I used to run a small web hosting business and still manage a few client accounts. About a year ago, I moved these accounts from a reseller to DigitalOcean and installed cPanel since that’s what my clients are used to.
However, I ended up paying more for the control panel license than for the actual servers—cPanel accounts for around 60% of the total cost, while the server is only 40%. That doesn’t make economic sense to me. I think I was shielded from this before because my previous hosting provider charged a flat monthly fee.