As a domain name investor, why shouldn't you look for the cheapest registrar?

Domain investment is about buying low and selling high.

Therefore, negotiating the best price when purchasing domain names for your investment portfolio makes sense. Every penny counts.

This also applies to renewals. Even for smaller domain portfolios, renewal costs can quickly add up. Hence, choosing a domain registrar that helps you minimize costs is crucial.

However, you must be cautious when comparing options, not opting for the cheapest just to save a few cents.

In this article, I will explain why your criteria for selection should not only be registration prices but also factors to consider as a domain investor when choosing a domain registrar while building your investment portfolio.

1. Registration Prices vs. Renewal Prices

It's a common practice for registration service providers to heavily discount domain registration services for the first year. Over the years, I've benefited from promotional activities offering domain registration for as low as $0.99, sometimes even cheaper.

However, if they are selling domain registrations at a price lower than the wholesale cost, they are making a loss.

Registrars offering such significant discounts typically make up for the losses in the first year by charging higher renewal prices. This way, they only need one or two renewals to offset the initial loss.

Therefore, as a long-term strategy, you need to analyze both the renewal prices and registration prices of registrars so that you save money not just in the first year but also in the years to come.

2. Customer Support and Easy Transfers

Even though domain registration is a fully automated process, issues can arise.

Many support teams at domain registrars lack the capability to understand the needs of domain investors. Some registrars even have a notorious reputation for intentionally creating friction during grace period renewals and transfers.

Whether you are transferring domains in or out, excellent registrars provide timely support. My preferred type of registrar is one that offers self-service domain transfers with immediate completion rather than waiting for 5 days or calling support.

3. Bulk Domain Features

Not all registrars consider domain investors as their customers. For bloggers and business owners with multiple domains in their accounts, along with additional services like hosting, SSL, and email, they might be good enough. Cloudflare is an example of such a registrar.

However, as a domain investor, you often need to make bulk changes to your entire investment portfolio, such as changing landing pages, updating contact information, or using TXT records to verify ownership.

Many times, you need to include sub-portfolios within your overall portfolio and only want to make changes to one of the sub-portfolios in your account.

Good registrars can consolidate all your domains into one account and still allow easy management using foldersags. They provide you with a domain-centric dashboard that allows for bulk actions, such as bulk registration, bulk updates, bulk transfers, and bulk editing.

In Conclusion:

Whether you own a domain portfolio or plan to create a new one, the choice of a domain registrar is crucial.

All these registrars are dedicated to domain investors. They offer highly competitive renewal prices, excellent customer support, quick transfers, bulk editing features, and portfolio management.