On 24/01/2008, at 03:12, bigalownz wrote:
can someone tell me why .co.nz domains are the most expensive domains ?
where as most are about $6 - $15
but .co.nz are $30 - 60 and even $100
thanks
Internet NZ, the body that manages the .nz ccTLD, charge registrars NZ $1.50/month for a domain, or NZ$18/year, plus GST, according to http://www.dnc.org.nz/story/30278-37-1.html . gTLDs are significantly cheaper in terms of marginal cost per domain at US$6.42 for .com and US$3.85 for .net (http://www.icann.org/correspondence/bishop-to-twomey-05apr07.pdf ). On top of those you need to add in: - Costs of maintaining DNS servers, for when you offer DNS hosting like most providers. - Costs of staff for support, since many people need this even if the readers of this list don't. - General company overheads. - GST, foreign registrars won't charge this, so NZ prices will be 12.5% higher, though most registrars show prices ex-GST (grumble) - Economies of scale. Since the .nz space is a lot smaller than .com those overheads have to be spread among fewer domains. The economies of scale is the big one. While godaddy can survive on US $1.50 per domain per year - less on multi-year domains, since the fees aren't lower - it would be very hard for a .nz registrar to do the same. Don't forget that a single modern DNS server should be able to handle thousands of queries per second, this will be tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of domains, for a static cost. Though as always, the human cost will be the highest, staff like getting paid. From those numbers it looks like your average .nz registrar has an overhead of about NZ$15, .coms US$1-$5, ~NZ$2-7, rounding to whole numbers. -- Phillip Hutchings http://www.sitharus.com/