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DesktopCatcher software

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Paul123

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Hi everyone.

Just interested to hear if anyone has had any experience of software you can buy for drop catching. With drop catchers all allowing multiple back orders and then going to auction, it makes sense to buy the software if it works ? The cost is around $200 which is a good investment if it catches a few good domains. Maybe it's worth buying a few different software packages to stand a better chance of catching a good domain ?

Any thoughts please ?

Best,
Paul
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
A question of interpretation I think. Nothing I'm going to spend time on other than to offer my opinion, which is just what it is.
 
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All I'm saying is, if this was a promo thread made by the author, I'd totally agree.

It's not. It's an open discussion made by some random member RE: desktop catching software as far as I can tell.
 
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Fair enough Wayne. I'm not going to change my stance but I understand your view and how you might have arrived at it. You have a right to your opinion and I respect that.
 
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The software is available, the only change is that we moved to a monthly subscription model early this year.
so bad for this software, i use it for years for all my regfee needed domains, before i used my own php script but DC is more handy and we had great software with the creator.

now the offer is much more different than before, it's seems it's the end...
$70 per month is much more expensive than the price before...

Have you seen these words on your sales page:
We recommend you only lease this software for testing purposes or if you only plan to try out domain drop catching for a short period of time
https://www.desktopcatcher.com/purchase/lease/

Other competitors with one time payment could be:
http://dropking.com/
Do you know some others ?
 
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so bad for this software, i use it for years for all my regfee needed domains, before i used my own php script but DC is more handy and we had great software with the creator.

now the offer is much more different than before, it's seems it's the end...
$70 per month is much more expensive than the price before...

Do you know some others ?

It is absolutely not the end, it is the beginning of the next level. I don't really understand your worry, since you have your own copy of it which is not influenced with the change.

Earlier we had tons of buyers who thought the software will beat DropCatch/Netsol and after three days they wrote us a message that the software is not good for anything and want their money back. So this is surely not good for the buyers and not good for us. The current subscribers think it twice before starting and better understand what the software is good for and for them it is worth the subscription fee. So I have to say that the current buyer behavior is much more healthier than the earlier.

Those who know what to do - like you - can make hundreds or thousands a month with the software, so compare the subscription fee with that profit levels. And still anyone can send us a message and we will try to find a better suited payment model. E.g. we offer a discount for those who run the software on their own computer. A lifetime subscription for a price of one regular backorder simply cannot work in long term. Or if you compare dropking with us, they ask $150/registrar, which means we should sell the software for $1500. You can be sure we will give you a lifetime licence for much less.

What you also know that we had a soft launch of the web version of the software on AutoBackorder.com

It will be publicly available soon and the software and web version will be complementary to each other and promote each other. We will check which version our users prefer and make the decisions on the further developments based on that. But I can say with 100% confidence that DesktopCatcher software is not going to die, oppositely, there will be serious developments there.
 
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A lifetime subscription for a price of one regular backorder simply cannot work in long term.
The price of the software were for years between $100 and $200 I dont remember, support and updates were good. Now it's $70 / month.
Or if you compare dropking with us, they ask $150/registrar, which means we should sell the software for $1500.
Not sure, I think 1 or maybe 2 registrars could be enough for 99% of your customers.

What you also know that we had a soft launch of the web version of the software on AutoBackorder.com
Yes but to me it's a completely different offer.

Earlier we had tons of buyers who thought the software will beat DropCatch/Netsol and after three days they wrote us a message that the software is not good for anything and want their money back.
Dont you think it will be different with a $70 / month lease or with autobackorder ?
To me autobackorder and desktopcatcher are suitable for certain type of domains, this is why many customers requested money back.

But I can say with 100% confidence that DesktopCatcher software is not going to die, oppositely, there will be serious developments there.
Why will you continue to develop it as you'll not sell anymore licences ?
Backordering using a php script is much easy for maintenance than a windows a software. And the power will be exactly the same.
 
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The price of the software were for years between $100 and $200 I dont remember, support and updates were good. Now it's $70 / month.

Not sure, I think 1 or maybe 2 registrars could be enough for 99% of your customers.


Yes but to me it's a completely different offer.


Dont you think it will be different with a $70 / month lease or with autobackorder ?
To me autobackorder and desktopcatcher are suitable for certain type of domains, this is why many customers requested money back.


Why will you continue to develop it as you'll not sell anymore licences ?
Backordering using a php script is much easy for maintenance than a windows a software. And the power will be exactly the same.

The previous business model hinder the growth of the software. This is why Andy, the original developer decided to sold it, because it is not developing further this way. And he made great work building the software and is famous of his excellent customer support. But domaining is a business, so it has to grow and make money at the end. DesktopCatcher users catch ten thousands domains a year, and while I am not saying that these are the top dropping domains, it is one of the most important, still less known player of the dropcatching business. So we are working hard to get it to a level it deserves.

We sell monthly licences and develop the software for our past users and current and future subscribers, it is that simple. I don't think that we will go back to one time fee model but who knows, nothing is unchangeable. Domainers have to subscribe for so many things, I don't feel this is something ridiculous to subscribe for a software to catch domains. Those who can make profit from it enjoy their subscriptions, those who can't, cancel their subscription. It is that easy.

If you are worrying what happens with those who bought the software once in the past, I can say that we have no plans to force original customers to pay monthly fee or success fee, you can use it in the future without restrictions and will get the free updates.

You are only interested in the com/net and Dynadot part of this business, for those who are looking for other extensions, all the other registrars are needed. And this is where DesktopCatcher can be really competitive and the best choice. There are many extensions where there are no dropcatching services available and DesktopCatcher can catch even the best domains in those extensions.
 
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The previous business model hinder the growth of the software. This is why Andy, the original developer decided to sold it, because it is not developing further this way. And he made great work building the software and is famous of his excellent customer support. But domaining is a business, so it has to grow and make money at the end. DesktopCatcher users catch ten thousands domains a year, and while I am not saying that these are the top dropping domains, it is one of the most important, still less known player of the dropcatching business. So we are working hard to get it to a level it deserves.

We sell monthly licences and develop the software for our past users and current and future subscribers, it is that simple. I don't think that we will go back to one time fee model but who knows, nothing is unchangeable. Domainers have to subscribe for so many things, I don't feel this is something ridiculous to subscribe for a software to catch domains. Those who can make profit from it enjoy their subscriptions, those who can't, cancel their subscription. It is that easy.

If you are worrying what happens with those who bought the software once in the past, I can say that we have no plans to force original customers to pay monthly fee or success fee, you can use it in the future without restrictions and will get the free updates.

You are only interested in the com/net and Dynadot part of this business, for those who are looking for other extensions, all the other registrars are needed. And this is where DesktopCatcher can be really competitive and the best choice. There are many extensions where there are no dropcatching services available and DesktopCatcher can catch even the best domains in those extensions.

Do you offer any trial or any demo to see it in action? I'm not really tech guy so I'd like to see what's inside.
 
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Do you offer any trial or any demo to see it in action? I'm not really tech guy so I'd like to see what's inside.

I can tell you this is excellent software, but you will only catch domains not targeted by the drop catchers.

This includes private parties running their own drop catching systems.

You will not catch any great domains because these are all picked up by the big dropcatching

services - mostly Dropcatch/com.

This is not because of the software.

As I said above, the software does the best job it can against the big guys.

There are also limitations with the registrars used by the software.

Again, this has nothing to do with the quality of the software itself.

Overall, this is a great little program if you want to grab mediocre domains without having to try and

hand reg them during or just after the drop.
 
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I can tell you this is excellent software, but you will only catch domains not targeted by the drop catchers.

This includes private parties running their own drop catching systems.

You will not catch any great domains because these are all picked up by the big dropcatching

services - mostly Dropcatch/com.

This is not because of the software.

As I said above, the software does the best job it can against the big guys.

There are also limitations with the registrars used by the software.

Again, this has nothing to do with the quality of the software itself.

Overall, this is a great little program if you want to grab mediocre domains without having to try and

hand reg them during or just after the drop.

Just subscribed to DC yesterday and caught 2 test domains. Looks promising but it's all about timing or rather say nanoseconds :)
 
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As the owner of DesktopCatcher, I see two big problems with your comments:
1, promoting your own products in our thread is highly unethical
2, valuating DesktopCatcher without having it is the same

DesktopCatcher catches several hundred domains a day and makes huge profit for the best users. You have to know how to use it and what to catch with it but it works very well indeed.

How am i promoting my product when i clearly did not mention anything about a sale or price, i merely said it was in beta and still is, although we have compared it with yours and seriously makes DC look very poor in performance, Why? Because of how you talk to the 3rd party api's and most of them have delays to EPP thus that delay + transfer delays almost guarantees that DC will not and never will catch any good or valuable domains!

Wether you like it not, im advising people the truth, DC is not worth a dollar and those that have it will agree with me unless those using it are trying to catch domain that are not really worth the software as you could hand register them at the same time, The Desktop Catcher software adds no realy value other than looping through multiple 3rd party provider api's, you can write a script to do this in under an hour...

What you also fail to tell people is how much delay there is in the requests, also that some of the api's need ID verification and/or reseller signup fee's (Sometimes hundreds of dollars) + pre-loading the accounts with funds before you can make api requests + multiple other factors

Where i come from, we speak the truth and don't misslead, im sorry for being blunt but im stating the facts, Dropcatch software is not worth it's fee unless you have no clue what you are doing or you clearly don't look at valuable domains in the same way as i do.

To finish off, Anyone with a registrar account and a few lines of code will out perform your software, Why? Because connecting directly to EPP is about 10x faster than making an api call to a 3rd party then wait for them to make the request..

Important about api calls, the usual process....

1) You call the api endpoint with your api key and the domain you want to register...
2) The api service checks your quota
3) The api service checks your credit (Or payment details)
4) The api checks if the domain is available
5) the api sends either another api call to a further 3rd party (Which again repeats the above)
6) finally an epp request to register the domain is made
7) You get a response back "Sorry, too slow! That domain is already taken!!" (Translation: Your software sucks, invest your time and money into becoming a ICANN / Verisign registrar and bypass steps 1-5 from the above!!)

Peace!
 
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How am i promoting my product when i clearly did not mention anything about a sale or price, i merely said it was in beta and still is, although we have compared it with yours and seriously makes DC look very poor in performance, Why? Because of how you talk to the 3rd party api's and most of them have delays to EPP thus that delay + transfer delays almost guarantees that DC will not and never will catch any good or valuable domains!

Wether you like it not, im advising people the truth, DC is not worth a dollar and those that have it will agree with me unless those using it are trying to catch domain that are not really worth the software as you could hand register them at the same time, The Desktop Catcher software adds no realy value other than looping through multiple 3rd party provider api's, you can write a script to do this in under an hour...

What you also fail to tell people is how much delay there is in the requests, also that some of the api's need ID verification and/or reseller signup fee's (Sometimes hundreds of dollars) + pre-loading the accounts with funds before you can make api requests + multiple other factors

Where i come from, we speak the truth and don't misslead, im sorry for being blunt but im stating the facts, Dropcatch software is not worth it's fee unless you have no clue what you are doing or you clearly don't look at valuable domains in the same way as i do.

To finish off, Anyone with a registrar account and a few lines of code will out perform your software, Why? Because connecting directly to EPP is about 10x faster than making an api call to a 3rd party then wait for them to make the request..

Important about api calls, the usual process....

1) You call the api endpoint with your api key and the domain you want to register...
2) The api service checks your quota
3) The api service checks your credit (Or payment details)
4) The api checks if the domain is available
5) the api sends either another api call to a further 3rd party (Which again repeats the above)
6) finally an epp request to register the domain is made
7) You get a response back "Sorry, too slow! That domain is already taken!!" (Translation: Your software sucks, invest your time and money into becoming a ICANN / Verisign registrar and bypass steps 1-5 from the above!!)

Peace!
I run a backordering service for years with which we catch hundreds of domains every months due to a snapnames partnership.
BUT, I also use DC for my own use for years and I catch with it hundred to thousands domains per month, depends of my needs. DC is good for some types of domains. For sure it cannot compete with backordering services (except godaddy maybe :) ) but I prefer to use it instead of a script. I could make an api script but it's a waste of time as I have DC.
 
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I run a backordering service for years with which we catch hundreds of domains every months due to a snapnames partnership.
BUT, I also use DC for my own use for years and I catch with it hundred to thousands domains per month, depends of my needs. DC is good for some types of domains. For sure it cannot compete with backordering services (except godaddy maybe :) ) but I prefer to use it instead of a script. I could make an api script but it's a waste of time as I have DC.


David, Im not disputing the software might save you a little but of time from writing a custom script or app but here are some more cons to that:

1) You can't optimize or modify the software (Like you would be able to your own script)
2) You can only use the apis assigned to the software (Which are heavily used anyway and more or less useless when it comes to trying to catch good domains)
3) You really justify spending 70-80$ a month for basically a script that has been compiled to an executable?

If the DC software was reputable i would be the first to say well done, but i honestly feel like people that the DC software is taking advantage from a financial standpoint of those that are not in the know with dreams of catching "Insurance.com" when in reality you need to be aiming at domains like "TheThreeToFourWordStandardDomains.com".

To compete against DropCatch you need to invest heavily into multiple registrar accounts, No software will help you outrun them without at-least 10-20 registrar accounts and even then you would need to target 1 specific domain to stand a good chance while they loop through there catch lists because they also have a system in place that prioritises resources based on domain quality which is similar for snapnames just not on the same scale.

Anyone serious about drop catching that cant afford to have their own registrar account/ multiple accounts... should look at speaking with icann registrars and pay them a fee to partner with them, the more partnerships you make the more direct access to EPP you have which dramatically improves your chances of catching quality / premium names, Once you have multiple partnerships in place you can build a script in a day and run a good chance of competing with the top players.
 
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3) You really justify spending 70-80$ a month for basically a script that has been compiled to an executable
For sure, no. I would never pay monthly for this software.
 
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I have an error 502, bad gateway when i launch the software.
 
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It should be a temporary error that is resolved.
 
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dynadot not working.
I have directly an error message:
***.com PROCESSING ANOTHER REQUEST ...via DynaDot 6:14:28 PM
***.com 10MIN BAN FOR API ABUSE ...via DynaDot 6:14:28 PM
 
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You get this error if you run two instances of the software which is against Dynadot API rules.
 
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I was looking at the software but I agree monthly subscription is not worthwhile investment for me. You can literally just add a list of domains to a registrar and reload the page to see if they become available. You don't even need a software.
 
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DC is not worth a dollar and those that have it will agree with me

DC brought me thousands and thousands big green bucks of profit in the last few years. Please don't tell what you have no idea.

Anyone with a registrar account

Right, just anyone. Hey, people of NamePros, how many of you have a registrar account?

Double facepalm.
 
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Lifetime license?

Contact us regarding lifetime license.

Answering some questions and some more comments:

- The main reason of introducing monthly license (besides that revenues can be better predicted) is to keep it useful

If we have too many users (lifetime license) the chances of catching a domain by a given Desktopcatcher user drops linearly. What everyone really hates if they are beaten by another Desktopcatcher user. We want to stop "spamming" our software. There are users with 10+ licences, who make it harder for other DesktopCatcher users to catch domains. Having less user provides better experience for those who have it.

- We are considering launching a lite version of the software for one time low fee that will have one or two registrars, like Dynadot. There are users who are only interested in these.

- DesktopCatcher is not for everyone, it is not for beating DropCatch and not for apparently high value .com domains. There are two main field where it can make big bucks:

i, under radar domains, which you don't want to share with dropcatching companies because you can't be sure if someone picks it then
ii, non-com field

- We know users who make thousands or ten thousands a month with DesktopCatcher - the monthly fee of the software is negligible for these users and they are our target customer base

E.g. we just got an email today and this happens time to time:
"Yes, and again credit goes to you for another sale. C*********.com was dropcatched by Desktopcatcher. Sold it last week for $3,500."
 
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I keep getting the error "Arithmetic operation resulted in an overflow" when I try to start/update the software, I have the lifetime license and when I send an email they never respond to me. Anyone else had this problem with DC?
 
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I keep getting the error "Arithmetic operation resulted in an overflow" when I try to start/update the software, I have the lifetime license and when I send an email they never respond to me. Anyone else had this problem with DC?

Try reinstalling the software.
 
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Try reinstalling the software.

I actually just found out what it was, my file in appdata folder was too big, over 2 gigs, deleted it and now it works! How it helps someone else some day!
 
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