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The Uniregistry disaster continues as people are jumping ship as both registry AND now registrar domain name prices are increasing.
Uniregistry registrar sent out an email last week to inform current owners of the New gTLD price increase but the email had another bad surprise.
I tried to stay out of the Uniregistry mess on OnlineDomain.com this past week and I didn’t make a post. But I now I am back. This whole situation is a remarkable sighting and a textbook lesson on how to destroy a good and promising company. This is a company self-destructing.
After the disaster with Uniregistry, the New gTLD registry, increasing new gTLD wholesale prices here comes a new disaster with Uniregistry, the registrar.
The registrar is increasing retail prices in the 16 affected New gTLDs of the registry. Sure this sounds reasonable and expected but the registrar is not simply adding the wholesale increase to the retail price. The registrar is adding 62% to 75% more on the price if you don’t count the wholesale increase. These are the price increase percentages even if there was no wholesale price increase!
Here is an example, the .Hosting current retail price is $29,88. The wholesale price goes up by $280. So the expected new retail price would be $309,88. But this is not the case. not even close. The new retail price is now $498,88. So the registrar added another $189 on top of the wholesale price increase. So .Hosting domains will now be sold for $469 more than what they were selling before!!!
In .click, .link, .help, .pics and .tattoo the absolute retail increase is actually even higher than the wholesale increase. For example, the wholesale increase in .help is $6,67 while the retail increase is $12,33 resulting in an overall increase of $19. From $19,88 to $38,88.
Of course you could use another registrar and get better prices but the Uniregistry registrar could be the cheapest registrar for their own extensions. I guess they don’t want customers any more. For example the new retail price for .hosting domains in September at Blacknight will be close to $375 instead of the $498,88 that Uniregistry will have.
I don’t know if there are better prices for different accounts in Uniregistry but the prices I saw were the same for everyone. Maybe Uniregistry will offer discounts at some point (or not) but I doubt anyone is going to be around to find out.
In the meantime Uniregistry is promoting $3,88 .sucks domains. I see they own both uniregistrysucks.com and uniregistry.sucks. Good move.
Here is the 2 tables with all the different domain name price increases. If it is not very clear please let me know. I couldn’t fit everything into 1 table so I created 2 tables that have a few repeating columns.
(All are numbers are USD prices except columns with %. I don’t have the new retail prices for all extensions. If anyone has any of the ones I am missing please share them. Thanks!)
| Extension | Old Wholesale | New Wholesale | Increase | % | Old Retail | New Retail | Increase 1* |
| AUDIO | 9,33 | 100 | 90,67 | 1071,81 | 13,88 | 168,88 | 64,33 |
| BLACKFRIDAY | 26,67 | 100 | 73,33 | 374,95 | – | – | – |
| CHRISTMAS | 20,00 | 50 | 30,00 | 250,00 | – | 84,88 | – |
| CLICK | 4,67 | 7 | 2,33 | 149,89 | 6,88 | 13,88 | 4,67 |
| DIET | 13,33 | 100 | 86,67 | 750,19 | 19,88 | 168,88 | 62,33 |
| FLOWERS | 17,67 | 100 | 82,33 | 565,93 | 29,88 | 168,88 | 56,67 |
| GUITARS | 20,00 | 100 | 80,00 | 500,00 | – | – | – |
| HELP | 13,33 | 20 | 6,67 | 150,04 | 19,88 | 38,88 | 12,33 |
| HIPHOP | 13,33 | 100 | 86,67 | 750,19 | – | – | – |
| HOSTING | 20,00 | 300 | 280,00 | 1500,00 | 29,88 | 498,88 | 189 |
| JUEGOS | 9,33 | 300 | 290,67 | 3215,43 | – | – | – |
| LINK | 6,67 | 7 | 0,33 | 104,95 | 9,88 | 13,88 | 3,67 |
| PICS | 13,33 | 20 | 6,67 | 150,04 | 19,88 | 38,88 | 12,33 |
| PROPERTY | 20,00 | 100 | 80,00 | 500,00 | 29,88 | 168,88 | 59 |
| SEXY | 13,33 | 40 | 26,67 | 300,08 | 19,88 | 68,88 | 22,33 |
| TATTOO | 20,00 | 30 | 10,00 | 150,00 | 29,88 | 52,88 | 13 |
1* Retail increase without adding the wholesale increase
| Extension | Old Retail | New Retail | Increase 1* | Total Increase | 2* | 3* % | 4* % |
| AUDIO | 13,88 | 168,88 | 64,33 | 155 | 104,55 | 61,91 | 1216,71 |
| BLACKFRIDAY | |||||||
| CHRISTMAS | 84,88 | ||||||
| CLICK | 6,88 | 13,88 | 4,67 | 7 | 9,21 | 66,35 | 201,74 |
| DIET | 19,88 | 168,88 | 62,33 | 149 | 106,55 | 63,09 | 849,50 |
| FLOWERS | 29,88 | 168,88 | 56,67 | 139 | 112,21 | 66,44 | 565,19 |
| GUITARS | |||||||
| HELP | 19,88 | 38,88 | 12,33 | 19 | 26,55 | 68,29 | 195,57 |
| HIPHOP | |||||||
| HOSTING | 29,88 | 498,88 | 189 | 469 | 309,88 | 62,12 | 1669,61 |
| JUEGOS | |||||||
| LINK | 9,88 | 13,88 | 3,67 | 4 | 10,21 | 73,56 | 140,49 |
| PICS | 19,88 | 38,88 | 12,33 | 19 | 26,55 | 68,29 | 195,57 |
| PROPERTY | 29,88 | 168,88 | 59 | 139 | 109,88 | 65,06 | 565,19 |
| SEXY | 19,88 | 68,88 | 22,33 | 49 | 46,55 | 67,58 | 346,48 |
| TATTOO | 29,88 | 52,88 | 13 | 23 | 39,88 | 75,42 | 176,97 |
1* Retail increase without adding the wholesale increase
2* What the retail price would be by adding the wholesale increase only
3* Retail only increase percentage
4* Combined increase percentage
Frank Schilling said that Uniregistry was only increasing prices on under performing New gTLDs. So why did he increase prices on .link and .click domains that are doing great according to Frank?
Then he said that these 2 domain extensions will only be going up $1 or $2 in wholesale but he forgot to mention that all the retail prices were increasing by more than 60%!
Why is the .click retail price doubling, going from $6,88 to $13,88? (with a wholesale increase of $2,33)
Why is the .link retail price going from $9,88 to $13,88? (with a wholesale increase of $0,33)
Will the retail prices increase to all other Uniregistry extensions? Will the prices increase on all New gTLDs? What about .com?
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Bravo Konstantinos,
God bless you for having the balls to call out Uniregistry on this.
I have totally lost respect for them and Frank. Will be transferring away all my tld’s and dropping any gtld’s In addition I will be removing all my names from the uniregistry market as all they do is push customer to by a crappy gtld “Fool me once shame on yo , fool me twice – shame on me”
the writing is on the wall looks like another moniker / RegisterFly fiasco approaching
Hasta la vista Uniregistry
We started moving our names out this weekend, will do it in batches slowly, Uniregistry F’ed up over some crappy tld’s.
Instead of blaming themselves for a bad business move in picking crappy extensions, they are over charging customers since 2014, who have paid their fees, by placing these unreasonable % increases essentially making them surrender their domains. Not even that, more so foreclosing on their domains.
This goes further than GTLD’s, it is a trust issue, next month .com domains can all renew at $10.88 for all we know, he just shrugs his shoulders, and says it’s business. We don’t have time to play musical chairs with our domains, we need a stable registry partner, not one looking to jack us up 3000%.
F for Fail for Uniregistry
How desperate is Schilling?
These must have cost way more to launch and operate than he expected. Or he is trying to force all his registrar customers away by being greedy. 🙂
People will either transfer out or drop. I hope people drop these. Who is dropping?
Everyone is forced to drop, these are mafia tactics strong arm for protection money in paying 10 years worth of renewals upfront, or give up the domain.
Either way registrants are being played against the system, and are in a losing position.
Mr.Shilling does not talk about all the 4-5 figure sales they made from North Sounds reserves to direct end user companies.
It’s a shame. I’m glad Godaddy dropped them and I hope if they ever apply for a new extension with ICANN that this debacle will have some influence on the approval process.
Ha, ha, drop all your good new TLDs, I’m going to buy a very last one of them. Ha, ha, ha, ha!
Oh wait a sec, I got confused with .com domains, my bad.
This guy at Uniregistry thinks that he is very smart by collecting advance renewals through this fake hype of increased registration cost. But at the end its wrong practice and he will lose a lot, even though latter on he will come and withdraw many increases etc. Its always the same. for a good person to become a great, you must have discipline and humanity. There is a bottleneck in growth when a good person is on his way to become great. Many people cannot negotiate this bottleneck, which is why we see many good people but few great people This guy is a gambler, full of greed, lustic and con artistic characteristics. Investing in .xxx will make him biggest domain success. All these loses he is trying to cover with other domain abecedarians.
SAND WALL.
It’s a shame that Uniregistry does that to their customers.
Kudos Konstantinos for getting this out, I see most of the “mainstream” domaining sites keeps quiet, well then most of them have Uniregistry ads plastered all over…
“Kudos Konstantinos for getting this out…….”
Well said!
I never even thoiught about the double whammy that was possible.
I really appreciate your blog. You are not afraid to say what is going on.
There are too many domain name blog muppets. I always say to people if you want to know what is reallt going on visit onlinedomain.com. If you want to see ass licker, Schlling`s muppet go visit e.g. Acro.net
I moved all my domains from there last year, I gave them a try because all the raves, but the interface was no more better than some others. It’s not bad, just not any better.
Uniregistry has best UI, best self brokered marketplace, transfer service, parking program. Frank will not do anything foolish. He knows how to do his job, I am sure. We will see the result soon
They do not have the best UI , it is average , and their transfer service is poorer than average. They didn’t even let me do an instant transfer outs to buyer, I had to wait a day or 2. The only thing that they do better that other registrars is they don’t log me out. Other than that there are far better registrars.
I’ve been holding back for many months to be nice, but I’ll say it:
Among other things, as in everything else, in my opinion “.link” is also crap. A totally undesirable unappealing extension that may have a lot of wishful thinking behind it, but zero potential.
And I was surprised to see a well known blogger admit he had some .click’s recently, which I would be embarrassed to even admit. .click is less than crap.
Haha. 🙂 I own 9 .click. 8 of them are numerics and it was a Chinese play. I have 000.click, 111, 222, 333, 444, 555 and a couple more.
Okay that I can certainly understand. Even I would have done that if there was a solid play.
🙂
Possible the business rationale is playing the auto renewal game. Undoubtedly they know how many domains are set to auto renewal, how many renewed last year per extension, and most likely can query database for auto renewal “on” by extension.
If that’s the case their business math/logic says they will pull in more revenue for 2017 by hiking/inflating. Forecasting is tricky though and sometimes forecasting revenue partially based upon unpredictable human behavior can lead to material mistakes.
They may make more money from a few extensions and lose 10 or 50 times that from all other business.
They will lose a lot from people pulling domains from the marketplace, parking, and transfers.
But do those businesses ultimately mean anything to Frank? Are they even profitable? Does he subsidize profits from one segment to cover expenses of others?
If he put all his eggs in the new Gs basket, as think he stated a year or two ago, doesn’t that mean his real wealth is now in 150K .com domains and not cash or liquid assets?
Perhaps his overall goal is to intentionally disrupt new Gs from gaining traction now that his own strings are worthless for all intents and purposes.
If people pull domains it would hurt Uniregistry but not necessarily Frank. He downsizes, gets rid of the registar and registry businesses, and focuses his sales force on selling his domains.
Those 150K .coms depend upon end user demand not domain investors.
All I’m saying is nobody knows his ultimate intentions. People are in business to make money. There are many different angles in making money. Some make public statements and do the opposite. Some are straight shooters. Same as it ever was I reckon.
Another time for…https://youtu.be/Ll3uipTO-4A?t=14
At those prices on auto renewal, they are going to get credit cards declined, or going over credit limits.
P.S. And I speak as the most important kind of opinion of all to domain investors and sellers: an end user would buy domain names for use, not just a domain investor or seller.
“Punny Registry” is trending up!
PunyRegistry.com – waiting for offers!
I have a Question. is this guy a gambler who lost bigtime to some sleazy Russian mobsters? what the hell is going on?
You will never hear Michael Cyger say anything about this on Sherpa because ..JUST A QUICK BREAK FROM OUR SPONSOR..UNIREGISTRY DOT COM BLAH BLAH BLAH…
How true
First off. I dont like Uni, i never trusted Frank and i dont own any of UNI extension. That said. Michale is great. He provides great resources, entertainment, great insights from different speakers and does it all for free to his listeners. Domain industry would be way way worse if it wasnt for him and his show. It is not his fight, and his sponsor is Uni, that doesnt make his advice any less relevant. Also if you guys watching his show, you should be thanking him for having it and giving to you for free. Not sure why there is so much entitlement in domains sometimes.
“The Truth” and Domainer , you are great examples of the entitlement.
That’s really unfair. Cyger produces great content that gives voice to a wide range of industry perspectives. He doesn’t need to involve himself in every little industry spat.
He is speaking via his silence
Let it go. Michael Cyger is among those who deserve a medal in this industry as far as I’m concerned. Things are hardly always black and white and I don’t have a problem with him getting paid by Un. regardless of this issue. It’s not the same as with other types of eyebrow raising people or phenomena. Each scenario is unique.
Ihopefully Trump will add the Caymens to the travel ban!
RIP for the new Gs.
So is everybody going to Names “CON” next year to hear Frank Shilling Keynote speech(lol) What a “F*cking joke!!!
My bet for next year is that there is no Frank Schilling keynote in the new GoDaddy Namescon.
He’s already announced that he’s not doing it again because Godaddy bought the show.
Where was that?
I stopped going to domain conferences 2 years ago, when Adam Dicker won developer of the year, Frank Shilling was pitching his shit, and those 2 bozos from Domain Sherpa’s the .ws dude, and the bald dude were on stage, whatever the hell there names were. Ron Jeremy the porn star at the Playboy mansion years ago at Domain Fest had more interesting things to say then those morons.
Too any ass kissers, ass lickers, con men, frauds, dudes with blogs with no backbone, and other garbage at the forefront of this industry. Your one of the good guys though Konstantinos, appreciate you taking a stand having guts to tell the truth.
.ws dude what was he thinking, basically a domain prostitute
What’s amazing is the silence out there, no other blogs saying anything or commenting on this post.
I don’t like it but I’ll have to drop my only .Christmas domain that I currently have.
@John
Uniregistry forces all new employees to take the learning course from Cyger and pay from their own pockets ($600).
Cyger is no angel.
source: ripoffreport.com
This kind of comment is serious with serious implications. Are you sure you know what you are doing? Your comment conspicuously lacks any substantiation, and the most I was able to find at the site you referenced is VERY different from your claim. Seeing nothing to change my view about Cyger or whether everything has to be “black and white” either.
John,
I saw it by accident someone named Matt Rosebrook wrote a detailed
report after he got fired but he got sued and a lot of it was retracted,
but you can still see traces of it.
Nobody, Konstantinos does not restrict links here, so how about you provide links to exactly what you are talking about then?
And if people want to let FS and Uniregistry pay them advertising revenue I don’t have a problem with that. Good for them. They are just trying to make their donuts and people understand that (gluten-free I hope). And if it makes them “reticent” about this little (huge) pricing affair that is understandable. It’s not like the pricing issue is a crime or criminal scandal, just something people don’t like. It’s not like any bloggers have been censoring coverage or comments about it that I’m aware of either, even if they are taking money for advertising. Now that would be bad.
All this in addition to uniregistry cutting the renewal grace period by 10 days, what gives?