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> we of course need to markup on top of that to cover our processing costs, overhead to offer great support, mitigate abuse, etc Why "of course"? Cloudflare is

> we of course need to markup on top of that to cover our processing costs, overhead to offer great support, mitigate abuse, etc Why "of course"? Cloudflare is able to provide domains transfers and renewals at wholesale rates.

ted0 5y ago
Domain name registration is not their core business and their feature set is limited, as is their direct support for a lot of TLDs. It works well for a lot of people, which is fine but it is likely a loss-leader for them and treated as a user-acquisition channel.
qeternity 5y ago
Loss leader. The markup from legacy registrars is probably excessive, but with Google, Cloudflare, etc getting into the game, they can likely offer wholesale pricing to support the rest of their (very) profitable product lines.
- ted0 5y ago
  Exactly. Depends how you define legacy registrars but I can agree with you to an extent. Namecheap's retail pricing is not excessive by any means — domains on their own are essentially commoditized — it all depends how much you value service and trust. Try calling Google if your domain is hijacked, your account is locked, or you have any number of other issues with a high value domain.
  - France_is_bacon 5y ago
    Yes. Just got off the phone with your support this morning. It made the process so much faster and easier. Instead of spending 3 hours trying to fix it myself and reading countless search results, I got it fixed in 5 minutes. Never, ever would happen with Google or Yahoo.
  - commoner 5y ago
    > Namecheap's retail pricing is not excessive by any means $12.98 for a .com domain renewal is a 65% upcharge over the $7.85 wholesale rate. That is considerably more expensive than many of Namecheap's competitors.
  - qeternity 5y ago
    Others will do it cheaper and make it up with cloud, email, etc services. That’s why we’ve moved away from Namecheap (who were my go-to for many years). If I’m really worried about domain hijacking, locking, etc I’d use something like MarkMonitor.
Hamuko 5y ago
Does Cloudflare do registrations at all?
- jjeaff 5y ago
  Only renewals.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - commoner 5y ago
    Renewals and transfers.
    - Ayesh 5y ago
      ... and, for now, you have to transfer your nameservers to CloudFlare.

ted0 5y ago

Domain name registration is not their core business and their feature set is limited, as is their direct support for a lot of TLDs. It works well for a lot of people, which is fine but it is likely a loss-leader for them and treated as a user-acquisition channel.

qeternity 5y ago

Loss leader. The markup from legacy registrars is probably excessive, but with Google, Cloudflare, etc getting into the game, they can likely offer wholesale pricing to support the rest of their (very) profitable product lines.

ted0 5y ago
Exactly. Depends how you define legacy registrars but I can agree with you to an extent. Namecheap's retail pricing is not excessive by any means — domains on their own are essentially commoditized — it all depends how much you value service and trust. Try calling Google if your domain is hijacked, your account is locked, or you have any number of other issues with a high value domain.
- France_is_bacon 5y ago
  Yes. Just got off the phone with your support this morning. It made the process so much faster and easier. Instead of spending 3 hours trying to fix it myself and reading countless search results, I got it fixed in 5 minutes. Never, ever would happen with Google or Yahoo.
- commoner 5y ago
  > Namecheap's retail pricing is not excessive by any means $12.98 for a .com domain renewal is a 65% upcharge over the $7.85 wholesale rate. That is considerably more expensive than many of Namecheap's competitors.
- qeternity 5y ago
  Others will do it cheaper and make it up with cloud, email, etc services. That’s why we’ve moved away from Namecheap (who were my go-to for many years). If I’m really worried about domain hijacking, locking, etc I’d use something like MarkMonitor.

Hamuko 5y ago

Does Cloudflare do registrations at all?

jjeaff 5y ago
Only renewals.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- commoner 5y ago
  Renewals and transfers.
  - Ayesh 5y ago
    ... and, for now, you have to transfer your nameservers to CloudFlare.