What does a domain registry pays?

When I buy a .com domain why are there different prices on different domain registering pages?

What exactly a domain registry pays? Is there any TAX? Where they buy the domains?

The wholesale fee for .com is $7.85, add the icann fee that is $0.18. The price is different from registrant to registrant because they have different mark up

Directnic provides it with 2$. I wonder what they pay...

It may be a kind of promotion

Red Yonko said:

Directnic provides it with 2$. I wonder what they pay...

Click to expand...

Then what icann pays?

There is a wholesale fee.

Then there is the ICANN fee of $0.18.

Then there is the actual profit for the registrar to keep working.


In case of some crazy prices like $1 or $2, the registrars are covering the cost themselves, this is why it is a one-time thing, as it is not profitable, but in the long term, the client will spend more money and it could be seen as the acquisition cost.

Red Yonko said:

Directnic provides it with 2$. I wonder what they pay...

Click to expand...

Registrars don't have to make profit on every extension they sell and they don't have to make a profit right on the spot. They can make a profit in the 2nd year, when you renew the domain, they can make a profit on other services e.g. whois privacy protection or they can simply make their profit on other extensions, if they successfully lured you in with cheap .com price. Sometimes they make it hard or even impossible to transfer your domains out to another registrar, so when the renewal comes, you are often stuck with them and you need to pay an irregularly high price for the 2nd year, if you want to keep the domain. There are many tricks in their books, it's better to stick with well-known registrars even if they have a higher price.