Add a customer and a subscription

Before you start#

You need a service plan and an IP address marked as default or assigned under Tools & Settings › IP Addresses. A subscription is one webspace: its main domain, an IIS site, an application pool, a Windows system user and the limits of its plan. A customer can have several subscriptions.

If the panel's license is restricted or the license's subscription limit is reached, new subscriptions are refused; see license restricted mode.

Step 1: Open the new customer form#

Go to Hosting Services › Customers and click Add Customer.

Step 2: Enter contact information#

Fill in Contact name, which is required. The other fields are optional: Company name, Email address, phone, address and Notes. If you bill through another system, put its account number in External ID; it helps when you provision through the REST API later.

Under Access to the panel, enter a Login (letters, digits, dot, @, - and _, up to 64 characters) and a Password with at least 10 characters, upper and lower case letters, a digit and a symbol, or stricter if your Security Policy asks for more.

Step 4: Describe the first subscription#

Leave Create a subscription for the customer ticked and enter:

Domain name, for example example.com,
Service plan and any Add-ons,
IP address: the default shared address, or a dedicated one,
System user name: 3 to 20 lower-case letters, digits, - or _, starting with a letter; the panel suggests one from the domain,
System user password: this Windows user owns the files and logs in over FTP.

Step 5: Create the account#

Click Add Customer. The account is created at once, and the subscription is set up in the background. The subscription's page refreshes by itself; if setup fails, it shows why with a Try again button. If the account was created but the subscription was not, add it from the customer's page with Add subscription.

Step 6: Check it as the customer#

Open the customer and click Log in as customer. A bar at the top shows whose panel you are in. Check the website, mail and databases from their side, then click Back to administrator.

Adding another subscription later#

Go to Hosting Services › Subscriptions and click Add Subscription, or use Add subscription on the customer's page, which selects the customer for you. Choose the Subscriber: a customer, a reseller, or Administrator (my own subscription). The rest of the form is the same as above.

Point the domain at the server#

The website answers as soon as DNS points at the server. If the server hosts the zone, the registrar must list your name servers; if DNS stays elsewhere, the customer adds A records for the domain and www. Until then, open the site with Preview on the website page when Tools & Settings › Website Preview is on. Once DNS resolves, issue a certificate, or let the plan do it if it has free certificates.

The customers and resellers chapter covers statuses, conversion to reseller and removal; send the customer to the customer guide for their first steps.

Frequently asked questions

Can one customer have several subscriptions?

Yes. Each subscription is its own webspace with its own plan, system user and limits. Add more from the customer's page with Add subscription.

Why was the customer created but not the subscription?

The account and the subscription are created in two steps. Common reasons are a domain that already exists on the server, a plan or license limit that is reached, or a system user name already in use. The panel shows the reason; fix it and add the subscription from the customer's page.

Can I create customers automatically from my billing system?

Yes, through the REST API with an administrator API key. There is no ready-made billing plugin; your billing system or script calls the API, and External ID helps you match accounts.