Of the registrars you've used which seems to have a reasonable balance of domain name price, ease of transferring ownership if the domain is sold (the faxing of notarized docs + photo ID etc etc...is not my idea of easy!) and reasonable price for this ownership transfer transaction.

Upon checking I see that
Godaddy is $19.95 to transfer ownership but needs the Photo ID thing etc etc.
Name Bargain is $35 to transfer ownership.
Dotster is $20 to transfer ownership.

With OpenSRS resellers, you have the ability to change ownership from the domain management system. There is no charge to do it.

-Dan

As said, OpenSRS is one of the better ones. Enom (and resellers of enom) as well. Push name into account.

The models that domain registration companies use to make money are generally pretty simple and fall to one of the following - again in general.

1) Sell domains at a very low cost (even below cost) and jack up extra service costs like transfers and ownership changes.

2) Sell domains at a very low cost as a loss leader for hosting or consulting or other paid services.

3) Sell domains at a reasonable profit without hidden charges or surprises.

4) Sell domains at a very high price and advertise you brains out to pay for it.

5) Sell domains at low or below cost for a while, then change your business model and screw your installed base (we're dealing with a couple of these registrars now trying to help our customers transfer away).

You need to decide which model you prefer to do business with. Look carefully if you don't want to be surprised later. Read the TOS and any and all pricing pages on a site before you register a domain. The money you save today may cost you weeks of time in the future faxing forms, proving you are who you say you are, etc.

All these business models are out there - even as OpenSRS resellers. You can find resellers and registrars in every price and business practice category.

Good luck.

-t

thewitt is very correct.
I didn't mention this, because I was thinking in terms of the legit reseller level, as opposed to the majority, which are pretty much crooks. :)

Like he said, the big thing to look out for is those "hidden" charges. There should not be a charge to transfer a domain from owner to owner. The reseller does not have to do a thing (at least in the case of OpenSRS or others that allow the end user to make this change)to make this happen.

Charges for registrar transfer might be a little more acceptable, since the reseller does have to take some time to handle it, which in some cases (like dealing with NSI) can mean hours of BS dealing with the losing registrar. This charge however, should not cost more than it costed to register the domain in the first place.

-Dan