Host, reseller, payments , backups and more Oh my! Help Please!

I've done the same as you recently, moved from Shared Hosting to a VPS - I'm not going to lie, it took a good few days to figure out how to use it, set everything up, secure it and transfer my sites as I went for an unmanaged plan.
I use InterServer and it costs $22 per month (my shared hosting was at $24 per month with the Addons I had to buy on top so I couldnt believe that a VPS would be cheaper!)

That came with cPanel but you just have to use the Server Admin Side to install it the first time as well as add firewall and spam protection plugins (free plugins a bit like how Wordpress works).

But you can Setup an unlimited amount of cPanel accounts either for your own sites or to resell hosting very easily after your all up and running.

For the $22 a month I get 1GB Ram, 1GB Burst, 50GB Hard Drive, 3TB Bandwidth and ofcourse cPanel license.
I'm running 5 sites off it and don't normally go over 15% Usage at any one time.
So glad I did the move now!

 

Just want to point something out: Virtuozzo VPS' are often oversold.