business accounts, depending on how busy the sites are.

Use the resource calculator to model your mix, and watch real usage in OpenAdmin → Server → Resource Usage as you grow. See System requirements and sizing.

Pricing Tips​

• Price by value (sites, storage, email) - customers compare those, not CPU cores.
• Offer annual billing with a discount; it improves cash flow and retention.
• Keep 3-4 tiers; more options slow down buying decisions.
• Include daily backups and free SSL in every tier - both come built into OpenPanel.
• Since OpenPanel Enterprise is priced per server, not per account, your panel cost per customer drops as you add accounts.

Change Plans Later​

• Edit a plan to change limits for all its users at once.
• Move a single customer to another plan (upgrade/downgrade) from OpenAdmin → Users → Edit, or with opencli user-change_plan.
• With a billing integration, upgrades and downgrades happen automatically when the customer changes their package.

Related​

• Start a web hosting business with OpenPanel
• Set up reseller accounts
• Are plan limits hard or soft limits?