Wouldn’t it great to own a business like Godaddy or Network Solutions?
Yes, BUT… you must come prepared with tons of capital.
According to ICANN, the governing body for all domains, here are some financial considerations before you jump into this business:
Registrar Accreditation: Financial Considerations
There are additional financial considerations for registrars to do business with gTLD registries. Please refer to each registry operator’s website for details. A complete listing can be found at http://www.icann.org/registries/listing.html.
Before you undertake the registrar accreditation process, please read and consider the following costs to you. This is not an exhaustive list of all costs involved in becoming an accredited registrar, but is meant only as a helpful listing of some costs registrar applicants should be prepared to pay in connection with becoming an ICANN accredited registrar.
To ICANN:
- US$2,500 non-refundable application fee, to be submitted with application.
- US$4,000 yearly accreditation fee due upon approval and each year thereafter.
- Variable fee (quarterly) billed once you begin registering domain names or the first full quarter following your accreditation approval, whichever occurs first. This fee represents a portion of ICANN’s operating costs and, because it is divided among all registrars, the amount varies from quarter to quarter. Recently this fee has ranged from US$1,200 to S$2,000 per quarter.
- Transaction-based gTLD fee (quarterly). This fee is a flat fee (currently $0.20) charged for each new registration, renewal or transfer. This fee can be billed by the registrar separately on its invoice to the registrant, but is paid by the registrar to ICANN.
- Please refer to http://www.icann.org/general/financial.html for the most recent ICANN Budget to find additional details about invoicing, including options for relief.
You must have:
- US$70,000 in working capital requirement. THIS DOES NOT NEED TO BE PAID TO ICANN; ICANN requires only that you demonstrate (by submitting an independently verified financial statement) that you have at least this much liquid capital (cash or credit) before your ICANN accreditation becomes effective.
- Commercial General Liability Insurance coverage of at least $500,000. This coverage must be maintained in force throughout the term of your accreditation.
To Registry Operators:
Please refer to http://www.icann.org/financials/payments.htm for instructions on how to submit payments to ICANN.
As you can see, becoming a domain name registrar is not a business for everyone to get into – ICANN have set the bar pretty high.
HOWEVER, all is not lost. Just because you can not become a domain name registrar does not mean that you can not sell domain names.
If you are in web design, hosting business, or any type of business that helps people establish web presence, then chances are good that at some point in your business transaction you will suggest your customer to get a domain name.
In fact, people love the idea of owning their own .com’s, especially their own [first & last name].com – and this is where becoming a domain name reseller could come in handy, and could earn you a handsome recurring income.
One of the most popular domain registrar is no doubt Godaddy.com and they have a domain name reseller program that costs just $90/year (or $180/year if you want lower buy-rates).
Some of the key features that we like about Godaddy’s reseller programs are:
- You set the price, you earn the margin
- Customizable website template
- Earn commission on other services such as hosting
Why do we become a Godaddy reseller? Simple
- Residual income from domain and hosting renewals
- Low buy-rate for our own domain portoflio
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