I don't want to do domain registrations for my customers, too much of a hassle for a couple of extra dollars. Currently I tell my customers to register elsewhere. I don't want to use the ENOM API because it's too (edit) slow, and to become an OpenSRS reseller I believe costs thousands and has a quota to fill every month. I like the idea behind dotster, basically after the order form send my customers to a page that says "buy your domain here" and I get a quick commission. The problem is, I've heard nothing but bad about Dotster. So I then looked at wildwestdomains.com, does anyone have any experience with them? Are there any better and/or cheaper ones? Basically I want a nice service that pays affiliate commission, and isn't outrageously expensive.

I believe most domain registration companies have a reseller / affiliate system in place.

I usually only hear people looking into Wild West Domains although I don't know of anyone personally who have tried them.

I have been using Dotster for awhile and I've never had problems. I switched over to GoDaddy because they're so cheap. I think some of the pricing for WWDomains is kinda silly but they have to make as much money in the process as possible.

I would generally trust WWDomains since they're the sister company of GoDaddy. GoDaddy has been getting pretty big because of their pricing.

The only company I've had trouble with is Gandi in France. It was an absolute nightmare to resolve anything with them... no phone number, always have to use email or mail something to France every time you want to get in touch with them.

I hope that helps.

I'm very happy with Dotster, never had a problem. You can customize the headers and footers to fit it into your site without any programming knowledge.

WildWest is nice and simple. Problem is, it isn't very customizable. You can change your logo, etc., but otherwise your site will not look any different from a lot of other WWDomains resellers out there. If uniqueness isn't a priority tho, WW is just fine, based on a search here on WHT.

i second dotster's reseller account.. its free, and works perfect!

see http://ir.dotster.com

moved to domain names forum :) likely to get a few more responses if it's viewed in 2 forums ;)

Has anyone ever actually received a payment from Dotster's reseller program?

Originally posted by AMJones
Has anyone ever actually received a payment from Dotster's reseller program?

I have been with Doster about 2 years and yes i have received timely payments from them. The only thing I hold against them is they dont have an API that will permit me to plug it in to ModernBill.

In terms of the eNom API, do you mean too slow in terms of getting the code done to integrate into it, or do you mean slow in terms of response time from their servers?

My experience has been that the API generally hums right along; its only eNom.com that experiences slow downs.

If you find someone who does free reseller accounts you can use RegistryRocket and be up and running quickly without needing to do any coding (example site: http://www.omegasphre.net/domain/retail/).

Too slow as in when I log in to enom, it's slower than a turtle to get anything done. I'd assume the API would be even slower for my customers because they have to login through my system, which connects to their system. Wouldn't that be even slower?

In my experience the API based stuff doesn't have speed problems. Its only the enom website itself.

The eNom website actually uses the API, believe it or not. When you read through the API documentation you will see 'how this is implemented on eNom.com' throughout it.

With the API do you still have to do billing for your customers, or do they pay Enom and you get a credit or payment from Enom? Their API stuff seemed pretty confusing to me, and so is their reseller/subaccount stuff.

You can have eNom bill their credit card directly, and simply give you a comission. They charge 0.95 + 3% for the merchant services. There is a turnkey setup which makes it really easy known as RegistryRocket. Its a special URL you send your customers to (I like to frame it) on which you get comissions.

Not bad, so if you charged your customers $12, you'd get...
$12 * 3% = $.36 fee = $11.64
$11.64 - $8.95 = $2.69
$2.69 - $.95 = $1.74

Does my math add up right more or less?

Looks dead on to me.

Thanks a lot, I guess I'll stick with enom, I'm already pretty familiar with it. It's great to hear their backend is much faster than their website. I'm not really after the profit margin, just an easy to use tool for my customers to buy domains, and why not make a little profit off of it anyway.