Hi,

We're looking to become an ICANN accredited registrar and the requirements are achievable. However, I'd like to know a few things if anyone has already gone through it:

1. Are there any agents that'd do the dirty work for you to get the ICANN status? LogixBoxes does seem to do it, but their contact form didn't work for me.
2. Do you need to build a custom domain management backend? If yes, does it require incredible coding skills, I mean, does it require specialized know-how of the industry or any coder could do it?
3. Are constant updates/changes required to be made in the backend?
4. Lastly, Is it worth being a registrar if I'd be selling roughly 5000 domains/month?

Any help greatly appreciated!

Many Thanks.

I think user Domainator can give you some helpful advice and maybe able to even assist you. Maybe if he doesn't reply in this thread, you could PM him.

I think if you are registering that many domains/month, it's well worth considering. Are these for yourself only? Are there any exotic cctld's, or standard com/net/org registrations? You will have to interface with every registry for each tld you decide to sell. It can be a long and arduous process.

Thanks, I'll get in touch with him.

- I can't think of anything to do with 5000 domains/month myself. ;-) (or do individuals really buy that many domains for themselves?).

- Yes, we're looking to provide popular ccTLD's too.

- Its long and arduous, no wonder, but is it difficult and requires incredible know-how of the industry and/or coding skills or is it simple (API like) to integrate to get started? I mean, if registries don't provide basic documentation, then it could be a pain.

Many Thanks.

stu2: there's no user as 'Domainator', but there's 'thedomainator' and his account is disabled.

:) Domainitor. But I'm off to a meeting. I'll add my $0.02 in a little while. Not enough time right now. :)

Edit: whoops, Domainitor replied before I could. :)

:) Domainitor. But I'm off to a meeting. I'll add my $0.02 in a little while. Not enough time right now. :)

NP. I'll wait...Thanks. :-)

Oops. Sorry for the misspelling Domainitor :)

1. Are there any agents that'd do the dirty work for you to get the ICANN status? LogixBoxes does seem to do it, but their contact form didn't work for me.

Yes, there are, but there are no guarantees that you'll receive accreditation. If ICANN determines that your organization is not capable, you won't get accreditation.

2. Do you need to build a custom domain management backend? If yes, does it require incredible coding skills, I mean, does it require specialized know-how of the industry or any coder could do it?

Either build your own, buy one, or get 'hosted' by a company that's already built one. My personal opinion is that the skill set required is not trivial if your intent is to create a robust, reliable, scalable system. Many registries provide 'canned' components in, for example, Java. But what they provide is by no means complete. Your user interface, nameserver management, database management, credit card/paypal/etc. billing interface, anti-fraud system, deposit (pre-paid) account management, and so on are your responsibility. It's not trivial.

3. Are constant updates/changes required to be made in the backend?

Not typically. There are occaisional changes/enhancements made by the registries. If your system is appropriately modular a change by one registry won't "break" your implementation of the various other registries.

As it stands, the registries that use EPP (Extensible Provisioning Protocol) largely pick and choose what parts of the standard they want to support and diverge from the standard as a matter of course. Your EPP implementation for .com/.net won't work for .eu, .org, .info, .biz, or .us. In fact, all six of those EPP implementations are different and incompatible. So much for standards....

4. Lastly, Is it worth being a registrar if I'd be selling roughly 5000 domains/month?

How much are you charging and what's your overhead look like? :)

The number of domains involved is a factor, but your per-registration year profit is key.

If you're making, say, $1.00 profit per registration year, and your monthly outgo (rent, personnel, electricity, etc.) is, for the sake of discussion, $2,500, you've got $2,500 left after paying bills. Is that worth it? It really depends on your income versus outgo picture and how you define "worth it."

Oops. Sorry for the misspelling Domainitor :)

No problem. :)

- If we fulfill all prerequisites, why wouldn't they accept us? Are there any other factors, like location, number of employees etc..? (I've seen atleast 5 registrars from my country in the list)

- I'm planning to build my own. "Buy one"? Do you know any other besides OpenSRS and AtCom?

- Ofcourse I would want to run a profitable business. I'm planning to sell at $7.75/yr, and it doesn't $2500/month to to run a business here, in my country. ;-) Its quite less, around, say $1500.

- If we fulfill all prerequisites, why wouldn't they accept us? Are there any other factors, like location, number of employees etc..? (I've seen at least 5 registrars from my country in the list)

Your location isn't a limiting factor. If you meet the requirements, there's no problem.

- I'm planning to build my own. "Buy one"? Do you know any other besides OpenSRS and AtCom?

Yes, but if you're going to build your own, it's moot, eh? ;)

- Ofcourse I would want to run a profitable business. I'm planning to sell at $7.75/yr, and it doesn't $2500/month to to run a business here, in my country. ;-) Its quite less, around, say $1500.

If the numbers work for you, then it's worth it. I'd say go for it. :)

Yes, but if you're going to build your own, it's moot, eh?

But if I could 'buy' an already existing solution and modify it, it would be quicker and less expensive. :-)

In a perfect world you'd be able to buy a solution and then not have to modify it. :) The 'buy' option that I know of is a turnkey hardware/software solution; the software is licensed. Not clear if source is available, but I can find out and let you know via PM if you like. I'm betting if source is available it'll be in the low six figures for the full system.

# Variable fee (quarterly) paid once you begin registering domain names. This fee represents a portion of ICANN's operating costs.


I missed this earlier somehow. What the heck is it now? 0.25/domain is listed as separate, so whats this?

It's a fee paid for each successful registration, regardless of whether or not any of the domains registered are deleted during the deletion grace period.

0.22 + this fees? They've mentioned the following separately:

# 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.

My bad. I described the per-transaction fee above.

The variable fee is a fee paid based on your aderence to best practices with the registry. In short, if you don't play well with others, you can be subjected to the variable fee. It can represent thousands of dollars in operating expenses.

There's also the excessive deletion fee that can be charged by a registry if you delete "too many" domains.

"...Don't play Well..." — Like what? Please tell me about this.

There's also the excessive deletion fee that can be charged by a registry if you delete "too many" domains.
So they've taken a step against domain tasting? Great!

I suspect ICANN will be very picky with new registrar accreditations these days, especially considering the absolute meltdown of RegisterFly.com, Inc. and the catastrophe that created. Moreover, the involvement of eNom and their complete lack of responsibility even though they were the registrar of record for early RegisterFly-registered domains is also a considerable factor in ICANN being extra cautious. Not only do they want to double-check your technical infrastructure and software backends and customer-facing Web interfaces, they'll want to ensure you're well capitalized, are profitable or have a history of being profitable, have low to no debt, and can show you can pay your bills. I believe ICANN accreditation is something like $75,000 per year, then there's extra fees for application processing and plus all the registry fees of over $6.00 per domain name.

To be honest, find a decent registrar and become a reseller. I'd go with Tucows. They're debt free, publicly-traded, and also provide a back-door for customers to access their domains in case a reseller melts down and tries to pull off some "hijinks".

Cheers,
Doug

The excessive deletion fee, as implemented thus far, doesn't kick in until you delete more than ninety percent of your newly-registered domains. Not a major deterrent, IMHO.

From the ICANN Accreditation Agreement:

3.9.2 Variable Accreditation Fee. Registrar shall pay the variable accreditation fees established by the ICANN Board of Directors, in conformity with ICANN's bylaws and articles of incorporation, provided that in each case such fees are reasonably allocated among all registrars that contract with ICANN and that any such fees must be expressly approved by registrars accounting, in the aggregate, for payment of two-thirds of all registrar-level fees.

Depending on how you operate you can end up paying a hefty variable fee.

I believe ICANN accreditation is something like $75,000 per year....

$4,000 for the first TLD plus $500 per aditional TLD.

$4000 (.com +.net) + 500 (.org) etc.. ?

Dominitor, you're scaring me eh!

Check this out:

Reduction in Registrar Accreditation Fees

Finally, the annual accreditation fee will be reduced in the following manner. Currently, each registrar pays an annual accreditation fee of $4000 for the contractual right to sell domain names for a single top level domain registry and $500 per registry for the contractual right to sell names for additional registries. In this fiscal year (2004), the $4000 fixed fee will accredit each registrar to sell names for all top level domain registries. This includes registries that may be formed later in the fiscal year. (By contract, some sponsored top level domains can choose to limit the manner in which the names are released.)

btw, I read somewhere that a (non-US) registrar had issues getting foreign guarantee from their local bank. Does this requirement still exist?

"NO other registry (including gTLD Registries as well as private ccTLD Registries) requires any surety bond from the registrar, except verisign."

Is that true?

oh! I just figured out that NICline, Enom and other registrars provide API to resellers.

Like NameCheap, can I also create a custom backend and provide additional features?

If I can create a custom backend, and registrars allow whois search, I've no problem becoming a reseller.

That's what API's are for, a custom front-end, actually. NameCheap are not yet in production with their RegisterEngine API.

RegisterEngine API?

It only just entered beta. So don't expect to see it in the near future. Make your plans elsewhere.