cPanel and Plesk control panels and Windows Server licenses

First, count the sites or customers you will host on the server. cPanel licenses are split by number of accounts, Plesk by number of domains. For a single site of your own, cPanel Solo; for a few sites at a small company, cPanel Admin or Plesk Web Admin; and for agencies handling many client sites, cPanel Pro or Plesk Web Pro fits.

Next is the operating system. cPanel installs on AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux, and Plesk on Ubuntu, Debian and AlmaLinux. If you already know a distribution well, choose the panel that matches it; if you are new, choosing the matching operating system when creating the server makes installation smooth.

If you plan for the number of accounts to keep growing, as in a hosting business, starting with a license one tier larger is easier. To change licenses, order the new license and cancel the current one on the support page, and your server and site data carry on as they are.

Windows Server licenses are priced by the server's vCPU count: $3.64 per month for up to 2 vCPU, $5.38 for up to 4, $11.37 for up to 6, $18.70 for up to 8 and $35.84 for up to 16. Choose a license equal to or greater than your server's vCPU count.

cPanel is Solo $16.79, Admin $20.15, Pro $30.23 and Premier $39.19, and Plesk is Web Admin $8.23, Web Pro $12.50 and Web Host $21.44. All are monthly prices in US dollars, and the amount shown in the table is the entire license fee.

License fees are renewed by paying the invoice. Pay with cryptocurrency, with a $25 minimum payment. Server and license fees come from the same invoice, so you manage them together in one account.

With cPanel or Plesk installed, you access the server in a web browser, add sites and connect domains. Create a separate account for each site to keep files, databases and email apart, and issue free SSL certificates in a few clicks to turn on HTTPS.

Email accounts are created on screen too. Create addresses on your company domain, set passwords and quotas, and configure spam filters and forwarding rules. For databases, create MySQL or MariaDB on screen, grant user permissions and browse tables directly with phpMyAdmin.

Popular programs such as WordPress go on within minutes with the installer. File manager, scheduled jobs, access logs and usage graphs are all on one screen, so even staff unfamiliar with commands can run sites themselves. When needed, log in over SSH and manage with commands alongside.

First, prepare the server to attach the license to. For cPanel, create an AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux server; for Plesk, an Ubuntu, Debian or AlmaLinux server; for a Windows Server license, a Windows server. A control panel installs most smoothly on a clean server with nothing else installed.

Next, order the license on the order page of the member area and tell us the server to attach it to on the support page. The first month is invoiced when you order, and once our team links the license to your server and lets you know, you install the control panel and log in for the first time. The license is tied to the server's IP address, so when you change servers, just ask us to move the license as well.

When installation finishes, open the control panel address in your web browser, set the admin password and create your first site. Open the ports the panel and email need in your firewall, and customers and staff can start using it right away.

Add a Windows Server license and you enter the server desktop with Remote Desktop to install and use programs just like on a PC. It is great for keeping Windows-only programs running all day, such as company accounting software, internal business tools, automation scripts and trading platforms.

Web services built with the IIS web server and .NET, ASP.NET sites and business systems that use SQL Server also run as they are on a Windows server. Place it in the same region as your Linux servers and link them over a private network to build services that mix both operating systems cleanly.

Choose the license to match the server's vCPU count, and when you move the server to bigger specs, switch to a license that matches the new vCPU count too. If you prefer a server with the Windows Server license included from the start, you can choose a Windows VPS instead.