Author Archive

Refunds for misspelled domain names, because that’s how we roll.

As human beings, we all make mistakes, some are bigger than others. But when it comes to misspelling a domain name, should your end users be stuck with anything other than a perfect representation of their brand? At OpenSRS, we don’t think so. That’s why we have a five day window during which time a registered domain can be deleted, where the TLD Registry permits, for a nominal fee.

We know what it’s like to search for that perfect domain name. Countless lookups and various spellings. Heck, a typo in a domain name is bound to happen every once in a while. Or maybe your customer simply thinks of a better, more appropriate name after the registration process has been completed.

Spelling mistakes aside, there’s another big advantage to dealing with OpenSRS for domain registrations:

If your company is an online service provider say, a webhosting company for example, you’ve probably also felt the sting of some unscrupulous fraudster registering a website with your company and a domain name to go with it.

Sure you can cancel the website services with little cost to your company, but will your domain registrar be as unforgiving? Or do they have an ALL SALES ARE FINAL policy?

We understand that as a reseller, these things can happen We’re not going to hold you, or your customers to those mistakes for the sake of a few extra bucks in our pockets. Having a five day grace period during which time a new domain registration can be canceled is another advantage OpenSRS has over other registrars such as eNom.

Want to learn more about our reseller-friendly practices?

Our Reseller-Friendly Approach to Sub-Resellers

Subreseller Group Portrait Last month we talked about the OpenSRS approach to wholesale domain name pricing and why we feel it’s the most transparent and reseller-friendly model in the industry. We’ve taken the same approach with our Sub-resellers program.

The OpenSRS Sub-resellers feature allows you to set up your own network of domain name resellers using our back-end. The popularity of Sub-resellers since its launch last year has confirmed for us just how valuable this can be. It has also reinforced how important it is to our resellers that they manage these relationships.

We built the Sub-resellers functionality with input from our existing resellers, and took a different approach than our competitors by giving full control to our resellers. Here are a few of the features that we believe make ours the most reseller-friendly sub-reseller program in the industry:

Flexible pricing editor.

Unlike some other options out there, our Sub-resellers pricing editor provides you with complete control over pricing. Whether you decide to price a group of TLDs at $12.99, or want to make sure you earn $2 on every sale, the decision is yours. You pick the price your sub-reseller pays. We provide you with the ability to create as many different pricing plans as you like, and the tools to view and manage pricing for your sub-resellers.

Branding options that put the spotlight on YOU.

We’ve placed a great deal of importance on branding. The Sub-resellers feature provides the capability to fully brand the experience to the needs of your brand and your customers. Email communication, logos, system messages, control panels and related interfaces have all been designed to be reseller friendly – to let you put your company and brand in front of your sub-reseller.

Sub-resellers is free and designed for your business.

Sub-reseller accounts can be created in seconds, either manually, or via the API. With no extra account setup costs, and multiple account funding options, it’s a simple way to rapidly grow your network. We’ll even manage the account funding on your behalf. There are no additional charges for this feature, and as an OpenSRS reseller it’s already enabled for your account.

I’ve only just scratched the surface of what’s possible with the Sub-resellers feature and we’re amazed at what some of our resellers have already accomplished in such a short period of time. The Sub-resellers option helps our resellers leverage the power of an alternate sales channel to increase sales, and to strengthen the relationships they have with their customers.

I hope this provides you with yet another example of our strong commitment to building the world’s most reseller friendly Domain Name Service on the planet and I encourage you to learn more about our capabilities.

See it in action at HostingCon 2010

If you’re going to be at HostingCon 2010 next week in Austin, TX, and you want to see more, you can request a meeting or just drop by our booth (link to hostingcon event page). If you aren’t going to be in the area, then we also have a half-hour webinar that walks through Sub-resellers and talks about different ways to setup and manage your own sub-resellers network.

Our Reseller-Friendly Approach to Pricing

At OpenSRS, we’re proud to be an industry leader when it comes to ‘reseller friendly’ wholesale domain services. Features like free WHOIS privacy, a 5-day add grace period for domain deletions, true white label sub-reseller support, and our ‘cost-plus’ model for pricing have established us as a leading choice for wholesale domain name registrations.

Effective July 1, 2010, registry fees for .com and .net domains are increasing. These registry fee increases were announced by VeriSign (the operator of the .com and .net registries) in January, in accordance with their agreement with ICANN.

Here are the details:

.com increases by $0.48 to $7.34 beginning on July 1st, 2010
.net increases by $0.42 to $5.40 beginning on July 1st, 2010

Several years ago, OpenSRS transitioned to selling gTLDs, including .com and .net domains under a ‘cost-plus’ pricing model, meaning that the price you pay is broken down into three separate parts – the Registry cost, the ICANN fee (currently 18 cents), and an OpenSRS management fee. OpenSRS retains the management fee for providing the domain registration and management service. Changes to the Registry costs and the ICANN fee are passed through transparently.

The chart below shows the changes to our domain registration fees after the VeriSign fee increase on July 1st:

OpenSRS

gTLD	Registry Cost	ICANN Fee	OpenSRS Fee	Registry Increase	OpenSRS Increase	Total
.com	$7.34	$0.18	$3.00	$0.48	$0.00	$10.52
.net	$5.40	$0.18	$3.00	$0.42	$0.00	$8.58
.org	$6.75	$0.18	$3.00	$0.00	$0.00	$9.93
.info	$6.75	$0.18	$3.00	$0.00	$0.00	$9.93
.biz	$6.85	$0.18	$3.00	$0.00	$0.00	$10.03
.name	$6.00	$0.18	$3.00	$0.00	$0.00	$9.18

Our transparent, reseller friendly pricing model is in contrast to the approach taken by other registrars, where there is often a single price per gTLD. In the case of eNom, this was recently announced as an across-the-board 55 cent increase to domain registration fees for the six most popular gTLDs. Below is their Basic plan pricing, broken down into its component costs, with the new pricing effective July 1st:

eNom

gTLD	Registry Cost	ICANN Fee	eNom Fee	Registry Increase	eNom Increase	Total
.com	$7.34	$0.18	$2.98	$0.48	$0.07	$10.50
.net	$5.40	$0.18	$4.92	$0.42	$0.13	$10.50
.org	$6.75	$0.18	$3.57	$0.00	$0.55	$10.50
.info	$6.75	$0.18	$3.57	$0.00	$0.55	$10.50
.biz	$6.85	$0.18	$3.47	$0.00	$0.55	$10.50
.name	$6.00	$0.18	$4.32	$0.00	$0.55	$10.50

As an OpenSRS reseller, you have complete visibility to our costs; We won’t use one registry’s price increase as an opportunity to raise our prices on additional gTLDs. We believe that our transparent pricing model gives you comfort in clearly understanding how we approach pricing, and what you can expect in the future.

If you want to see more detail on the current registry costs and ICANN fee, you can see it here: http://opensrs.com/services/domains/domains-pricing

Up next, we’ll be writing about our more reseller friendly approach to sub-resellers. Stay tuned!