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Domain Fee Question
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Domain Fee Question

When we pay for a domain (E.g. $10 for 1 year on a .com), where does the money go to?

Is it something like 90% of the fee goes to the registrar then the rest to icann?

Comments

  • Depends where ya go.. but i would say like..
    namecheap charges say $10 for a .com
    - $5 - Verisign (the .com registrar)
    - 0.20c icann
    - 4.80 stays at Namecheap

    something along that line

    Thanked by 1jcaleb
  • Dynadot's breakdown for their $8 .com:

    $6.00 registry fee paid to Verisign, the central registry

    $0.50 credit card processing fee

    $0.25 ICANN transaction fee

    $?.?? Office rent, employee salary, advertising, government taxes, hosting fees, computer equipment, software, utilities, insurance, fraud, legal fees, etc.

    Thanked by 1Dylan
  • AutoSnipe said: Depends where ya go.. but i would say like.. namecheap charges say $10 for a .com - $5 - Verisign (the .com registrar) - 0.20c icann - 4.80 stays at Namecheap

    You're forgetting eNom fees.

  • Rallias said: You're forgetting eNom fees.

    As far as I know, Namecheap is an ICANN accredited registrar.

    They used to resell through eNom, no?

  • DylanDylan Member
    edited February 2014

    Depends where ya go.. but i would say like..
    namecheap charges say $10 for a .com
    - $5 - Verisign (the .com registrar)
    - 0.20c icann
    - 4.80 stays at Namecheap

    Those numbers are way low. The current Verisign registry fee is $7.85 for a .com, and the ICANN fee is 18 cents... so that's $8.03 before payment processing fees! Add those and it could easily by $8.30-$8.50. Registrars that charge $8.99 (e.g. NameSilo, Internet.BS) make very little money on each domain.

    Thanked by 1jcaleb
  • BK_ said:

    As far as I know, Namecheap is an ICANN accredited registrar.

    They used to resell through eNom, no?

    They are an accredited registrar in their own right but they mostly resell through enom. It must be cheaper for them to do that.

  • very thin margin it seems

  • Verisign really takes/ eat up a lot of money...

  • Margins might be thing, but am I the only one that renewal fees keep going up every year?

  • DylanDylan Member
    edited February 2014

    user123 said: renewal fees keep going up every year?

    It's because Verisign was raising the registry fee every year. The good news is that the US Department of Commerce stepped in since ICANN wouldn't (even though they're supposed to look after consumers) and barred them from raising the .com fee again until at least 2019. So any price hikes on .coms now are all on the individual registrar.

    Of course Verisign is free to raise .net even more now to make up for not being able to raise .com (and they're doing just that)...

  • HC_RoHC_Ro Member
    edited February 2014

    skybucks100 said: $6.00 registry fee paid to Verisign, the central registry

    Its now more than $6 so you may be referencing old information.

    The domain business is hardly profitable. This is why most income from registrars come from upsells.

    There is a very rare list that can actually upkeep the ability to provide a domaining service while profiting around $1 (IBS, NS).. as example. This $1-3 goes towards system upkeep as in DNS and other technical services.

    *edit ^ above was worded oddly. There is typically a few dollars or less to keep and cover operational cost.

    Most branding campaigns ($.99 -1) registrations are for marketing purposes, these costs are absorbed and the renewals are around $30 (covering the first and second year).

  • Out of curiosity, what does Verisign do exactly? As in, do they sell the actual domain for the register (i.e. Dyadot) kind of like a White Label reseller? Or do they control the whole .COM/.NET everything?

  • acording to wikipedia:

    When a registrar registers a com domain name for an end-user, it must pay a maximum annual fee of US$7.85[5] to VeriSign, the registry operator for com, and a US$0.18 annual administration fee to ICANN. Most domain registrars price their services and products to address both the annual fees and the administration fees that must be paid to ICANN

    also, nice site: http://www.dotandco.net/ressources/icann_registrars/details/position.en

    and another about Domain fee: http://www.hostly.com/hosting-info/much-domain-names-cost-1523.html

  • Makes me happy I have been a reseller of NetEarthOne for years where I just am charged "USD 8.88" for domains so I pass on the savings and just charge what I have to pay when I do sell them.

  • @dedicados said:

    Gosh, so EVERY register has to pay Verisign? Talk about a Monopoly....

  • @skybucks100 said:
    Out of curiosity, what does Verisign do exactly?

    They are vampires. They suck the lifeblood out of the interwebs.

    The idea behind having domain names cost money is that people won't just "take them all". You know, because people are pricks.

    Back in the mid to late 90's they wanted 50 bucks a year for a domain name a year (on top of what you had to pay a "registrar").

    Verisign is essentially a company that makes all of its money making other people pay them so that those people can trust each other.

    How do you know that I own this website? I paid verisign for it. I also paid them for my ssl certs. That is why you can trust me! Now where is my two fity?

  • @sycotic said:

    So can ICANN ever "revoke" Verisign's .COM/.NET "privileges" or are they here for good whether we like them or not?

    This whole thing seems to be pretty corrupted...

  • @skybucks100 said:
    This whole thing seems to be pretty corrupted...

    I don't know if ICANN can do that, or even if they could that they ever would.

    Take a look at this: http://www.opennicproject.org/

  • skagerrakskagerrak Member
    edited February 2014

    @skybucks100 said:
    So can ICANN ever "revoke" Verisign's .COM/.NET "privileges" or are they here for good whether we like them or not?

    Yes they could if they want. Operating a xTLD must be under ICANN standards. If they're not met, ICANN can auction the operation to someone different. This was done with the .con/.net/.org-TLD in the past. (They were previously operated by Networksolutions). .org is now operated by PIR and .com/.net by Verisign. In 2005 the operation for .net was auctioned as the contract between ICANN and Verisign expired and Verisign won. The new contract between ICANN and Verisign expired in 2011. This contract was prolonged until 2019 under the premission to not raise the costs of the com/net TLDs.

    Thanked by 2sycotic skybucks100
  • jcaleb said: very thin margin it seems

    Yes that's true. Domain registration services act as loss leaders to attract customers towards web hosting, directory submission, SSL certificate sales etc. That is why godaddy is one of the world's largest hosting providers.

    sycotic said:

    Back in the mid to late 90's they wanted 50 bucks a year for a domain name a year (on top of what you had to pay a "registrar").

    I think the retail price was $75 then. Basically they liberalized it to a significant extent and allowed lots of competing registrars to offer domain names. But the registry end still remains a monopoly because ICANN remains a monopoly. ICANN's agreement with verisign allows for a 7% yearly increase in the price!

    The only solution to this is an alternative DNS root. If and when something like that gets mass adoption we could see ICANN becoming obsolete.

    Thanked by 1sycotic
  • Abdussamad said: The only solution to this is an alternative DNS root. If and when something like that gets mass adoption we could see ICANN becoming obsolete.

    Like OpenNIC?

    http://www.opennicproject.org/

  • AbdussamadAbdussamad Member
    edited February 2014

    david said: becoming obsolete.

    Like OpenNIC?

    http://www.opennicproject.org/

    Uh huh. Also namecoin.

    What's missing is the mass adoption I talked about.

  • HC_RoHC_Ro Member
    edited February 2014

    skybucks100 said: Gosh, so EVERY register has to pay Verisign? Talk about a Monopoly....

    Different TLDs are managed by different registries. Not every domain has a fee to Verisign.

    In a nutshell Registrars (such as enom) select which domains to offer. They then go to that domains registry and deposit funds.

    So enom keeps a pool of account credit at Verisign, and each domain registered through enom deducts the wholesale cost from Verisign and registers it.

  • Abdussamad said: I think the retail price was $75 then.

    I am remembering $100 for two years minimum in the early to mid. $75 for two years in the mid to later 90's. But Mr. Wayback tells me that it was $70 a year to internic and $119 a year total to network solutions.

    I was also under the impression that networksolutions became verisign, or were somehow run by the same people at the time. Maybe my brain has made a false connection when it switched.

  • the best way to stop that monopolizing is dont buy that new .tld

    .com is generic, but that shit of .superduper .nomames

    im shure if nobody will buy that shit, they will take it off.

    i have some DNS on opennic, there are a few .tld we maintain, but we need more participation from you guys.

    i have 17 dns servers as tier2, and im working on propose a new tld, of course have to be accepted by all the users to become usable.

    lets do it.

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