I signed up a year ago with Direct-i, now ResellerClub, when they had a $99.00 special. I didn't know until after I paid that they deduct Paypal fees from your payment, so $100 only gets you $96 or so of credit. I just let it go.

The other day I started looking into integrating it with ClientExec so as to actually begin using what I had paid for and found out some other things. My buy rate is $8.99. Not so hot, but that's not the whole story. They also charge another $.49 for DNS services, another $.49 for email forwarding, and another $.49 for domain forwarding--all services usually included at no additional cost.

So now my buy rate is $8.99 plus $1.47, or $10.46. How is anyone supposed to add any amount of profit to this and expect to compete? I'm wondering why bother at all? Why not just concentrate on hosting where you can make a decent profit and let Godaddy, or whomever, handle the domain names?

Why fool with domain names at all? Seems to be more trouble than it's worth. Is it? I would appreciate the thoughts of others on this, especially those who are actually making decent profits.

add more money, with 499$ you'll get 6.99$ pricing and lower pricing for other services, if you are going to run a business, 500$ shouldn't be a problem

Even the poorest business has an investment higher than 500$

Stargate has a $6.95 reseller account with no down payment and uses the same control panel as RC. You'd have ask others if they're any good, but they've been around a long time. One of the first registrars, in fact.

There is another topic about stargate that you should read, they have been acquired by uk2group, they may not offer now the pricing they did to new customers

Reselling domain along with hosting is just an addon that you are offering your clients for their convenience, its not just for profit, its another product under your belt.

add more money, with 499$ you'll get 6.99$ pricing and lower pricing for other services, if you are going to run a business, 500$ shouldn't be a problem

Even the poorest business has an investment higher than 500$

Okay, then your price is $6.99 + 1.47 = $8.46. So, what kind of profit can you expect at this level? Godaddy and others are at $8.99 or less.

Stargate has a $6.95 reseller account with no down payment and uses the same control panel as RC. You'd have ask others if they're any good, but they've been around a long time. One of the first registrars, in fact.

It's $6.95 at the $500 level, and RC is just 4 cents more. Also, SG's DNS/domain forwarding/mail forwarding are $1.00/1.00/4.99 while RC's are $.49/.49/.49.

Reselling domain along with hosting is just an addon that you are offering your clients for their convenience, its not just for profit, its another product under your belt.

If not for profit, then why?

Base price is $6.99 not every one of your clients will be buying DNS/Mail/WEB forwarding services, their are very few who go for all that.

Profit is that if you are not selling domains, chances are your prospective client will go elsewhere to host.

A normal client looks for one place to solve his needs. So don't take domain reselling as your profit making venture, its a helping addon to your hosting business.

I guess what I need to know is this: You have to have a bunch of domains to make any kind of decent $. With Godaddy and others at $9.00 or less, how must you set your prices to get a lot of domains? What is a reasonable expectation?

I have so many clients, who initially bought just a domain from me and hosted it somewhere else, but some time later they started hosting with me.

I guess what I need to know is this: You have to have a bunch of domains to make any kind of decent $. With Godaddy and others at $9.00 or less, how must you set your prices to get a lot of domains? What is a reasonable expectation?

See my market is totally different, but for you just sell plain domain without DNS/MAIl/Web etc for around $8.99 or say $7.95.

See if your client is buying hosting from you do you think they will be using managed DNS, Mail forwarding etc?

Even if they are buying domain only from you and hosting some where else, will they be using DNS, Mail forwarding etc?

So you can sell DNS, Mail forwarding etc as addon bringing in some more $$.

As you are in the hosting business, you want your customers to host the domains, not to point them elsewhere, so they don't need managed DNS

Same for web/mail forwarding

and at slab 1 it's 0.35$, not 0.49$

If someone needs that services, then definitely that customer is not hosting the domain with you, not using your servers, make him pay for that service.

Imho, if is for customers they are the better. I Biy the domains in cheapers resellers sometimes, example eusadomain.com , and push to my own number. If you want read a little explication of why , i put a note in my spanish blog.

I guess I should explain that I'm not actually hosting on a commercial basis yet. I have a reseller account and host some sites for friends, etc, but I'm moving in the commercial direction. Hence the ResellerClub account.

So, this discussion has been very informative, and I appreciate the help.

If not for profit, then why?

It's an add-on which is intended to retain your customers. You make your profit on the web hosting.

If not for profit, then why?

Because you don't want your hosting customer to go elsewhere to get the domain, you may lose the hosting customer

It's $6.95 at the $500 level, and RC is just 4 cents more. Also, SG's DNS/domain forwarding/mail forwarding are $1.00/1.00/4.99 while RC's are $.49/.49/.49.

DNS and Mail Forwarding are just subsets of Managed DNS. You don't need to buy all 3. If you get Managed DNS you can do DNS and Mail Forwarding. If they host with you, they don't need anything since they'll be using your hosting webservers and email.

Because you don't want your hosting customer to go elsewhere to get the domain, you may lose the hosting customer

That makes a lot of sense. Guess I'll bite the bullet and go for it.