Dedicated hosting company The Planet is introducing a revamped Web hosting reseller program following its merger with Dallas-based EV1servers 18 months ago.

The Houston-based hosting company's new three-tier program will offer members a free month of service for each new server purchased during the three-month introductory launch. Servers cost from $69 to $1,100 a month.

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"We'd built a product and a go-to-market capability, but we hadn't put together a structured standard way for companies to work with us," said Urvish Vashi, director of product management for the company, which has 48,000 servers under management, six data centers and hosts 3.1 million Web sites.

"The Planet's success has been shaped around small to medium sized businesses," he said. "Half the companies we do business with are resellers."

The new reseller program offers three tiers: Bronze, Silver and Elite. The levels are based on monthly recurring revenue on the resellers' monthly invoices. Bronze partners are those with $500 to $2,500 of monthly recurring revenue. Silver are $2,501 to $5,000, and Elite are $5,001 and up.

Different tiers qualify for different pricing levels, Vashi said. Registered resellers in all three tiers get assigned an account manager, around-the-clock support and extended ordering hours of 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. CST. They must provide level one support to their customers and provide billing and customer support services.

Click here to read how The Planet has partnered with Microsoft to deliver SAAS.

In designing the program, The Planet created a customer advisory council made up of 12 resellers. The company flew them to Houston to get their feedback and constructed the program from there, said Todd Mitchell, general manager for The Planet's hosting business.

In addition to simple hosting, The Planet offers several service options for resellers, including hardware, software, backup solutions, firewalls, load balancers and security options. Resellers that require quick additions can select Ready-To-Go servers that are installed in one hour or less.

In addition, the company offers a reseller portal and access to free marketing materials that include brochures, photography and white papers.