Domain Renewal Costs - Is someone having a laugh?

[wilfredw]

This is an excerpt of an email I received from my hosting company. Since when is renewal of something more expensive than starting or am I missing something?

---- from hosing company -------
The renewal rate for domain names is generally higher than the original purchase price to cover the additional administrative costs involved in the processing of renewals.

Our standard renewal rates can be viewed on our website:
[] Select "Pricelist" from the left hand menu Scroll to the bottom of the page
[] Click the link within the paragraph starting "Please Note: Some of the domain registration prices above apply only to the initial term."

------ from hosting company -----

WW

 

[Dread]

Personally i'd consider moving if they start this crap. Domain registration/renewal should be completely automated if they're a decent host. So i dont know where they get this admin costs from. Its probably the same admin costs as the bank when they charge me £35 for the computer to print me a letter telling me ive overdrawn this month.

Sadly its harder to find a bank thats not like that, its far easier to find a nice hosting company though.

Good Luck.

 

[APRogers]

Since when is renewal of something more expensive than starting or am I missing something?

Sadly, a number of hosting companies do this and they think they've got you over a barrel. I could name names but it wouldn't be fair or ethical.

My advice? Check the small print and make sure that they don't charge extra for transfering domains out - quite a few don't but you need to be sure.

Then find a nice chap or chappess on here that offers the same service and take your business to them. Take your pick, or wait for one to step up after this intro ...

Alan

 

[SuffolkDesigns]

There is so little money to be made from domain names nowadays, and so much trouble caused by them we find it easier to register everything in the clients name and remind them one month before renewal date that it is due and charge them a fair price for this.

No point in upsetting clients for a few £'s every year.

 

[TWD-Tony]

With the majority of our business users we give them the domain name for free and if they stay with us we just renew it when it's time (in effect the domain is 100% free whilst they host with us). Now this is worth doing for business clients who need there "hands holding" (no dis-respect if one of my clients reads this! ) and the business hosting side of the business is more like a web-development company than just a normal host, so therefore the prices are higher and I can absorb the price of the domain & renewal without any problems...
Personal site account holders do not pay the same rates so they don't get the free renewal but we use an automated billing system for them!

The money involved isn't worth the hassle - I would be interested to know what your hosts prices for renewal are... I have heard some VERY scary stories! :shock:

 

[APRogers]

I use 1&1 as my host and I find their charges for domain renewals to be very reasonable compared to the provider I was using before.

I don't offer solely a domain registration service to my customers - I tend to do as TWD-Tony does and absorb the cost in the fee for other work I'm doing.

This seems to win the customer over - they feel like they're getting something for nothing. They aren't, but it's the perception that counts!

Alan

 

[Pete Williams]

Nothing to do with domain renewals but on the bank charges front my online payment provider charge me if I make a refund!!! I don't get it, they charge me on my sales fair enough, they then add VAT to their charges and then if I have genuine reason to refund customer they charge me for that as well. Oh, and I forgot to mention holding my money in their account for 4 weeks!!!!

I want to start a bank anyone got a couple of billion to invest?

 

[The_JinJ]

I never buy my domains from the hosting company I'm with - they always pull that stunt. Let you buy it cheap but £35 to renew.....best to use 123reg or similar

 

[JoyDivision]

I had a mate who used a domain registration company with a fancy name. She paid £70 for 2 years for a co.uk.

I paid about £4.00 inc fees or somthing stupid like that.

 

[annethedonn]

If you transfer your hosting to us we supply the first year's domain for free or if you want to buy one outright from just £1.99

www.freelanceofficeservices.co.uk/hosting_packages.htm

 

[TWD-Tony]

I never buy my domains from the hosting company I'm with - they always pull that stunt. Let you buy it cheap but £35 to renew.....best to use 123reg or similar

That's a bit unfair :cry:

Don't tar all hosting companies with the same brush... Some of us provide these "add-on" services like Domain Registration & Renewal at very little cost - and some of us don't pull STUNTS at all :wink:

 

[multilingual]

Anne,

I am quite happy with my host at present, but if I did want to move how difficult is it? There are so many horror stories.

If I write to my current host and tell him that I am moving my site, then he has no incentive to co-operate. How can I be sure that my site will not just be dropped and disappear from all listngs just because he can't be bothered to transfer it to you?

Am I worrying without cause? If so how does it work?

JB

 

[annethedonn]

It's quite simple, you just sign up and they send you all the information in email. You get premium support if you have any problems, which you rarely do. You get a control panel if you host with us where you can log in. If you transfer your domain name, your existing host may charge you a transfer out fee, but it's usually just a case of changing the DNS server settings so that it points to your new host. We can host your site from £4.99/month and you can transfer your existing domain name. Has you domain name expired, or is it about to? Feel free to email me.

 

[MichaelG]

My advice to you is to buy your domain from Company A and host your server/website with Company B.

Company A must allow you to manage the DNS settings for your domain name (e.g. which IP address www.yourdomain.com points to).

Company A (domain name) are always competitive - its a price sensitive market. e.g. register.com, networksolutions.com

Company B (hosting) - not so price sensitive - largely depends on what they offer - but always go for the best customer service and uspport (not price) e.g. 1and1 hosting. - Or you can even look at "co-locating" - search google.co.uk

 

[TWD-Tony]

Not sure I 100% agree with that, in general you are correct - I think you are working on the theory that you can be "held to ransom" should you ever want to leave a host who also has your domain registered?
The downside is that sometimes a host may need to alter the config of the Domain settings and it can be awkward in terms of timing to get the client to update things at there end... I know that just recently we had a "server dance" - whereby we decomissioned some old servers and moved to new ones, it was easier to alter the settings at the domain end to point to the new servers and because we had control of 90% of the domains it was fairly straight forward... The other 10% were a little more difficult in terms of timing the switchover.

As for co-locating, this IS NOT something that a "newbie" should be looking into - you really need to know what you are doing in terms of server admin to be able to effectively manage a co-lo situation.

 

[MichaelG]

Not sure I 100% agree with that, in general you are correct - I think you are working on the theory that you can be "held to ransom" should you ever want to leave a host who also has your domain registered?

Tony you are right about the co-location but one can co-locate and still get the hosting company to manage the server.

"held to ransom"? I was not thinking of that - I just think its better to have some kind of flexibilty and choice.

I also understand your point about hosting companies donig things quicker if they had control - but a good hosting company should surely be able to manage and cope easily with this type of arrangment - good planning and customer communication.