Question

How to set up a WordPress hosting company with auto-provisioning

I want to set up a WordPress hosting company simialr to something offered by WPMU Dev, except that all of my plans will come with Divi pre-installed.

So basically the workflow I want goes something like this:

  1. Customer orders one of my WordPress hosting plans on my site and makes payment
  2. A WordPress Droplet of the corresponding size to the plan purchased is automatically spun up
  3. The wp-admin credentials are automatically sent to the customer

I already know how to accomplish step one. What I need help with is how to automate the creation of new WordPress droplets when the customer checks out.

I know companies like WPMU Dev do this and have read about creating a master snapshot to provision droplets, but am still a bit lost. Unfortuantely but understandably, hosts tend to keep the how they do this close to the vest.

Is there anyone able/willing to guide me on how to set this up? If someone who can prove they have done this before is interested, I may even be willing to pay them to teach me how to do this. I do not want to pay someone to do it for me as I want to learn how to do it.

Thanks in advance!


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Bobby Iliev
Site Moderator
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October 24, 2022

Hi there,

In addition to what has already been mentioned, you could also achieve this by using a hosting billing system like HostBill for example. There is a 1-Click installation available here:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tools/hostbill

This will allow you to automate the server provisioning and billing for your users.

An alternative option is to use WHMCS which is another popular web hosting billing system and offers integrations with DigitalOcean.

Hope that this helps!

Best,

Bobby

KFSys
Site Moderator
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October 24, 2022

Hi @wolfbishop,

That’s a nice idea! I think if you are looking for someone to show you how it’s done you’ll need to focus your attention to hiring someone. There are a lot of developers that can help you with that on sites like upwork.com where freelancers offer their services.

As for a suggestion/guide you how to do it. The topic is too broad to be done in a forum like that but basically, you’ll need to either script everything from the group up or use an API an call DigitalOcean’s Marketplace WordPress droplet in your Panel. There is no need to re-invent the wheel and you can just use DigitalOcean’s API and infrastructure for this.

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