Registrar costs

apart from the sign up costs to ICANN

[OddDog]

I have a simple query.

I think I can auto answer it, but I do wish to be sure.

To become a registrar of domains, you need to fullfill the list of stuff for ICANN. Ok so good so far.

But once you have paided all the fees, start up and annual, how much does it cost you to register a .com?

I am supposing that the cost is zero, since your annual fee to ICANN covers it. Is this correct?

[netguy]

I seem to recall several years ago in an article in the Wall Street Journal, that Network Solutions gets about $6/yr from the other registrars for maintaining the database for .coms. That was early on, so they may have volume or other discounts that can reduce this cost.

Hopefully others here can confirm if my memory is correct, and/or if anything has changed in the interim.

Steve

[GeorgeK]

$6 per domain-year to VeriSign registry for .com. Another 25 cents per domain-year to ICANN for their "variable" costs in the ICANN budget. See:

[icannbudget.org...]

for a sense of future costs.

ICANN is a spending monster that is out of control (as well as incompetent over WLS, SiteFinder, etc.), so it's ICANN that adds a lot of business risk and uncertainty in future calculations.

[Leosghost]

Europeans are refusing to pay for ICANN budget this time ...

I'm not sure about the figures you have for domains though as open srs ( part of tucows ) only charges resellers a couple of dollars per domain name ..there is a minimum number to register per month but some of the domain name junkies here could come upto quota just on their personal ones ;)

[robho]

open srs ( part of tucows ) only charges resellers a couple of dollars per domain name

Where did you get this information from? Maybe they are doing a special for new resellers, but the price for existing resellers (even with a decent volume) is currently $10 per .com.

I've been a reseller with them since around 1999 but I now register most domains elsewhere (better price/features).

[Leosghost]

Outfit I was helping out had been at $2.6o for 3yrs now ...I signed with them independently ..got the same...( hope this isn't too specific for tos ) ..