Sell hosting through WHMCS
If WHMCS runs your billing, Cresdock plugs into it: an accepted order creates the customer's workspace on its own, suspensions and terminations follow billing without anyone logging into the panel, and the support requests customers file on their workspace arrive back in WHMCS as tickets. This page is the whole setup, start to finish.
1.What the module does
It is a standard WHMCS server module, so it behaves the way the rest of your products already do. When an order is accepted, WHMCS asks the Cresdock server to create the workspace; the customer gets a set-password link by email from the panel itself, so no password ever passes through WHMCS or sits in a WHMCS email. From then on billing drives the lifecycle:
| In WHMCS | On the Cresdock server |
|---|---|
| Order accepted | Workspace created; the customer is emailed a set-password invite |
| Suspend | The customer’s apps stop and sign-in is refused, with the reason shown to them |
| Unsuspend | Everything comes back exactly as it was |
| Terminate | The workspace is removed; its files go to the recycle bin for a recovery window |
Your support agents work from the WHMCS service page: it shows the workspace’s live state, disk allowance and installed apps, with a resend-invite button — verified through your own admin access, never a stored customer password.
2.Get the module
The module is a free public download — fetching it needs no licence key. Run this on the machine where your WHMCS lives:
curl -fsSLO https://get.cresdock.com/cresdock-whmcs-latest.zip
curl -fsSLO https://get.cresdock.com/cresdock-whmcs-latest.zip.sha256
sha256sum -c cresdock-whmcs-latest.zip.sha256 # must print: OK
unzip cresdock-whmcs-latest.zipThe archive unpacks to a whmcs/ folder holding two things: the provisioning module (required) and a small addon that gives your WHMCS admin one page showing every Cresdock server — more on that in section 6. A short README inside repeats these steps with the full detail.
3.The ten-minute setup
Three steps, each in a place you already know:
Copy the module in. whmcs/cresdock/ goes into your WHMCS modules/servers/; the optional overview addon, whmcs/cresdock_admin/, goes into modules/addons/ and is switched on under Addon Modules.
Make a key on the panel. On your Cresdock server: Admin → Settings → API Keys → create a key named for WHMCS. The form lets you limit what the key may do; the README says exactly which permissions WHMCS needs, and a key you never narrow simply has full access.
Point WHMCS at the server. Add a server under System Settings → Servers — hostname, the key as the password, Secure ticked for HTTPS — and press Test Connection. Then build a product whose Module Settings set the workspace’s resources: disk, memory, processor share, speeds, monthly traffic. That product is now sellable.
4.What runs by itself once it’s in
The module carries the operational habits a hosting business needs, so you don’t script them:
Full servers queue instead of failing. WHMCS never retries a failed setup on its own — an order that lands on a full server would stay pending forever. The module keeps a first-come queue: the moment a slot frees, the oldest pending order is activated, the welcome email goes out, and the activity log says so.
Timed trials end on time. A 24-hour trial ends 24 hours after it started — not at the next nightly cron, hours late.
Customer requests come to you as tickets. When a customer asks for more resources or reports a problem on their workspace, the request is opened as a WHMCS ticket under their client account automatically, so your team answers where they already work and the customer sees one thread.
New orders land where there is room. With several servers behind one WHMCS, an order goes to the one with the most real headroom — what the machine actually has free, not what the product list says it should.
Plan changes apply themselves. Upgrading or downgrading a customer’s product in WHMCS applies to their workspace automatically — new disk, memory, processor and speed limits, without anyone opening the panel.
Customers see their own usage, and sign in with one click. The client area shows the storage and traffic they have used against their allowance, and an Open panel button takes them straight into their workspace already signed in — no second password to remember or reset.
Invite emails that can’t land are held. Optionally require a verified email before provisioning: the order waits, without blocking the queue, until the customer confirms their address — so a workspace slot is never burned on an invite that bounced.
5.Plans are your WHMCS products
There is no second plan system to maintain. Each WHMCS product’s Module Settings state what the workspace gets — disk, memory, processor, download and upload speeds, and monthly upload traffic — and the panel enforces those limits on every app the customer runs. Traffic is a monthly volume with a throttle at the cap, not a cut-off; speed caps are enforced on the server, not politely written into an app’s settings where the customer could raise them.
Leave a value at zero and the server’s own conservative default applies. Your panel admin can still adjust any individual customer afterwards — the product sets the starting point, not a cage.
6.Every server on one page
The optional addon adds one read-only page to your WHMCS admin: every Cresdock server, whether it is answering, its version, licence and seats, how many accounts are active and how many suspended, how much disk and memory is already promised against what the machine has, the order queue, and how many customer requests are waiting. It is the morning glance — is everything up, how full are we, is anything waiting on a person.
Deliberately read-only: actions stay on the service and in the panel, where they are logged and reversible. A page that can only tell you the truth can’t half-apply a change to a server nobody is watching.
7.Keys and transport, plainly
The connection is one API key per server, stored encrypted by WHMCS and redacted from its logs. Use HTTPS with a real certificate and tick Secure — the module verifies certificates strictly and refuses to follow redirects, so the key cannot be replayed to a host you didn’t name. On the panel side the key reaches only the provisioning surface, is rate-limited, and can be revoked on its own at any time; you can additionally pin it to your WHMCS server’s address so it is useless anywhere else.
8.Common questions
Does the module cost anything?
No. The module is a free public download, and fetching it needs no licence key. Your Cresdock servers are what carry a licence — selling workspaces to other people needs the Pro plan on each server, since Free is one person per server.
Do customer passwords go through WHMCS?
No. Accounts are created in invite mode: the panel emails the customer a set-password link directly, so no password is ever stored in WHMCS or carried in a WHMCS email.
What happens when a customer stops paying?
Whatever your WHMCS is configured to do. A suspension stops the customer’s apps and sign-in, with the reason shown to them; unsuspending brings everything back as it was; termination removes the workspace, with the files going to the recycle bin for a recovery window rather than vanishing at once.
Can I run several servers behind one WHMCS?
Yes — add each server as its own entry with its own key. Orders fill servers by your WHMCS rules, full servers queue orders until a slot frees, and the addon page shows every server in one place.
Ready to try it? Deploy a server, fetch the module in section 2, and your first product is sellable this afternoon.