Adding "Multisite" Reseller type hosting to existing WordPress MU / Buddypress

Hello everyone,

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read and comment on this issue.

I’ll get straight to it.

I run a network which is seeking to become a full featured social network for a specific niche. We have our “primary” site, which runs on Buddypress and allows users to register, post status updates, comment on user posts, the whole 9 yards.

We also have several “Multisite’s” such as a separate news blog, and a separate blog/site for our dedicated radio station. These sites are tied to the main site in the sense that registering an account on any one of them gets you a “network wide” account/profile, and the ability to comment on any subsites as your primary profile.

We are looking to expand our operation to allow for users to purchase hosting plans that integrate them into our network. The obvious win for the end user being that their blog (related to our niche) gets an immediate infusion of active users by association because ALL users of our “primary site” would be default be able to comment and interact with this new sub-site, etc.

However, the functionality of merely going in and creating Multisites for this purpose does seem a little underwhelming. There are several issues with this approach:

Primarily, a client would be paying us for hosting, but would not get access to their own cPanel, FTP (At least I think?) or even the ability to freely download and install any themes or plugins they desire (those abilities seem tied to NETWORK admins)

Am I being shortsighted in these views? Is there something I am missing here that I am overly worrying about?

Meanwhile, we had a thought that perhaps there may be a better solution. If we were to purchase a Reseller hosting account through a hosting provider, we would then have the ability to easily dole out cPanel accounts and FULL creative abilities to any clients who paid us for hosting. The only issue with this solution is a big one however…

*Is it possible for us to tie any of these new WordPress sites (hosted on a different Reseller server) back to our user database so as to emulate the offsite hosted blog as being tied into our Multisite setup?*

We would want for these Reseller hosted sites to have the inherent advantages of being a part of our “primary site” network. That users could freely go to the new site and comment and so on without having to register multiple new accounts. Also, that someone posting a blog post on their new Reseller hosted blog would reflect on their “primary site” profile and status activity, etc.

I apologize for this somewhat convoluted and confusing question. What we are trying to do is tricky to explain clearly.

If anyone has any suggestions, or needs further clarification on what I’ve said here, please let me know!

Thanks so much!