Requesting my ACH Fee Report from GoDaddy

One of the nice things about having an Account Manager at GoDaddy is that he can help pull reports for me that would take longer for me to pull. At the beginning of the year, I ask my Account Manager to send me a report of all renewals I paid the previous year so I can accurately track this cost on my expense report. One report that isn’t available for me to download on my own is the $.90 ACH fee report.

GoDaddy has a policy of charging customers $.90 for every outgoing ACH payment it sends. Regardless of whether a sale is for $150,000 or a monthly LTO payment is for just $80, GoDaddy charges $.90 per ACH it sends customers. If a customer has multiple payouts going out on the same day, as in the case of LTO deals, GoDaddy will typically batch the payments together and charge only one $.90 fee. I am not certain if GoDaddy will batch 2 LTO deals and a BIN deal in the same payment if they are due on the same day, but it’s possible that happens, too.

As far as I can see, GoDaddy doesn’t even report this fee to customers. You can look at the image above and see the payout amount on top and the amount deposited into my bank account – it differs by $.90.

I am pretty sure that banking fees like this can be written off for tax purposes (check with your accountant because I am not an expert). In the whole scheme of things, this is a relatively small expense, but I would still like to record it on my accounting expense report for the sake of being accurate. Because of the payment batching, I can’t simply add a $.90 expense to every payment or sale.

To be honest, I find it a bit irritating that GoDaddy continues to charge this fee on all ACH payouts. I think you might call it nickel and diming. You would think the company could absorb a $.90 nuisance fee on deals where their commission rate is at least 20% of the total purchase price (plus the standard domain name renewal fee). Unfortunately, this fee has been the standard for a long time.

Instead of just letting it go this year, I’ve asked my Account Manager to tell me how much I paid to GoDaddy in ACH fees last year. I genuinely feel badly for doing this to my Account Manager because he’s great, but I am sure he will ask someone else in their accounting department to pull this report for me. This may irritate someone in that group. Perhaps irritating the right people at GoDaddy will get them to waive this fee for all of us. If not, at least my expense report will be even more accurate this year.

The downside is that sending my files to my accountant is now on hold due to this one small outstanding report!

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

6 COMMENTS

  1. From a recent $13,000 sale the GDDY ACH was $12,999.10 – and that is the SALE amount entered into our system – because that number lines up exactly with the bank statement.
    bottom line i did not sell the domain for $13K – i sold it for $12,999.10 and therefore no reference to the 90 cent fee is necessary
    bri

    • That makes sense, but it is more complicated if you have 2 LTO payouts on 1/21 and GoDaddy charges one $.90 fee each month. This happens to me multiple times a month.

      Sometimes a LTO payout is late – or paid off in full – and the payment date is different.

      It’s also possible that GoDaddy would batch 2 LTO payouts + a BIN sale payment in the same ACH payment.

      If GoDaddy is going to keep charging this nuisance fee nobody else charges me, I am going to be a nuisance to them and get the report.

  2. I just make my books match the bank statement deposit – vs. the other way around.
    the only way i would expense the 90 cents or some other seemingly inconsistant change is if it is a separate entry on my bank statement.
    bri

  3. It is called a sneaky fee….no idea how many sneaky fees are there that are not being disclosed
    It doesn’t matter if it is a penny or $100….it is called stealing

    Listen to the BullS song….relaxes your mind

    • James,

      I believe GoDaddy uses Tipalti for payment processing. On the Tipalti FAQ page (https://tipalti.com/en-eu/faqs/) under “How much does Tipalti cost?,” it says:

      “Tipalti offers the payer the flexibility to determine whether and how much the payer or payee pays for transactions. Charges can also be based on payment method. For example, you can encourage greater adoption of certain payment methods (such as ACH over wire transfers) by offering to cover the costs of one, and not the other.”

      This means that GoDaddy is choosing to make their sellers pay this fee. This additional $.90 fee comes after GoDaddy’s commission is already removed. I would *guess* GoDaddy sellers could be paying 6-7 figures in ACH fees each year.

      I am happy to collect payments via PayPal. In fact, Dan.com paid me via PayPal for all LTO and BIN payouts below a certain threshold. GoDaddy already pays my monthly PPC payments via PayPal, so I would be happy for the company to select my PayPal profile for as many of my payouts as possible without a processing fee.

      Unfortunately, I have had to create multiple payment profiles in GoDaddy’s system for different types of transactions, so I am unsure how I would go about making these changes without making things messy and possibly impacting other things.

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