.Pro Rip Off Pricing Continues

[akcampbell]

Just saw on Encirca that the new .pro price will be $24.99 for the first year only. Additional years will be $49.99 and renewals will be $59.99. There has been no marketing and no big registrars are offering .pro. The relaunch is going to bomb.

 

[mwzd]

How, if at all, can they justify the pricing?

Especially when Registry Pro seems to be charging just $6.50

http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/agreements/pro/redlined-registry-agmt-appf-21may04.pdf

 

[Gar305]

Interesting find there, I searched the PDF document and found the section about the $6.50 fee, wasn't aware of it.

 

[akcampbell]

When .pro domains were selling for $99, Encirca paid $50 wholesale, $6.50 for the basic domain as per the ICANN agreement above and $43.50 for a digital certificate that is supposedly bundled with it.

 

[Corey]

are there any problems with reselling .pro?

any charges?

Cheers
Corey

 

[mwzd]

Digital certificate that is supposedly bundled with it.

Have you ever received one?

are there any problems with reselling .pro?
any charges?

No problems or charges.

Though this crappy pricing policy is giving me a pause before I reg any more... or even renew all I have.

 

[akcampbell]

Have you ever received one?

No, as far as I know it's been a "notional" digital certificate to date. I've never seen a .pro site with a Registry.pro digital certificate logo like you'd see with Verisign or Godaddy. Hardly anybody has heard of Registry.pro so it's not going go give end users much confidence in your site. It's just an excuse to overcharge on reg fees, when ICANN sought opinions on the relaxation of .pro restrictions, I argued .pro registrants should be able to choose who they buy a digital certificate from.

are there any problems with reselling .pro?

There is virtually no aftermarket for .pro unless you have blockbuster keywords. It will be even harder to sell them now because without Encirca's Proforwarding you will only be able to sell them to somebody professionally Nobody is going to buy a .pro on the aftermarket if they are not professionally qualified, tick a box to say they are, and have a 1 in a 100 chance every year of losing it.

If you reg something tomorrow for $25 hoping to sell it, you are wasting 3 .coms or 12 .infos that you might have been able to sell. The .pro keywords left have been available for $49 for several weeks, and at $99, $75, and $49 on and off for the last 3-4 years. .pro is great for development but at $25 followed by $60 renewal fees there will only ever be a few thousand regged.

Have a look at the .pros in my signature, I paid about $15,000 for all 8. To date, I have received two $200 offers for Mobile.pro. I bought them for development and have no plans to sell but if you are thinking of regging a .pro keyword tomorrow for $25 to sell it for a profit, you are wasting your time. Sedo charge $150 commission for selling a .pro so you will need to get $175 back just to break even.

 

[Ben42]

Will be very curious to see how NetSol prices it.

Will find out at 12ET today.

 

[InvisionTech]

Will be very curious to see how NetSol prices it.

Will find out at 12ET today.

Well, its $29.99 but not sure about the renewal...

Encirca's renewals for 59.99 are just dumb... it would really help if the price was same for both renewals and new registers, gives people a reason to sign up rather than a reason to run away from .PRO!

 

[Ben42]

39.99 Renewal at NetSol...hmm, They at least have a WAY better control panel than encirca.

I know where Im regging.

 

[akcampbell]

I just called Network Solutions and they said you can't do inward transfers of .pros at the moment and they don't have a timeframe for when that will happen. Encirca's customer are stuck paying $20 over the odds for renewals. MelbourneIT are going to be selling .pros but they still think Keyword.pro means you want to register KeywordPro.com.