New Partner Guide

Welcome to WP Cloud! This guide will walk you through everything you need to launch your WordPress hosting offering, from understanding the product to going live with customers.

Estimated time: 1 month or less from account creation to first customer

Step 1: Understand the Product

Goal: Learn what WP Cloud offers and see real-world success stories

WP Cloud Resources:

See It In Action: (wp.cloud/case-studies/):

  • Pressable — Reduced CAPEX and cost-to-serve while increasing retention
  • Convesio — 300% increase in site onboarding in 60 days
  • Porkbun — 155% monthly growth in hosting revenue
  • UNC Greensboro — Cut Hosting Costs by 67% While Managing 250 WordPress Sites
  • Ivapix — Agency-to-hosting-provider transition with custom dashboard
  • Newspack — Powers 330+ local newsrooms; handles 10-30x traffic spikes during breaking news
  • Inverse Paradox — Launched hosting business in 30 days; 40% cost reduction, zero support tickets

Key Differentiators (Why Partners Choose WP Cloud):

  • 99.999% Uptime SLA – Removes hosting from your support burden
  • Enterprise Security – Built-in WAF, DDoS protection, automated patches
  • Global infrastructure – CDN and edge caching included, no extra config
  • WordPress Management – by the team that manages WordPress.com and WordPress VIP.
  • Automated Scaling – Handles traffic spikes without partner intervention
  • Performance Benchmarks. Pressable and others see outstanding benchmarks from third parties.
  • White-label Ready – Your brand, your pricing, your customer relationship

Who Benefits Most:

Integrations:

PanelAlpha — Enterprise-grade WordPress features for hosts.

EasyEngine — Visual WordPress Management with a hosted option.

Step 2: Create an Account & Get API Access

Goal: Establish your WP Cloud partnership, view pricing, and get technical access with an API key

Process:

  1. Create your account here.
  2. Or contact WP Cloud via our Connect With Us page.
  3. Receive your Client Identifier, API Key, and guidance.

Step 3: Access the Partner Portal

Goal: Get pricing, resources, and manage your account

Partner Portal: https://hosts.automattic.com/wpcloud

What you’ll find:

  • Account overview with pricing tables
  • WP Cloud News feed
  • Inventory table (resources per site)
  • Field Guide and API documentation links
  • API access request form for expanding team access
  • Support request submission

Note: Portal access is limited to one email address per account. Recommend using a shared team email (e.g., wpcloud@yourcompany.com).

Step 4: Choose Your Integration Path

Goal: Decide how to present WP Cloud hosting to your customers

Option A: PanelAlpha (White-label control panel for hosts and agencies)

  • Best for: Hosting companies, domain registrars, agencies wanting a turnkey solution
  • Features: Full white-labeling, WHMCS billing integration, customer management, and AI-powered onboarding
  • Timeline: 2-4 weeks to launch
  • Docs: panelalpha.com/documentation/hosting-servers/wp-cloud/

Option B: EasyEngine (Developer-focused dashboard)

  • Best for: Native hosting, agencies, freelancers, DevOps teams
  • Features: One-click deployment, multi-provider management, team collaboration, bulk operations
  • Model: “Bring Your Own API Key” — manage WP Cloud alongside other hosts
  • Docs: Available via the EasyEngine dashboard

Option C: Build Your Own (API-first)

  • Best for: Companies wanting complete control over UX or that already have a panel and want to extend it to WP Cloud.
  • Use the WP Cloud API to build a fully custom interface

Step 5: Create Your Pricing Model

Goal: Design pricing tiers for your customers based on WP Cloud’s flexible, usage-based model

Core Pricing Principles:

  • No upfront fees or minimum commitments
  • Pay only for what you use (invoiced based on actual site allocation)
  • Per-website pricing for maximum flexibility

Pricing Structure: Partners set their own customer pricing. WP Cloud offers tiered options based on resources (CPUs, PHP workers, storage). All tiers include unlimited bandwidth. Optional bursting capacity adds resources automatically to prevent disruption during traffic spikes.

Partner Benefits:

  • Set your own pricing strategy
  • Free staging site included with each production site
  • Monthly estimates available in the Partner Portal
  • Volume discounts available (10% at 1,000+ sites, up to 60% at 50,000+ sites)

Important: Use Site Meta tagging to ensure test/staging sites aren’t billed. Invoices are processed the first week of each month.

Step 6: Go-to-Market Strategy

Goal: Position and promote your WP Cloud-powered hosting to win customers

Marketing Strategies:

  • Research competitors: See how WP Cloud partners like Bluehost Cloud, Pressable, Porkbun, and Ivapix showcase their offerings
  • Lead with reliability: Consider offering a 100% uptime guarantee. Few WordPress hosts can credibly make this claim
  • Show performance proof: Share speed benchmarks and case studies; use WordPress speed tests to show before/after migration results
  • Content marketing: Use podcasts and YouTube to highlight benefits and client success stories (see Pressable for examples)
  • SEO and AI optimization. Cloud WordPress and other terms to consider.
  • Co-marketing: WP Cloud welcomes collaboration on case studies and joint promotional programs

Branding flexibility: You can fully white-label — no requirement to mention WP Cloud if that suits your strategy.

Step 7: Get Support When You Need It

Goal: Know how to get help and what to expect

How to Reach Us:

Response Times:

  • General requests: 24-hour response time
  • Urgent platform issues: Escalated immediately
  • Support monitored 24/7

What We Support:

✅ Platform integration and API questions
✅ Platform-wide technical issues
✅ Onboarding assistance
✅ Sales and marketing support
✅ High-level WordPress platform questions

✅ Site migration tools

What’s Outside Our Scope:

❌ End-user WordPress how-to questions
❌ Site design, development, or theme customization
❌ Plugin conflicts unrelated to WP Cloud
❌ Manual site migrations
❌ Customer DNS configuration (unless platform-related)
❌ Performance issues caused by slow code/plugins

Pro Tips for Faster Resolution: When submitting a support request, always include:

  • Site ID (more reliable than domain name)
  • Timestamps in UTC
  • Error messages and HTTP status codes
  • Steps to reproduce the issue
  • What you’ve already tried

Important: As a B2B platform, WP Cloud supports you (the partner), not your end customers. WP Cloud Partners handles general WordPress support for their clients.