When the topic of the IEDR and IE domains comes up in the media it is often followed by peppered with references to costs or finance.
Since April this year the IEDR’s finances have been above reproach, with CEO David Curtin reporting a very healthy balance sheet.
With regard to pricing the registry has been slashing its prices to resellers over the last two years, with a reduction of 13.3% on January 1st 2005.
What does this mean in real terms?
From 2003 to 2005 the wholesale price on IE domains has dropped from €50 to €39 (ex-VAT). This is before the rebate scheme is taken into consideration.
The rebate scheme gives top performers (aka the big boys) a refund of €X per domain once their account has more than a certain number of domains. Once you have more than 500 IE domains on your reseller account you qualify for discounts (rebates) above that level.
Excluding the rebate (which is quarterly) the cost per domain is €39.
What is the sale price?
Although some people seem to think that there is an RRP, there isn’t, but prices oscillate from €42.99 to over €100, with the majority of independent hosting providers charging between €65 and €70.
This morning’s edition of Silicon Republic, therefore, came as quite a bit of a surprise.
In an interview with one of their journalists Eoin Costello of Novara (aka host.ie/register.ie) made some interesting comments on domain pricing.
The fact that it was quite hypocritical is probably irrelevant to the media.
Some of the quotes are priceless:
If the average retail price for a .ie domain registration falls by 50pc over the coming 18 months, Eoin Costello’s web hosting firm Novara.ie estimates that a target of 100,000 .ie registrations can be achieved in that time frame.
That argument doesn’t hold much water and contradicts his own company’s pricing policy.
Costello warned that the price paid for a .ie domain name registration is too high, varying according to providers from €60.31 (incl Vat) to €120.98
Costello’s company charges €79.99 (that’s really €80) ex-VAT, which means an IE domain will cost you the bones of €100. That’s a 100% markup on the IEDR wholesale rate, excluding rebates.
Costello argued that while the Irish Domain Name Registry (IEDR) has steadily lowered its wholesale price over the past number of years, many registration providers – including internet service providers and hosting firms – have been slow to pass on the benefit of this reduction.
So why don’t you lead by example?
By contrast, he said, the registration of a .com domain name costs on average between €15 and €20 while the new .eu domain will cost €10.
Where? From whom?
The retail price on .com from many hosting companies is now sub €10 before VAT. The €10 for .eu is the wholesale rate, not the retail price.
Maybe Costello intends to “rattle” the market by introducing price cuts, or maybe he has another motive. In either case if the rhetoric is but that it is a waste of column inches (even in an online publication)
Hear Hear Michele.
One of the most expensive large registrars in Ireland are hardly the people to call for lowering of costs from the IEDR, unless they merely want to further feather their own nest with increased margins…
Why would one of the more expensive .ie registrars want to lower the prices of the .ie domain especially since his own markup is that large?
Is it a case that he is planning to continue with such a large mark up or to increase it further.
Either way, whether the IEDR lower it or not – I dont see any evidence of where he is going to pass this saving onto the consumer
Curtin’s figures are wrong. The .ie domains registered by Irish people are LESS than the number of .com/net/org/biz/info domains registered by Irish people.
The .ie domain is too highly priced. A cut of 13% in two years is quite a disgrace when you consider that the IEDR is supposedly a Non-Profit organisation.
Would a real reduction of 50% in the retail price of .ie result in a domain count of 100K in .ie cctld within 18 months? It is a difficult question and I do not think it would. It may however bring the .ie count above 75K in the same period. A lot of the problems with .ie cctld have been down to the high cost of a domain and its associated bureaucracy. But there are deeper problems – the chronic mismanagement of IEDR and the disputes between the former CEO of IEDR and the board of IEDR made a joke of .ie cctld. Curtin’s tenure as CEO of IEDR has changed things for the better.
But the fact that more com/net/org/biz/info domains have been registered by Irish people indicates that the .ie cctld has a long way to go before being accepted as the “national” domain by the average Irish internet user.
There is a bit of a cosy consensus on .ie among hosters at the moment. The lack of any RRP gives hosters a wide pricing range and .ie is often used as a loss leader. Novara was lucky to get this story floated in Siliconrepublic. I’m sure that any other Irish hoster would be more than happy to have one of their own stories there. So all this righteous indignation does have a whiff of sour grapes about it. 🙂
Not a cosy consensus – a reflection of the true cost of the process / interaction. If .ie had a usable API (something that is in train) then prices would drop to reflect the reduced manual labour. A single .ie registration at the moment can take over 2 hours of labour, hence the cost.
Jmcc – Sour grapes? What are you on about? Novara’s pricing is higher than everybody else’s, which is why I find it hypocritical. There’s nothing sour about that.
The IEDR really needs to drag the .ie ccTLD into the 20th century in terms of hoster usability. The API is an essential element of this but the uncertain position of hosters with the registry is another problem. There is no reliable criteria for becoming a .ie registrar. Hosters are merely “resellers”. There are a lot of smaller hosters appearing and many do not bother applying for .ie reseller status. Instead they have an established reseller act as a proxy. In this respect, it mirrors the .eu mess over .eu resale. Clarifying the registry-registrar-reseller model for .ie would make it a lot more viable for small Irish hosters to sell .ie domains.
Yep Michele,
Getting stories in the press is part of the business. Novara managed to get a story in Siliconrepublic after HostIreland and its amazing 500K investment. It is kind of a silly season story but it does get Novara’s name in the press.
Getting stories in the press maybe, but that wont change the poor impression bullshit stories make on the rest of the industry (or indeed on the iedr).
John – I agree entirely about the API and we have been contacted by the IEDR about it, as I’m sure have the other large IE resellers.
John – I also agree that PR is important I would, however, be a firm believer in getting PR for valid stories not headline grabbing rubbish.
The problem is that outside of the hosting industry, most of the people who read Siliconrepublic or ENN haven’t a clue about what is real and what is not. Neither are a credible news source and as such they are targets for PR.
John
I suppose there is a certain degree of truth in that. I just wish that those writing on such matters actually checked their facts before publishing.
Yep Michele,
It would be a good thing but sometimes a quote from a source seems to excuse that in what passes for Irish technology journalism. After all worse has been published elsewhere.
I espeically loved the relevance of hostireland’s ‘keep it up’ viagra campaign 🙂
Well thanks christ, I am not a hoster
My point is nothing to do with sour grapes, its to do with an reduction in price related to .ie domains not being passed onto the consumer because of extortionate markups
A .ie, to, for example, register.ie (who wrote that article) costs about € 27. They sell it for € 80. That’s one hell of a margin!
Steve
Without any rebates they are selling at 100% margin. Factor in the rebates and you end up with some really scary figures.
And they have the gall to ask for a pricecut?
Michele
Hostirelands’ ads are deadly! But maybe thats cos I’m a bit of a naughty boy…
Anyway, where has Eoin disappeared to from Open and here to defend himself?
He’s a politician, he should be well able to at this stage. Or try to anyway.
H
Hugh – The new HI ads are a big departure from their previous ones. I’m not sure how well they would be received by the public though, as I can’t view hosting ads objectively. Every time I open a publication I actively look for competitors’ ads. I suppose I should ask my mother, or someone else who has no vested interest in the market.
Exactly… they’re funny! Hehe. They kinda (well attempt so fair play to them) make hosting a bit sexier!
I think I just appreciate them being different in their approach. However, where are their servers located?
Hugh
Their servers aren’t in Ireland. They are rackspace resellers. If you have a look at their site and compare the content with that on either rackspace.com or the co.uk you’ll see a LOT of similarities.
The viagra analogy of HI’s adverts is ironic when it is considered that the net growth of HI this year to date is almost the same as the individual monthly net growth of a few of the leading Irish hosters.
John
How many domais are we talking about? 🙂
Michele
This is a great article even if first submitted in September 2005, I just been checking the cost to register a domain name in Ireland and it comes to 100 euro, by comparison the same domain name in Holland, only .Nl instead of .ie is 6.99 euro plus VAT. The cost of Domain registration in Ireland is daylight robbery.
Alex
You will find that companies such as ourselves (Blacknight) charge a lot less.
Don’t forget that .nl and others are automated systems with no validation.
Michele