OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
I have been using Fabulous and Dynadot for the past few years as my main registrars. I was using Moniker up until about 2007 but then I started transferring domains out. Their system was full of bugs, random things would happen all the time and support had started deteriorating. Of course it was still a lot better than what is going on these days. See here my latest post about all my Moniker problems after their system change about a month ago.
I now have a few names at Moniker, about 5% of what I once had, and I am looking to move them somewhere else.
I like consolidation but I also like to use 2 or 3 registrars because I don’t want to keep all my eggs in one basket. And there are a few reasons more. e.g. Although I like Fabulous they don’t offer .biz and .us and didn’t offer more than 6 extensions until recently. And Dynadot does not offer privacy for domains. Although they say they do, they don’t actually hide the name in whois but only the contact details (address, phone, email, etc.).
So I am looking for a reliable registrar,
preferably outside the US, with cheap .com prices, free privacy, range of payment options and support that actually replies to tickets.
So here are the prices on a few registrars I have checked:
Fabulous: $8.49
Privacy: free
Dynadot: $8.50
Privacy: no
Uniregistry: $8.56
Privacy: free
Moniker: $ 9.09
Privacy: $1
I already use Fabulous and Dynadot and I am leaving Moniker. I want a 3rd registrar. I also checked Enom (expensive), Name.com (too expensive), Hexonet (bad as a registrar in so many ways), Namecheap (not cheap) etc.
Of course I will not consider registrars such as Network Solutions, Register.com, Web.com for obvious reasons.
I also checked Go Daddy’s “Discount Domain Club” that has a .com renewal price set at $8.47 but has an annual $90 fee. So you need to have at least 1000 domains to make up for the price difference with e.g. Uniregistry. I don’t want to use Go Daddy because they are totally unreliable and unpredictable. Especially now with the IPO coming.
I am currently leaning towards Uniregistry although they too have some negatives. They don’t accept Paypal or any other form of payment except credit card (from what I see).
So do you have any other registrar to propose or should I use Uniregistry?
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How did you get a $8.57 rate at Uniregistry?
Why is it important to you that they are not US based?
I don’t know. How much do you get?
Because a lot of crazy RDNH UDRPs come from the US. And jurisdiction is sometimes crucial.
Im doing a lot at other regs away from the US, for some reasons..
transip.eu; domains $9,57 priv: i dont know
versio: domains $10.25 privacy: +/- 3,55
.nl from 0,99 euro, .eu from 7,99 euro, .de from 6,50
Some have discounts, 0,99 .com or .net
Some of them have the site in english, the admin in some cases, is much better than Godaddy, let alone, Moniker. I used to transfer around a lot of .com’s between several EU hosters, transfer is free, every year i paid like 1 euro a name.
I know at the end, we all have ICANN to deal with, but we have something agains usa services seems in this part of the world..
Isn’t Uniregistry .com pricing:
$12.88 (includes the ICANN $0.18)
so, domain only = $12.70
-30% commission
=$8.89
or $9.07 (including ICANN $0.18)
All the prices above include the ICANN fee.
I might me getting a better price at Uniregistry.
I’d suggest eNom but you stated outside of the US.
I considered it but it’s a bit expensive and privacy costs a lot.
I am ready to consider any registrar.
What’s about NameSilo?
http://www.namesilo.com/pricing.php
I see it has a $8.99 with free privacy.
Are they good?
Domainer friendly. Give them a try 🙂
I like them a lot, clean and easy interface without any Godaddy style upsells or ads, additional security via free optional 2-factor authentication. Payment via credit card or prepaid account funds (CC, Paypal, Bitcoin, Google Wallet, Skrill and Dwolla without additional fees).
It’s not Dynadot, but a good choice anyway. No idea about their support since there wasn’t a reason to contact support so far.
I use namesilo. Their system is solid and fast. Also, their renewal prices are even lower.
I use namesilo too among others.
GoDaddy is the best and the most secure registrar in the world today. Their price(s) cheap and all other services better than other registrars…
I don’t think so. They are a nightmare.
Why you say that? Please explain that properly… Let us know that…
Take a look at these:
Go Daddy Refunds EAP Pre-Registration Fees to Affected Customers
Update on my Go Daddy trademark problem: Go Daddy is protecting me by exposing me
Go Daddy just registered 2 trademark New gTLD domain names in my account
Go Daddy and Afternic Offer/Auction Confusion
How I almost lost my blog
Plus: hidden fees, disappearing domains from accounts, clueless and slow support etc.
And these are from this year alone and I am sure I forgotten a lot other problems…
Right, when I order a burger, I want a burger. I don’t want to pay extra for bacon or cheese, I don’t want to be asked if I want an extra value meal, extra fries, the friday special or a bigger coke.
In all fairness to godaddy, I have done all the registries you’ve shortlisted. I was where you are 3 years ago and I can tell you that if you buy a godaddy club membership (discount club), they will treat you like gold. Disappearing domains and all that crazy stuff is worth investigating before we call it facts. The guys you really want to stay away from are affiliates of
I have had a portfolio of English, Jewish, German last name domains I consider premium kept away in go daddy and I have never had a problem. I had of course the fear of keeping my eggs in one basket, moved and scattered lots of them around and eventually got into trouble elsewhere.
When you’re as big as godaddy, reputation counts. Where you’re going to have problems with godaddy is if you find it reasonable to do trademark violations
Most of the stuff that have happened at Go Daddy, have happened to me.
Go Daddy does not have a good reputation.
the other thing I forgot to mention @k is that go daddy will solve any issue you bring up them. Of course you will need to file a ticket but that should be understandable given the size of their business. I am sounding like their rep but you know i am not lol
Don’t risk your assets with no bodies. its a slippery slope
Bul, whenever I file a ticket at Go Daddy I spend 3-4 messages/days (because they reply once per day) so they can figure
out what my simple problem is. They start by giving me irrelevant FAQ links and then we slowly and painfully get to my problem.
Do you ever post any domains you’ve sold Konstantinos?
I haven’t until today. Some have made it to Sedo’s report. But since I left Sedo, nothing. I might do in the future…
Ive used hupo.com for Chinese business.
I’m just curious why you believe an outside the US registrar would help against an unfair UDRP filing. Most of my domains are at Godaddy though I am have some recent dropcatches at Name.com.
It will not help against an unfair UDRP filing or ruling.
But when a UDRP is submitted the Complainant submits it’s choice of jurisdiction that can either be the location of the registrar or the location of the registrant. I am now in court for a domain name that I won the UDRP as Respondent. The court case is here in Greece. Complainant was in China.
I also have some domains with Epik and Rob’s personal support has been very good.
How are their prices?
Good for us, I don’t know if I can make them public… I’ll ask Rob to contact you.
Never thought that prices could be confidential…
Did I make a mistake with Uniregistry?
I have been really happy with Epik as a registrar. Rob is always a Skype away of there is an issue. Legendary customer support rings true at Epik…
I think Dynadot hides the entire whois record including name – make sure to check mark it, I think you need to do it in two places.
“Note: Our domain privacy service does not replace your name to prevent legal issues regarding ownership.”
http://www.dynadot.com/domain/privacy.html
Thanks Nuno. Appreciate the endorsement.
As for the pricing question, for domainers with 100+ domains, we offer domains at costs, which is as low as $8.10 for .COM, depending on the account funding method. All rates are all-inclusive of free WHOIS privacy, forwarding, basic WordPress hosting and commission-free listing in the Epik Marketplace. You can reach me at rob (at) epik.com and we’ll set you up with our at-cost pricing.
Thanks for the info Rob.
I will check out Epik later…
Epik? You got to be kidding me.
I am a bit worried after this:
http://www.domainpicks.com/12041/an-epik-backorder-on-an-epic-domain/
Should I be?
Epik? no, thanks … I’d never keep my names with people doing these type of things, look here: http://www.domainpicks.com/12041/an-epik-backorder-on-an-epic-domain/
I think you know this thread at Mark’s blog 😉
I have posted the same URL above… 🙂
I was not able to see your link before, don’t know why … I just saw “I am a bit worried after this:” and then nothing … I thought you were referring to that guy comment … 🙂
I made a mistake and my link was invisible. 🙂
I have 0 complaints, really, and I didn’t read anything bad regarding their registrar business… I have 20,000 domains and need to split them like Konstantinos does. I’m happy with Epik.
I have only ever had good experiences with the Epik Registrar.
For context: although the majority of my portfolio has always resided at GoDaddy, I nevertheless have continuously maintained ~25-75 domains at Epik since they started offering registrar services in mid-2011.
Ideally, you’d never want to have to contact support; but when you need them, you want to know they are easily reachable, and competent! Admittedly, I encountered several issues right at the beginning (~mid-late 2011). But since then, on average I have needed assistance no more than 1-2 times per year.
Regarding their support:
I have always received top-notch customer support (both in terms of responsiveness & effectiveness) from their registrar service. In EVERY instance, a real, knowledgeable decision maker responded in <15 minutes! […NOT the typical call center/customer service agent who reads (or copy & pastes) 'scripted/template' responses to you!] In fact, in most instances it was Rob himself who did the initial follow-up, before routed the the file as appropriate.
Prices have also been very competitive throughout the 3-year period (usually within ± $0.20 from the lowest GoDaddy pricing).
Steve
[*Neither a paid, nor requested endorsement]
This is very important for a registrar:
“In EVERY instance, a real, knowledgeable decision maker responded in <15 minutes!"
And it is the exact opposite of Go Daddy.
Also Moniker nowadays will simply not ever reply to a support ticket. NEVER.
Did you check out “PremiumNic.com” prices ???
We are really cheap and based in EUROPE !!!
Regards.
Kosta,
You got a great pricing at Uniregistry, normally is 12.88$ including ICANN fee … 🙂
I’m moving a portion of my names from GoDaddy to Namesilo, so far so good, I’m quite happy, nice & friendly control panel, very intuitive indeed, support looks fast enough, free privacy (even if I never use it), nice pricing, 8.99$ but transferring a .com is only 8.39$, 8.49$ for a .net, and they offer also other free tools besides free privacy, like 2 factors authentication, domain defender, a Discount Program, etc, have a look here: https://www.namesilo.com/pricing.php
And here you can find the Domain Sherpa interview to Michael Goldfarb, who’s the co-founder of NameSilo, just to know better who’s behind: http://www.domainsherpa.com/michael-goldfarb-namesilo-interview/
I think you could give them a try, so you can judge by yourself. 😉
I think that is what I originally had.
I will check again later to make sure that my pricing is correct.
Thanks for the info and the link. Will try them…
I would be very careful with Epic – ask him what his exit plans are – most likely trying to build a registrar for a quick exit…
If whois privacy is important, it’s better to set it up yourself.
A P.O. box and a virtual phone number should be enough.
Also, some registrars charge you for each domain so you’ll make economies of scale.
What name would you put in whois?
A lot of registrars offer privacy for free…
My list of registrars that offer free whois: http://www.dnselect.com/domain-registrars-free-whois-privacy/
Good prices too…
@James – I am not sure what your intent was here with these speculative comments, however I can tell you that there are no exit plans. In fact, we did not take money from private equity investors in part because of my own personal experience with their short timelines. As a result, I am the controlling shareholder and expect to continue to be running Epik for the foreseeable future, initially as CEO, and perhaps in 10 years as Executive Chairman or Chairman if younger legs want to carry the daily operating torch. My personal hand is very much on the product and if you check it out, you will see a robust and intuitive interface backed up a dedicated support team.
As context, the decision in 2011 to become a full-service accredited registrar was not on a whim. It was a very deliberate statement that (1) I believe in the domain name industry, and (2) I believe the industry is in dire need of a full-service player with competent leadership who is committed to protecting the registrant. You could think of Epik as the Swiss bank of the domain industry — full-service and committed to protecting the customer’s assets. Epik will not be the biggest but we can be the best. And if you follow what our customers are telling us, we are well on our way:
http://www.epik.com/about/love/
Hope that helps.
Thanks Rob. It’s always good to hear from a business owner that is dedicated to their company and responsive…
I can vouch for that, very dedicated and supportive.
internet.bs? I haven’t used them personally but most people seem to like them and their pricing although they were recently bought by centralnic.
They sure have the best name around! 🙂
By far the two best are Internet.bs and NameSilo.com. Both give you 100% free privacy and have easy to use interfaces with great bulk tools. Internet.bs had a clunky interface but is pretty nice now. Customer service was great, now a little slower, but still pretty good. The only issue is their method of paying is trickier, they do not save credit card info, which maybe is good, but makes it more steps to pay for things. They have a third party for paypal now which is OK but not great.
As far as NameSilo, they actually kind of scare me – in a good way. I had a suggestion on being able to pre-populate name servers from a list, they implemented this in a day or two. I had a suggestion on a tweak in the way you can summarize billing, they updated their reporting in two days. I asked for a slight change in the way they had the privacy email configured – done in less than two days!!!! Great customer service, low prices, clean interface, great bulk tools….. very easy two click ordering…. there really is nothing not to love with these guys. Seriously. (I am in the process of moving 160 names over from that Moniker disaster to NS right now).
Namesilo sounds like the opposite of Hexonet. Whatever recommendation I have for Hexonet or bug I discover they either don’t care or think it is a feature. Go figure…
And its not that they were bugs. They were not. I just suggested what i thought were improvements. At least in my mind. For example, I just wanted an easier way to summarize orders for doing taxes. Believe it or not…. I wait until the last minute and am in a rush. They came up with a great way of doing it which saves me time.
NameSilo support is great. Not immediate (as in chat), but pretty fast (emails responded to in an hour or two) and people that TOTALLY understand what you are asking about or suggesting.
For me:
1] NameSilo.com
2] Internet.bs
Has anyone used http://www.cosmotown.com ? They also offer free WHOIS Privacy.
i would cut my own throat before using Epik (epik failure) as for godaddy i am totally pissed off with their pathetic customer service lately, i have two old domains that are not mine anymore and i keep getting verification emails even though i have told them the situation, now when i just wrote to support on how to do a bulk change to my other domains whois info i get a donotreply email linking to some unrelated blog ???? I did pay for the discount club for two years about six months ago but after that ……..byedaddy Any advice on the bulk whois by a reader would be much appreciated ….regards !
I use this lately : https://www.uniteddomains.com has been good with support, price wise I dont know how good they are when compared to others. Another new register to my list is : http://www.domaindiscount24.com/ Support is nice, they have trustee services. Just been around with them for a month. I’m not sure if these suits you, have a look and you can decide.
Hi,
Very interesting discussion guys! I am considering your points for the registrant selection having hundreds of domains in 20 registrants around the world. For me this depends on the technical support, the discounts they offer on renewals before auto-renew, and especially if you have a dedicated account manager to look after you!
I am with NameSilo. I saw this article via the Domaining.com email newsletter and have just read the comments. We are very appreciative of the feedback left by a few of our customers here already, and would certainly welcome the opportunity to prove why we have been growing at such a fast rate ( http://www.registrarowl.com/report_registrar_fastest_growing.php – please note this report is from the last-available ICANN data 3 months ago. We just surpassed our 200,000th domain under management so growth has remained strong. ). A lot of our increase in domains comes courtesy of some of our more well-known competitors, including Moniker ( https://www.namesilo.com/transfer_compare.php ).
We pride ourselves on a no-nonsense approach with excellent pricing, security and customer service (we do have chat service during business hours just to clarify the report above).
Thanks again for the consideration, and please let us know if we can answer any questions. Business hours are 8:30am-4:30pm so feel free to begin a chat or give us a call during those times, or drop us an email whenever at support@namesilo.com.
I will have to give namesilo a try. I wasn’t sure of them as they just seemed to pop up out of nowhere and wondered how they can afford to offer such cheap rates without a huge customer base.
Thanks. We appreciate you giving us a shot. We have only been operating since 2010 so still relatively new on the block, but we continue to grow quickly as more people find out about us. We do not do any ongoing marketing so our growth is primarily fueled by word-of-mouth.
Feel free to take a look at reviews other customers have left here or by typing in “NameSilo reviews” into Google (or whatever search engine you prefer). We also have the following page dedicated to the topic of how our pricing can be so low: https://www.namesilo.com/Support/How-our-pricing-can-be-so-low .
We are more than happy to answer any questions you may have, and I am confident you will find our approach refreshing, our pricing the best available, and our customer service very responsive.
Thanks again
Hi Konstantinos,
You mentioned about Hexonet.
But any reasons as why they are bad as a registrar in so many ways?
So many I don’t even remember them…
Their control panel is full of random bugs and they always claim it is the “registry’s fault”.
Sometimes I can’t even pre-order a new gtld because of these bugs.
Their support is terrible. I got a reply yesterday 4 days after I started the ticket and then contacted them again.
Their billing/invoicing system is pretty bad randomly “skipping” invoices that are send all together at the end of each month.
They use auctions for dropped domains but not for the new gtlds.
They use an outside auction house and I can’t pay the auction house with the prepaid funds I have in hexonet. I need to pay it separately and they don’t accept credit cards.
Invoicing is a mess.
I have to contact separate support for these auctions and the support is even worse than hexonet’s. Never replying for months!
Hexonet does not offer weekend support.
They take multiple pre-orders for new gtlds, they reserve your money and they don’t tell you if you have the top pre-order or not.
Need I continue?
Actually I do:
The other day the deleted my domains before they were expired! Yes…
And then they suspended one of my domains because the stupid verification email they send went to spam. I will write about these problems next week…
Oh, and whenever I have a problem they act like there is nothing wrong.
They never said sorry for deleting my domains.
And they never accept any suggestions.
They actually said to me that they care more about their reseller business than retail. (i.e. me.)
Throwing my own two cents. I have nearly 700 domains with GoDaddy, and they consistently treat me like crap.
The only thing that keep me there is the price and the fact that it’s not easy moving large blocks of domains to other registrars.
I’ll try a few of the ones mentioned here, and once I find one that seems to do the job, it’ll most likely take a long time to move them, so I’ll do a bunch every month or so until I’ve moved them all.
On the yCombinator discussions about Registrars, I heard the name,
https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/services/domains
spoken well of. It’s some kind of pay as you go hosting, which doesn’t store cc info. It’s not an accredited Registrar, but a partner of publicdomainregistry.com .
I still want to author my article about offering help for Moniker clients who lost domain names.
I have moved most of my domains from GoDaddy to Uniregistry and so far I feel it was a good decision.
Good bye GoDaddy!
Although they don’t offer PayPal but are working on this feature to be implemented soon…
Their support is good and also offers live chat and they are pretty fast in handling all your issues.
So where have you planned to move out your domains or have you done it so?
Go Daddy is one of the worst registrars so anything else is a step up.
Paypal is really a deal breaker for me. And I don’t expect it to be fixed soon.
I am testing one registrar at the moment.
Yeah, need PayPal and hopeful to have that soon. I have seen the entire DNS/Uniregistry team always working on bringing something new and better for us.
I hope you get good experience with the new registrar and share about it soon… 🙂
Hi all,
What European based domain name registrar do you consider to be the best and most reliable one?
Thanks
Probably EuroDNS, but they’re quite expensive.
Thanks Collin,
They are a bit expensive indeed.
PremiumNic.com / Very CHEAP …
Thanks Bill,
How about the support?
Are they responsive?
Prices = GOOD
Support = MEDIUM
Cheers Bill,
Price matters, but my registrar support is important to me.
Uniregistry now accepts payments by PayPal, Credit Card and Bank Wire !
Hi Miguel,
I wrote about Paypal here:
Uniregistry Now Accepts Paypal As A Payment Option
Namesilo is also good. They offer free privacy also. I have written an article about if you want you can read it here http://www.argyletryit.com/2015/03/name-registrar.html.
I never have a problem with namesilo.
I have never heard of fabulous. Is is good? What is your take! Godaddy is very expensive lmao!
Thanks for this!
Fabulous is good. Have been using them for years. They are now part of of the company that owns Enom.
Warning, the registrar PremiumNic.com disappeared! It redirects to http://nicmarket.com