How to Become a Domain Reseller
When you started your business, you needed a website and a domain. I’d wager a guess you spent quite a while brainstorming the domain you wanted to use. Now, consider the process other businesses go through when choosing their domain. One of the many things they consider, aside from the actual registration part of their domain, is with whom they should register said domain.
Now whether your company is a design agency offering hosting to your clients, or you’re a full-blown IT consultancy firm offering high-touch services, offering a domain registration service should be right up there with your other core services. Making it easy for your clients to register domains without requiring your intervention.
This addition of services to your business represents a huge opportunity for you to make profits based on reselling domain registrations. Domain reselling is easy and only involves a few steps to set up before you can begin allowing your customers to register everything from .art to .xyz.
If you’ve been thinking about opening a Domain Reseller business but aren’t sure what’s involved, this blog post is for you. In this post, we’ll be covering what domain reselling is, how to open a domain reseller account, and how to get started selling domains.
Let’s go!
What is a Domain Reseller?
A domain reseller is an individual or business that has subscribed to a domain reseller program. These programs often come from large domain registration companies (registrars) or web hosting companies and are offered to their customers as an add-on benefit.
With a domain reseller program, you have access to all of the TLDs (top-level domains) that your registrar offers and the option to resell the ability to register any of these TLDs to your customers. Typically the company offering the domain reseller account will set a base price for each domain extension (TLD) they offer and from there you can adjust the price by setting margins that net you profit when one of your customers registers a domain under your reseller account.
This means if your domain reseller is allowing you to resell .com registrations at $9.89 each, you can set the price to $15.00 and make $5.11 in the process!
Is it profitable to be a Domain Reseller?
Totally! Depending on your margins, you can profit quite a bit from domain registrations, particularly on the more expensive gTLDs if you choose to resell them. As the domain registration space is a competitive one, you’ll want to set attractive pricing. The margins you have typically depend on the Domain Reseller tier offered by your reseller partner, we’ll touch on this later on.
That said, when reselling domains, it’s best to consider other factors, like market prices for the TLDs in question. Most domain resellers find that offering domain registration is an extra service on top of their core business and is worth their time. Giving their customers the ability to manage and register their own domains is a great added benefit to your existing portfolio.
Who can become a Domain Reseller?
Anyone! There isn’t a specific certification or accreditation process that you’re required to undertake. Many reseller hosting companies and domain registrars offer reseller programs to their customers, many with different tiers of pricing. Often with companies offering domain reselling services that use a tiered system, the higher the tier you’re on, the better base pricing you receive on domain registrations.
You can move up the tiers a few ways. Most resellers let you move up naturally with the amount of domains registered under your account. As I mentioned, you typically get better pricing the higher up on the tiers you are. This can take a while, as you can imagine, especially as you’re starting out. This is why reseller providers will often allow you to move up to another tier depending on the amount of funds deposited into your reseller account. The funds will be used to pay for domains registered by your customers and you would net the profits.
Of course, by being on a higher tier, your profits will increase as your margins become better than they were on the lower tiers.
What to consider when choosing a Domain Reseller program?
When you’re shopping around for the right domain reseller program to partner with, there’s a lot you should keep in mind. Let’s cover some of the primary things to consider:
How long has the company been in business?
You’ve worked hard to build your business up and earn the trust of multiple clients. Don’t risk jeopardizing that by signing up for a domain reseller program from a fly-by-night company. Make sure the company you partner with for your domain reselling program has been in the industry a long time and also offers relevant services, such as web hosting. It would be weird to partner with a company that is primarily a laundromat and offers a domain reseller program as a side-gig, right?
How much does it cost to become a domain reseller?
Signing up for a domain reseller program can be a lucrative service for your business, but you want to be sure you aren’t getting price gouged on signing up. To begin, you’ll want to find a domain reseller program that requires no or very little money to sign-up and get started. Yes, you may not get the best pricing at this level, however, it’s a good way to do a test run with that company and see if you want to stick with them and invest more for better domain pricing.
If you have multiple domain reseller providers in mind, compare the TLD pricing they offer as well as their initial start-up costs, as this will help you make a decision.
Is the Domain Reseller program white-labeled?
For a lot of companies, retaining control of their branding through the various steps where the customer interacts with your business is very important. If your brand is very cohesive and a huge part of your service, having a white-labeled domain reseller platform is definitely something you’ll want. White-labeled programs don’t reveal to your customer the service they are using is really provided by a different company, and you’re just reselling access.
This white labeling can extend all the way from the web interface to email notifications sent by the system to remind customers of upcoming domain renewals and expiration, which continues the placement of your branding and offers a stellar customer service experience.
What is the support from the reseller like?
Before you settle on a reseller, sign up and become invested in their platform, you should contact their support and engage with them. Ask them questions, even if you already know the answers to them. Doing this allows you to evaluate their support quality and process. Domain name registrations, while they often live a quiet life by themselves on the internet, can go wrong. And when they do, it requires an experienced hand to correct these problems. You don’t want to work through these issues with a reseller partner who offers crummy support. Do yourself a favor and investigate it before making a commitment!
Do they offer apps to help automate registration?
While most providers of domain reseller programs offer a control panel where you can log in, manage domains, or register new ones, they may not offer the apps you’ll need to automate these functions so you can offer the same level of service to your customer. This includes offering free licensing for automation platforms like WHMCS, which works with most domain reseller platforms, and giving your customers access to a front-end where they can purchase new domains and manage their existing ones. Not all domain reseller providers offer this, so be sure to check before making a final decision!
If you’re a ChemiCloud customer, we’ve got you covered! We offer a free WHMCS license with our Expand or Established reseller hosting plans.
Why choose ChemiCloud Domain Reseller?
If you want to offer domain registration & management to your customers and find yourself interested in the idea of working with a partner who has in-depth experience in the industry, we should talk.
There’s a reason so many individuals and businesses choose ChemiCloud. Our support is second to none and we offer everything you need to get up and running with a white-labeled domain reseller account of your own.
From your domain registration to your reseller web hosting for your clients, ChemiCloud offers all the goodies you’ll need, including access to free WHMCS licensing for automation and API access.
How long does it take to get set up as a domain reseller?
Just a few minutes! If you’re a ChemiCloud customer with a Reseller Hosting plan, you’ve already got a domain reseller account with us! You should have received the login information for that when you signed up, but if you need a refresher, simply reach out to support!
If you’re not a ChemiCloud customer, consider signing up for one of our reseller hosting plans and receive a free, fully-featured domain reseller account you can use to augment your business and provide additional service to your existing customers!
Conclusion
You’ve learned what a domain reseller is, how profitable being one can be, and several things to consider when evaluating which domain reseller program to choose.
With this information at hand, go forward and research domain reseller programs. Or, if you’ve already made up your mind, sign up and get started!
There’s no time like the present and after all, the next best domain is just a registration away!
