Plesk on Broadbent Host
Plesk is the control panel on Broadbent Host shared hosting, and it is the panel named on the email hosting plans. You use it to add a site, a mailbox, a database for that site, a PHP version, a certificate and a backup, without a root login. The panel is the product surface. The machines stay in Colchester, on the shared plans, and the UK support desk is the route when the panel is not enough.
Two shared plans carry it. Standard and Premium both include the Plesk control panel. The plan pages list WordPress Toolkit, SEO Toolkit, PHP Composer, Git, Softaculous and Security Advisor. The same panel is the one the email plans mean when they say Plesk webmail access. A dedicated server or a Raspberry Pi server can have Plesk installed, or Interworx, or neither. On those machines Plesk is a choice. On shared hosting it is the way the account is run. There is also a bring-your-own-licence option where a server configuration asks for a Plesk licence you already hold.
This article stays with what those pages actually offer. It does not invent mailbox prices. Several email plan records on the site are priced when you configure them, so the number you pay is the number at checkout. Storage and mailbox counts below are the counts printed on the plans.
What the panel is for
A shared account is a website, a domain and the mail that belongs to that domain, on a server you share with other accounts. Plesk is how you tell that account what to do. You add the domain, or you point one you already have. You create the mailboxes. You install a site, often WordPress through the toolkit or another script through Softaculous. You pick PHP. You turn on a certificate. You look at Security Advisor when the panel flags a setting.
WordPress Toolkit is the WordPress-specific part of that. It is there so a WordPress site can be installed and updated from the panel rather than by copying files by hand. SEO Toolkit is the panel's own SEO tools. PHP Composer and Git are there for a site that is deployed from a repository rather than from a zip. Softaculous is the script installer beside the toolkit. Security Advisor is the checklist inside the panel. None of these replace a maintenance plan. They are how you do the work yourself. Website maintenance is the separate service when you want us to apply the updates.
The hosting terms linked from the legal index are the terms for Plesk hosting services. Read those for the contract. This article is the plain description of the panel and the plans, not a second set of terms.
Shared hosting, and when it is enough
Standard and Premium are the two shared sizes. Premium is the larger of the two. Both are Plesk. Choose Premium when the site, the mail or the traffic needs more than Standard includes, and use the plan page for the exact allowances, because those allowances are what you are buying. A domain is optional at order. You can register one with us, transfer one in, or point a domain you already hold at the hosting.
DNS for a domain we host can be handled with the UK team. A transfer uses an auth code, or a Nominet IPS tag where that is the route for a .uk name. The panel does not invent those codes. The registrar of the current domain does. Until the domain points at the hosting, the site and the mail on that name will not arrive, whatever the panel shows as ready.
Shared hosting is the right place for a brochure site, a small shop, a blog and the mailboxes of a small team. It is the wrong place for a private Kubernetes namespace, a dedicated database with a failover address, or a machine you want to patch yourself. Those are separate products, linked later in this article. Putting a busy application database on the same shared account as the marketing site is the usual reason a site later moves. The panel can create a database for the site. A managed MariaDB or PostgreSQL instance is a different order.
Email on the Plesk plans
The email product is Plesk email hosting. The plan page describes mailboxes on your domain, spam filtering, webmail and UK support. Basic includes 5 GB of storage and 10 email accounts, with Plesk webmail and standard spam and virus protection. Business includes 20 GB and 25 email accounts. Enterprise includes 50 GB and unlimited email accounts, again with Plesk webmail on the plan. Additional storage can be added. If a mailbox nears its limit, the service sends a notice. You upgrade, or you archive or delete mail. The plan does not silently grow.
IMAP and POP3 are both supported, and the setup mail after you buy includes the IMAP, POP3 and SMTP server settings. The panel also has auto-configuration for common clients. Webmail in the browser is part of the plan. The clients named on the compatibility section are Roundcube, Horde, Plesk Webmail, SquirrelMail and Afterlogic WebMail Pro. Phone and Outlook are expected clients too: the existing email article on this site says the mail works in a phone and in Outlook, which matches the IMAP and POP3 support.
You can bring mailboxes you already have. The email FAQ says we offer migration assistance for mail, contacts and calendar data, with the aim of little disruption. It does not promise a particular cut-over minute. Agree the window when you ask for the move. Spam filtering, virus scanning and SSL/TLS for the connection are part of the security description. Mail is stored on UK servers, with backups, which is the compliance line on the email FAQ. Quotas, aliases and the mailbox store itself are also held on the Mailcow platform described in Mailcow email hosting. Plesk is the panel you are shown. Mailcow is the mail system underneath webmail.broadbent.host. You do not order them as two competing products.
Plesk on a server you rent
A virtual server, a dedicated server or a Raspberry Pi server is a machine. The overview for dedicated servers and for Raspberry Pi servers says you can install Plesk, Interworx, or another panel, or leave the server bare for someone technical to run. That is a different Plesk from shared hosting. On shared hosting we run the panel. On a server, the panel is installed onto your machine and the updates of that panel are part of looking after the machine.
Bring-your-own-licence means the Plesk licence key is yours. The server still needs a current key if you want the panel to keep working. A lapsed key is a Plesk problem before it is a hardware problem. If you do not want to own the key, use shared hosting, where the panel is included, or ask for a server configuration that does not depend on a key you must renew.
Interworx is the other panel named next to Plesk on those server overviews. It is a choice for a reseller-style server, not a second name for the shared plans. The shared plans are Plesk.
What Plesk will not do
The panel will not redesign a site, write the pages, or rank them. SEO Toolkit is a tool inside the panel. It is not the same thing as a campaign, and website maintenance explicitly does not include SEO services. The panel will not patch WordPress on a schedule unless someone, or a maintenance plan, tells it to. Security Advisor can warn you. It does not sit on the phone at the weekend unless the hosting support that comes with the plan does, and the email product is the one that states 24/7 support.
The panel will not give you a Kubernetes namespace, a kubectl login, or a placement on the cluster. It will not give you the high-availability database address described on database hosting. A site and its mail can live in Plesk while the application database lives on database hosting and the application containers live on Kubernetes. That split is ordinary. Forcing all three into one shared account is how a quiet site becomes a noisy neighbour to itself.
Plesk is also not the IT help desk. Mailbox passwords, Outlook settings and a full disk are hosting. A laptop that will not join the VPN, a Microsoft 365 licence, or a Google Workspace user is IT and server management. The panel can be open and the laptop can still be broken. They are different queues.
Day to day
A normal week in the panel is short. You add a mailbox for a new starter and remove one for someone who has left. You check the disk on the account before a campaign. You update WordPress, or you leave that to maintenance. You look at the mail queue only when someone says a message did not arrive. You point a new domain, wait for DNS, and then issue the certificate once the name arrives.
The mistakes we see are also short. POP3 on a laptop that deletes mail from the server, so the phone looks empty. Two people sharing one mailbox instead of two mailboxes and an alias. A contact form writing to a database that has filled the account. A domain transfer started without the auth code, so the site moves and the name does not. None of these need a new product. They need the panel and, sometimes, a person on the UK desk.
Backups in the panel are the account's own copies. They are not the same as the SFTP backup plans on the enterprise pages, and they are not the database product's daily or hourly backups. If the only copy of the site is the copy on the same account, a mistake in the panel can remove the copy as well. Take a copy off the account when the site matters. Website maintenance includes scheduled backups of files and database as part of that plan, which is another reason a maintained site is not only a Plesk login.
How this sits with the rest of Host
Order shared hosting when the site and the mail should be in one panel and you do not want a server to patch. Order email hosting on its own when you already have a site elsewhere and you want the mailboxes, the spam filtering and webmail. Order a server with Plesk when you need the machine and you still want the panel. Order database hosting when MariaDB, PostgreSQL or another engine on the list needs its own storage, its own address and its own backups. Order Kubernetes when the application is manifests in a namespace. Order maintenance when the updates and the small content edits should be ours. Order IT management when the work is users, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and the office machines.
The short pages already on this site cover a standard or premium choice, and a short note on email. This article is the longer map of the panel those pages assume. The guide Plesk or Mailcow is the one to read when the question is which name to use for mail. The topic Plesk hosting is the same service written as a single landing page.
Start from the plan that matches the size you can already describe: Standard or Premium for the site, Basic, Business or Enterprise for the mailboxes, or a server if the panel has to sit on a machine of your own. The checkout is where the price is confirmed. The panel is where the site and the mail are actually run after that.
A first week in the panel
Sign in, confirm the domain on the account, and create the mailboxes you actually need rather than a list copied from an old host. Send one message in and one message out through webmail before you touch Outlook. Install the site, or point the existing files, and only then issue the certificate, because the name has to reach the hosting first. Turn on the backup the plan gives you, and take one copy somewhere that is not the same account. Look at Security Advisor once, and fix the items that are yours to fix, such as an unused account or an old PHP handler the site no longer needs.
If the site is WordPress, the toolkit is the path on the plan page. Update it, or put it on website maintenance if those updates should be ours, tested on a staging copy first as that service describes. Do not install three overlapping security plugins on the first day. The panel, the hosting support and the maintenance plan are enough to start. Extra plugins can wait until something specific needs them.