One Time Fee domains - disable renewals or make it free?

[faisal]

Hi

We have to sell .sa,.com.sa,.net.sa,.med.sa,.sch.sa,.org.sa,.edu.sa,.gov.sa,.pub.sa TLDs and it is one time payment for a life time.

So I am asking what do you think is the best configuration for pricing sins WHMCS don't give the (One Time Fee) option for domains pricing, is it better to set renew pricing to -1 to disable renewals or make it 0.00 as free renewals?

WHMCS Team: do you have plans to add this option? If no is there any way to do it as a hook or something?

[brian!]

3 hours ago, faisal said:

We have to sell .sa,.com.sa,.net.sa,.med.sa,.sch.sa,.org.sa,.edu.sa,.gov.sa,.pub.sa TLDs and it is one time payment for a life time.

are you 100% sure about that ?? every indication i've seen on multiple sites (including nic.sa) is that they are sold "normally", e.g 1-10 year domain registration and can be renewed for one year.

3 hours ago, faisal said:

So I am asking what do you think is the best configuration for pricing sins WHMCS don't give the (One Time Fee) option for domains pricing, is it better to set renew pricing to -1 to disable renewals or make it 0.00 as free renewals?

I don't think there would be a native way to do it in WHMCS... possibly you could create a one-time product that requires a free .sa domain (though i'm not keeon on the idea), or offer a 10-year registration and extend the next due date (years into the future) after registration with a hook, though again it's not ideal as it will look like they are buyign a 10-year registration.

my advice would be to double check that these really sold as "lifetime" domains... and if they really are, i'll have another think about how to sell them in WHMCS.

[faisal]

16 hours ago, brian! said:

are you 100% sure about that ?? every indication i've seen on multiple sites (including nic.sa) is that they are sold "normally", e.g 1-10 year domain registration and can be renewed for one year.

Yes, I am sure 100% and I do have a .sa domain my self and it is 100% free 😉

https://www.nic.sa/en/view/faq16

*When you say (including nic.sa) where is that exactly I can't find it any where in nic.sa 🤔

I don't know why anybody would sell it as you say, What I know that nic.sa at present don't take any thing and sellers may take there own setup fees so we want only one time small fee for setup the domain because it need some processing, otherwise we don't want any thing from the client.

nic.sa will send an email once a year to the domain owner/manager for update his/her info (this considers as renew).

 

*Be aware that some websites sell .sa.com as a Saudi domain, will it is not Saudi domain and have nothing to do with Saudi Domains or nic.sa

Edited September 12, 2019 by faisal

[brian!]

3 hours ago, faisal said:

Yes, I am sure 100% and I do have a .sa domain my self and it is 100% free 😉

then I stand corrected... and now better informed. 🙂

Quote

Is there any fee/charge for registering domain names with SaudiNIC?

Currently there are no fees for registering Saudi domain names but fees may be applied in the future.

so potentially not free for lifetime, just free for now.

3 hours ago, faisal said:

I don't know why anybody would sell it as you say, What I know that nic.sa at present don't take any thing and sellers may take there own setup fees so we want only one time small fee for setup the domain because it need some processing, otherwise we don't want any thing from the client.

some examples...

• 101 Domain - $250 USD per year.
• OnlyDomains - $225 USD per year.
• Gandi - $205 USD per year.

I suspect they're just covering themselves in case fees get charged in the future by SaudiNIC... from their point of view, there's no point selling them as "free for lifetime", if at some point down the road, charges will be introduced and they then have to go back to their clients and say...."sorry, they aren't free anymore!".

4 hours ago, faisal said:

*Be aware that some websites sell .sa.com as a Saudi domain, will it is not Saudi domain and have nothing to do with Saudi Domains or nic.sa

yeah, CentralNIC selling subdomains of sa.com

On 11/09/2019 at 09:57, faisal said:

WHMCS Team: do you have plans to add this option?

there were multiple 5-year old feature requests to do this for .ro domains (which was another TLD that used to be "lifetime free" but are now sold 1-10yrs), but they only received 5 votes and got archived. 🗑️

on a general point, WHMCS will rarely tell you their intentions with introducing features unless they are either about to do it, or have decided they'll never do it... they'll just tell you to submit a feature request, but that would takes 4+ years before completion - and that's even assuming it gets enough votes to warrant their interest in the first place.

thinking it about the issue further, there's no simple way to do it without customisation.

the simplest solution in WHMCS would just be to treat them as normal domain registrations/renewals and charge them annually - even if it's a nominal fee of $1 or whatever... that way you're not exposed if SaudiNIC decide in 2021 to start charging... for the same reason, i'd probably avoid selling them as lifetime, or even 10 year registrations, and extending their due date with a hook.

a one-time product, with free domain option, should work too if you really want to offer a one-time fee for these domains.... though that might also require customisation to remove them from the domain register page (or give them a high price to avoid them being registered via that route).

[Remitur]

It's free, but admin contact is required to be in Saudi Arabia (and is required to have a Saudi Arabian mobile phone too)... so you can sell (at whatever price you like, of course...) the service of "local presence", acting as local admin contact for the Registrant.

 

Edited September 12, 2019 by Remitur

[faisal]

On 9/12/2019 at 1:10 PM, brian! said:

so potentially not free for lifetime, just free for now. 

It is for now, and I don't think this will change soon if at all.

On 9/12/2019 at 1:10 PM, brian! said:

I suspect they're just covering themselves in case fees get charged in the future by SaudiNIC... from their point of view, there's no point selling them as "free for lifetime", if at some point down the road, charges will be introduced and they then have to go back to their clients and say...."sorry, they aren't free anymore!".

That is not coverage they can just use the same terms or similar to nic.sa to be covered 😉 or maybe they don't have this option in their system as well. 😁

On 9/12/2019 at 1:10 PM, brian! said:

there were multiple 5-year old feature requests to do this for .ro domains (which was another TLD that used to be "lifetime free" but are now sold 1-10yrs), but they only received 5 votes and got archived. 🗑️ 

on a general point, WHMCS will rarely tell you their intentions with introducing features unless they are either about to do it, or have decided they'll never do it... they'll just tell you to submit a feature request, but that would takes 4+ years before completion - and that's even assuming it gets enough votes to warrant their interest in the first place.

I did vote on that 🙂

On 9/12/2019 at 1:10 PM, brian! said:

the simplest solution in WHMCS would just be to treat them as normal domain registrations/renewals and charge them annually - even if it's a nominal fee of $1 or whatever... that way you're not exposed if SaudiNIC decide in 2021 to start charging... for the same reason, i'd probably avoid selling them as lifetime, or even 10 year registrations, and extending their due date with a hook.

That what is about what we are doing now but looking for something better. 😉

 

On 9/12/2019 at 3:00 PM, Remitur said:

It's free, but admin contact is required to be in Saudi Arabia (and is required to have a Saudi Arabian mobile phone too)... so you can sell (at whatever price you like, of course...) the service of "local presence", acting as local admin contact for the Registrant.

Yes kind of, with a little more requirements. but that is not the issue here 😅

 

Thank you all.

Edited September 15, 2019 by faisal