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.com has a price floor of $7.85. Most registrars seem to target anywhere from the $9.99 - $14.99 range for registration because, as far as I can tell, there is

.com has a price floor of $7.85. Most registrars seem to target anywhere from the $9.99 - $14.99 range for registration because, as far as I can tell, there is no real differentiation outside of price. Sure, I could spend $lots to get a dedicated account rep from MarkMonitor or CSC but that's not really feasible for my personal site. Are there really any registrars that hit a reasonable price point for individuals and offer service beyond bargain basement? Because if so I'm doing some transfers this weekend.

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
One of the reasons I've stuck with GoDaddy is 24/7, American phone support. Their .com pricing is closer to $20 for renewal at this point, but I've called them at 2 AM before and gotten help. From previous research, at least, most domain registrars have ticket support at best. I did move all my "less important" domains to Cloudflare for cost savings recently, but they have my most important domains.
sbarre 7y ago
What do you consider reasonable price point? I'll speak for myself and say that all my domains have been with Hover for well over a decade now, and the times I've had to deal with their customer service, they've been excellent. In fact, I even had to call them once, and I got a human almost immediately, and that human was able to resolve my issue while I was on the phone.. I don't recall the exact issue and I'm sure it wasn't anything major, but it was still nice. So yeah, Hover. They're nice. And I think their prices are decent?
randomdude402 7y ago
Namesilo has been a great, cheap registrar for me for many years and has always had privacy included for free. I tried several of the lower price registrar's back in the day, and they all sucked in their own way, despite me not needed anything except the thing to just stay registered. One or two would change the price of their domain privacy, most renew the privacy for like 3 dollars and then send you the renewal email that your domain needs to be renewed, one of them used to charge me separately like 80 cents from some weird Canadian shell company... I actually have a domain still with probably the biggest "cheap" provider, and they now have a thing where you are supposed to keep a deposit in your account to cover automatic renewals. Just charge my damn credit card guys, please. So I'm saying namesilo all the way. Only one that hasn't ever pulled any shenanigans on me.
techslave 7y ago
> .com has a price floor of $7.85. Not true. CF claims it is $8.03. Let’s say it’s $7.85 + .18 tax or something. You don’t deal with the registry. You deal with a registrar. Just as they can charge a markup, they can give a discount. Registration could be free. It would mean a loss of $7.85/$8.03 per year. Maybe they make it up by selling ads on your domain. Maybe they use it as a loss leader service. There is no floor. Even CF’s at cost pricing loses them money. It’s not free to maintain the services.

ocdtrekkie 7y ago

One of the reasons I've stuck with GoDaddy is 24/7, American phone support. Their .com pricing is closer to $20 for renewal at this point, but I've called them at 2 AM before and gotten help. From previous research, at least, most domain registrars have ticket support at best. I did move all my "less important" domains to Cloudflare for cost savings recently, but they have my most important domains.

sbarre 7y ago

What do you consider reasonable price point? I'll speak for myself and say that all my domains have been with Hover for well over a decade now, and the times I've had to deal with their customer service, they've been excellent. In fact, I even had to call them once, and I got a human almost immediately, and that human was able to resolve my issue while I was on the phone.. I don't recall the exact issue and I'm sure it wasn't anything major, but it was still nice. So yeah, Hover. They're nice. And I think their prices are decent?

randomdude402 7y ago

Namesilo has been a great, cheap registrar for me for many years and has always had privacy included for free. I tried several of the lower price registrar's back in the day, and they all sucked in their own way, despite me not needed anything except the thing to just stay registered. One or two would change the price of their domain privacy, most renew the privacy for like 3 dollars and then send you the renewal email that your domain needs to be renewed, one of them used to charge me separately like 80 cents from some weird Canadian shell company... I actually have a domain still with probably the biggest "cheap" provider, and they now have a thing where you are supposed to keep a deposit in your account to cover automatic renewals. Just charge my damn credit card guys, please. So I'm saying namesilo all the way. Only one that hasn't ever pulled any shenanigans on me.

techslave 7y ago

> .com has a price floor of $7.85. Not true. CF claims it is $8.03. Let’s say it’s $7.85 + .18 tax or something. You don’t deal with the registry. You deal with a registrar. Just as they can charge a markup, they can give a discount. Registration could be free. It would mean a loss of $7.85/$8.03 per year. Maybe they make it up by selling ads on your domain. Maybe they use it as a loss leader service. There is no floor. Even CF’s at cost pricing loses them money. It’s not free to maintain the services.