Hello,

I am very new to the domain market. I don't want to have a reseller account but I do want to get ICANN accredited for my first domain registration site. Just a few questions if anyone would be kind enough to answer:

1. What are the fees involved in being accredited?
2. What domain extensions (com, net, etc..) are you allowed to register with ICANN?
3. What is the base price of a domain when you are ICANN accredited?

Also, do you think it is better just to be a reseller of lets say eNom or tucows?

Thank You

US$2,500 non-refundable application fee, to be submitted with application.
US$4,000 yearly accreditation fee.
Variable fee (quarterly) paid once you begin registering domain names. This fee represents a portion of ICANN's operating costs.
Transaction-based gTLD fee (quarterly). This fee is a flat fee (currently $0.25) charged for each new registration, renewal or transfer. This fee can be billed by the registrar separately on its invoice to the registrant.
Please refer to the ICANN Budget for additional details about invoicing, including options for relief and fee caps.
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.

http://icann.org/registrars/accreditation-financials.htm

reseller till you get say 5000 domains or something

more info
http://www.icann.org/registrars/accreditation.htm

Becoming an ICANN-Accredited Registrar

If you are interested in becoming an ICANN-accredited registrar, please review the following links for detailed information on the process, documents, qualifications, and financial considerations involved:

* The Process
* Documents You Must Submit or Review
* Financial Considerations for All Registrar Applicants
* Help for Completing ICANN Registrar Accreditation Application

In addition to teh ICANN fees you have to pay the regsitry who manages the TLD/ccTLD you are regsitering - so $6 to Verisign/NetSol for .com etc

Unless you expect to do 50,000+ I woudl seriously reconsider your decision to go straight for accreditation

Let's not forget overhead such as offices and personnel for support. Plus you will either have to buy a software solution like Directi's OrderBox ( www.LogicBoxes.com ) or create your own software to interface with the various registries.

The base price for .com domains is $6.00 to Verisign plus $0.25 to ICANN.

With enom accounts available at $6.95 with all the bells and whistles included and Directi's price as low as $6.49... othellotech is pretty much in the ballpark with his 50,000+ domain requirement.

BTW, Welcome to the forum, Precision ;)

Thanks for all the help. Awesome forums!

interesting forum

have you thought about becoming a reseller first?
There are many companys that offer reseller programs.
Have a look at WildWestDomains.com they are a division of
Godaddy.com they do charge a yearly fee.

eNom and Directi are much better than WWD

what is the lowest domain cost you can get with a reseller program?

It depends on the deposited amount...

Check pricing on enom.com / directi.com

Originally posted by aldwin
what is the lowest domain cost you can get with a reseller program?

I have never used enom.com / directi.com I dont know
anything about them. I have used WWD
and I liked it I cant remember what the buy prices were, but
If I am thinking right they were actually cheaper than
godaddy.

Originally posted by aldwin
what is the lowest domain cost you can get with a reseller program? I believe Directi is currently the lowest reseller price at $6.49. Personally, I believe it is worth the extra 46 cents to get the reliability of eNom for $6.95.

BTW... this IS a competitive business and domain name registrations are widely used as loss leaders by hosting companies like 1and1, who sell them retail for $5.99. There's not a whole lot of money to be made for the time involved.

Just curious, What is the deposit enom requires to buy tham at
that price? Thats why I no longer resell domain names because
not to much money to be made.

eNom basically requires a deposit of $6,950 to get $6.95 pricing... and Directi requires about $3,245 to get $6.49 pricing. See:

http://www.directi.com/resellers/pricing/

https://www.enom.com/resellers/default.asp

You also might look at www.NameZoom.net which has a rebate program knocking the price down to $7.95 for an eNom account with just a $100 deposit. But they were recently sold and I've never done business with them, so I don't really know if they are reliable.

You also might look at www.AWBS.com for a turnkey system that works with either Directi or eNom.

With thoes types of deposits how are they better than WWD?

Originally posted by doot
With thoes types of deposits how are they better than WWD? WWD just changed it's pricing, so maybe it's worth another look from an economic standpoint.

But I simply do not like the look and feel of the WWD/GoDaddy sales interface. I don't like the idea of asking someone to buy additional products for page after page after page after page until they can get to a final checkout.

Plus, as I recall, there were some WWD resellers upset on WHT here that GoDaddy "accidently" emailed all of their customers offering lower prices than the resellers could offer.

We all like different things... otherwise, they would only have to make one flavor of ice cream. :D

since there is very little profit in domains
the high deposits werent worth it to me.
so, WWD was right for me. Not to make money,
I just wanted to offer them to my hosting clients.

I'm interested in a reseller program because I buy many domains for my personal use. In the last month I registered over 60.
However, an initial deposit of over $3k is still too much.

I'll stick with domainsite retail for now..