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I got an email today from Afternic about some changes in payment policies.
Afternic domain sales earnings can be paid via international wire, check, Paypal or direct deposit.
Afternic’s domain sales minimum payout for international wires has been updated to $10,000 or more with a $45 processing fee. Checks ($25 processing fee), PayPal, and direct deposit do not require a minimum payout.
So what are my options here?
A direct deposit is only available to US (and maybe a couple other countries) so that is not an option.
A US check takes up to 45 days to clear so that is also not an option.
That only leaves Paypal as an option. Let’s assume I make a $9,999 sale. I would have to pay about $400 (about 4%) on top of Afternic’s 15% or 20% commission to receive the money at Paypal. Now if I want to get the money in my bank more fees apply of course.
So even the $45 wire transfer fee in not enough for Afternic to send a wire transfer. They could at least have a $60 or even $90 wire transfer fee for payments between $60 and $9,999 (that is the range of more than 95% of all sales) but no.
BTW, Sedo charges no fee for wire transfer payments.
Sorry Afternic but that doesn’t work this way.
Here is the email from Afternic today:
As a valued member of the Afternic, we wanted to let you know about a change in Afternic payment policies. This is a company-wide change that affects both new and existing Afternic customers.
Going forward, Afternic domain sales earnings can be paid via international wire, check, Paypal or direct deposit. Afternic’s domain sales minimum payout for international wires is $10,000 or more ($45 processing fee). Checks ($25 processing fee), PayPal, and direct deposit do not require a minimum payout. To expedite your domain parking payment we recommend using PayPal or direct deposit.
You can log into your account anytime to update your payment information. Click here to access your Afternic account.
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You are wrong, afternic sends mass pay, you are not charged any paypal fees.
Ok thanks. My bad.
But still I need to pay fees to get the funds out of paypal.
Are you sure they do mass pay for international clients?
US to US mass pay costs $1 but US to international can cost up to 4% for a couple of years now.
Since they charge $45 for a wire I would be pretty amassed if they chose to absorb a $400 fee.
(Thanks to a reader for the tip)
My thoughts exactly. Like Cronus, GoDaddy is eating his children, one by one. Looks like Sedo and Domain Name Sales will benefit from this one.
Godaddy, has been putting the screws down, raising prices, adding more developer options, I think there will be a mass domainer portfolio exodus very shortly. I think much of this was done with profits gained from their TDNAM side of the business.
I have deleted all my domains from Afternic because Go Daddy displays them as being in an auction.
As far as Go Daddy is concerned, I don’t keep domains there.
Did you go back to Godaddy homepage, and see what it shows now, I did this to one of my domains as a test, and it shows at auction for $500, not $250 now, and I do not have it listed at tdnam, or sedo.
I hate to delete my afternic listings, to activate dns syndication, as we do close a nice sale or two every month, and they pay right away.
My thoughts exactly, and Afternic’s promo network isn’t just Godaddy…
I like Paypal mass pay (Afternic and Sedo does that) as I spend many thousands a month on renewals and new acquisitions, I never withdraw that money to my Bank. At DNS MLS you get a big cut from Paypal’s fees and you can wait several weeks (I can guarantee I’ll wait at least 5 in one case after I sent the domain) to receive payment because of the time GD takes to pay them + DNS policy of only paying once a month due to their Grand Cayman location. I do appreciate their brokerage work, but 1/4 of the final price + several weeks of waiting isn’t good.
Note: I hate those made up fixed prices that Sedo and Afternic forces.
I never use them.
At Sedo we can change the minimum value, but not at Afternic (last time I checked). Even so I’ve lost several 4-figure sales because of that, buyers were upset because I was “selling” it for much less at Godaddy……. I explained that it’s a made up price, but I lost the sale nonetheless…
I don’t currently use Afternic but I remember you could set the minimum price and 3 other prices as well.
Yes, you can, but you need to do it manually per domain (a nightmare when you have thousands of domains). Sedo allows you to set a global minimum for all your domains syndicated to their MLS.
Oh ok, thanks.
Nuno you are from Portugal right?
Do you get paypal masspay from Afternic for domain name sales?
Yes, I’m in PT. Last time I got masspay, but it was some months ago, I have few domains listed there because of the made up prices and never ending auctions…
The email began with “As a valued member of…”. What did you expect, other than bad news? 🙂
Interesting – thanx!
International payment options are very important for us and we are aggressively seeking a solution that will make it easier to pay our customers outside the U.S. I understand the wire option is not ideal at 10k for you and can promise it is not the long term solution. In the meantime, you can reach out to me directly if you have any concerns and I am happy to do what I can.
I am sorry Joe but there is no other solution.
Either you send wire transfers for any domain name sales amount or you don’t.
The short term solutions usually stay put for years.
If it was a short term thing then you have keep sending the wire transfers until you found an alternative. (which doesn’t exist)
@Konstantinos thanks for shedding light on this huge issue.
@Joe I agree with Konstantinos here. I was told three months ago when I first came across this issue that GoDaddy is working on a solution and it will be solved in the “short term”. As far as I remember, I was also told that the issue itself is because of how GoDaddy handles or would like to handle international payments not Afternic. I think this will be a huge turn off when GoDaddy finally join the Fast Transfer Network. GoDaddy is giving an easy opportunity here to their competitors.
What’s really weird is Afternic used to add additional fee (paid by seller) to cover international wire transfer fees so the ability was there and it was already being paid for by the seller. BTW, Sedo don’t add extra fee for international wire transfer.
Let us ask for Skrill, the cheapest altenative for people overseas! 1%
I am from Bangladesh. I have parked a domain with afternic.com my parked revenue is $28+ How can I Withdrew my parked revenue via paypal?
Very Nice post