Earlier this week, Rightside announced a promotion for new gTLD domain names from the company’s portfolio that it has designated as premium. The gist of the offer is that “when customers register an eligible Premium domain from participating partners at the regular premium price, the wholesale cost to registrars for renewing the domain will be $10.”
This offer is interesting, but something else in the blog post got my attention. The special offer excludes domain names the company has designated as “Platinum-level premium domains,” but the company shared some insight about those domain names that should be useful to people interested in buying the new gTLD domain names: “Rightside is always open to negotiating Platinum pricing.”
There are almost always better deals to be had when negotiating directly with a domain registry. Pricing and renewal costs are often negotiable.
Some registries are even willing to give domain names away at very low (or no) cost to companies and startups with big plans. This is a smart move. Get high profile new domain names into the hands of people and companies that will give massive exposure to the domain ending, and that will help drive more interest in the extension. Just look what happened with .XYZ domain names when Alphabet was launched. I have no idea if any deal was struck on ABC.XYZ, but the number of new registrations following the news was through the roof.
Perhaps this advice is obvious to most people, especially those who have been involved with the domain industry for many years. However, I would imagine that people outside of the business of domain investing would be the most likely to get better deals for their startups, and those people likely have the least industry connections.
For people who are active in the domain business, I think it goes without saying that there are good deals to be had if you ask for them. In their blog post about the special $10 renewal promotion, Rightside made this even more clear for people looking to buy new domain names.
Elliot,
It is true about negotiating with the registry, particularly with premium names.
As context, Epik probably sells as many or more Premium Rightside domains as anyone besides Rightside itself. Matt Overman is a smart guy and a pleasure to work with. There are deals to be done there, particularly for domains purchased in bulk.
As an aside, for anyone who needs help financing a purchase with Rightside, or any other gTLD registry, we have become reasonably expert at setting up financing structures for premium domain purchases from registries.
Thanks
Rob