Paying for domains in one go?

cormie

Ok, so not to mention any providers, but I sent this to my domain provider:

Hi there,
Could you tell me is there any way to just get invoiced for all my domains once per annum? So for example, if a domain costs 12 euro, that's 1 euro a month and I have 3 domains, one registered in April, 2 in September and 3 in January. Can I choose to pay for them all in April so I'd pay:

so if my first payment is in April (for the soonest to expire)

Payment 1:

Domain 1: €12 for next year
Domain 2: April - September = 5 months = €5, so I pay €5 + €12
Domain 3: April - January = 9 months = €9, so I pay €9 + €12

Then I don't have to pay anything until next April so payment 2 will be:

Domain 1: €12
Domain 2: €12
Domain 3: €12

with Domain 1 expiring in 12 months, domain 2 expiring in 17 months and domain 3 expiring in 21 months if I choose not to make payment 3 that is.

If you could let me know if this is possible I'd appreciate it

Unfortunately they said no, this is a bit annoying as I've quite a few domains and just means more paperwork for me. I don't know why they don't provide this option as it would mean them getting payment months before it's due from quite a lot of people, meaning more money for them from interest in the bank and all that. Does anyone know if any domain sellers do this? I'm not sure if the charter extends to domain resellers so a yes or no will do fine if it's against the charter. If it's not, suggest away

misterq

Having been in the industry, I can see both why it makes sense to you the way you want to do it, but also why it cannot really be done.

The problem is that each domain has an expiry date.
Fine you say, it is due next December but I will pay now.

The problem is that if a hosting company operated that way, then sooner or later, things would be missed, a domain would not be renewed etc.

It would also create a lot of headaches when it comes to transferring domains if the expiry date as set by the registrar is not the "billing expiry date".

The next point is that unlike hosting, a domain name must be paid for in full as the hosting company renews your domain for a full year. Domains cannot be renewed for months at a time. It leaves them open to you paying for the next 4 months, them renewing the domain, and then you leave them to go somewhere else.

All told, pretty messy!

I do accept it is a pain getting lots of little invoices, but it is the cleanest and simplest method (for everyone).

cormie

If it was all set up automatically, this shouldn't be a problem, just like the way they have automatic renewal notifications, if these would be missed, a domain will expire too.

With regards the transfer of domains, it could just be in the T+C that to use this service, you wont get any refund and again, if they had a system, it could just go by the domain expiry and not take into account the billing date.

When you say that the domain name must be paid in full, this is where the 4 months in advance comes in, you pay in full, but from the first payment, the provider will always have a buffer of €4, they can get interest on all the €4 from people who take this service which would be quite beneficial to the business I think

Would be handy for domain owners and would be profitable for providers, I think...

misterq

I forgot one pretty obvious suggestion.

You can register domains for more than one year at a time.

So you could register them for 2 or 5 years at a time.
That way you still get invoices at different times, but only every couple of years.

I worry sometimes that contact details will be way out of date though when it comes to renewing down the line, but it is an option.

Also, once the renewal is done properly (the years are actually added on), you can still transfer your domain to another provider without losing the renewal date.

CoNfOuNd

It isn't possible to renew domains for anything other than 1-10 years at a time - i.e. you can't add months.

However, your domain company should be able to extend the registration of all your domains by 1 year at once. This could be done once a year, therefore meaning you only have 1 invoice a year to deal with. I think that's what you are trying to achieve - a simpler way to deal with all those invoices.

mneylon

Registering the domains for longer than a year will do away with a lot of the perceived "pain", though there are quite a few limitations with that.

I know some of the corporate domain companies offer other payment methods, but you pay a premium for them.

Of course the multi-year concept only works with some TLDs..

.co.uk for example is 2 year registration periods only and you can only renew a domain X days before expiry

.eu is 1 year only

.ie is now multiyear, but only on new registrations

cormie

Thanks for the replies. The thing with buying x amount of years in advance is domain prices are getting cheaper all the time, I mean if I had paid 10 years for poker.ie in 2003, it would have cost the guts of €1,200 I think (pretty sure it was about €120 when I first registered it), now .ie's are down to about €20, meaning I would have paid about €800 more than and not had that €800 to spend on other things over the 10 year period.

Confound, with regards to the extension of all my domains at once for one year, would this dp exactly what I want, but just in another way? Would I only have 1 invoice to deal with per annum this way?

steve-hosting36

You could pick a date 'before' all the renewals are due, then buy a years extra service for all your domains at that point.

You should get one invoice for all the domains, and the expiry date of all the domains will move forward by one year.

forbairt

Again not mentioning names.
Certain companies will allow you to hold a balance of money with them.

You can then set the domains to autorenew.

You'd have the invoice for X amount as a once off payment for domains and put it in every year at that time ?

(just an idea)

steve-hosting36

but wouldn't that be a deposit on account, so you wouldn't have an invoice for it?

forbairt

nuts true.

cormie

steve-hosting36 wrote: »

You could pick a date 'before' all the renewals are due, then buy a years extra service for all your domains at that point.

You should get one invoice for all the domains, and the expiry date of all the domains will move forward by one year.

Ok, seems like my domain provider can't do that anyway They said their system isn't geared up to allow that and that no domain provider will allow you to register for more or less than 12 months, which isn't what I was asking but anyway.

So are you saying it is possible depending on my provider, to get one invoice per annum and only have to pay once per year for all domains I own in advance?

steve-hosting36

I know it's something we used to do in a former life, not sure who would do such a service now... (but it is fairly simple)

cormie

I'm pretty sure I've done it with godaddy.com for some other domains I have.

If anyone can do this, pop me a PM if it's not allowed to be mentioned here