Register .CA domains at COST (1 Viewing)

MapleDots

MapleDots.ca
Community Guide
Joined
Nov 4, 2020
Topics
1,279
Posts
5,811
Likes
5,260
Market
Country flag
Picture0007.png



Today, we are excited to announce that all Cloudflare customers now have full Registrar access, including the ability to register new domains.

Second, starting today — and over the course of the next few weeks — we will be introducing over 40 new top-level domains (TLDs). We’re starting with .uk, our most requested country code extension. Initially, customers will only be able to transfer in existing .uk domains from other registrars, but support for new registrations will become available within the next few weeks. In keeping with our at-cost model, .uk domains will be priced at the wholesale registry fee.

A short registrar primer
In the domain name world, there are two key players: registrars and registries. Understandably, the two are often confused. One way to look at it is that registries are the wholesalers and registrars are the retailers. Registries host the centralized database of registered domains within a TLD. They are responsible for establishing the policies and business rules for the TLD. They also set the wholesale price. Registrars sell domains to end users and manage those registrations on an ongoing basis. They set the retail fee, collect payment, provide customer support, and ensure registrations are renewed and kept up to date. They often provide complementary services such as DNS, web hosting, and email.

There are various “types” of registrars. Retail registrars primarily sell to SMBs and individuals. Corporate registrars typically provide services to large enterprises, and often offer brand protection and monitoring services. There are also registrars that focus on the reseller market, essentially enabling other companies to act as domain resellers.

Registrars typically interact with registries using a standard protocol called the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP). While EPP is well-defined in various RFCs, each registry often has its own flavor and uses protocol extensions in support of their specific policies.

Where we started
Cloudflare has operated a registrar for many years. Initially, we became a registrar solely to manage and protect our own mission-critical domains. Over time, we began offering highly secure registration services to some of our customers as well. This evolved into our Custom Domain Protection service. This was a high-end niche service for customers with very specific needs. As we learned more about the registrar space, however, we wanted to expand this service to everyone. We believed that we could provide a highly secure, privacy-focused, and cost-effective registrar for everyone. So, in 2018 we announced the launch of Cloudflare Registrar.

There are two ways to have Cloudflare handle your domain registration: through the registration of a brand-new domain or through the transfer of an existing domain from another registrar. Unlike many new registrars starting from scratch, we had a large and sophisticated customer base. Our customers were already using our DNS services for domains they had registered through other registrars. So, we initially focused on helping them transfer existing domains to Cloudflare. At the time, we estimated that if our customers transferred all of their domains to us, they would collectively save over $50 million per year in registration fees.

And we’ve done just that. Since our launch in 2018, we have transferred in hundreds of thousands of domains. Collectively, it’s saved our customers millions of dollars in annual registration fees.

In 2020, new registrations were launched in beta. Access was first provided to our Biz, Pro, and Enterprise customers by default, and then over the following months we enabled several thousand additional customers who had previously expressed interest.

Transfers are not enough
Part of the reason why we launched our beta for new registrations was the excitement we saw around new domain registrations. Though we intentionally started only with domain transfers, folks began asking for new domain functionality almost immediately. We heard this initially from customers who hadn’t yet purchased a domain. Since they didn’t have anything to transfer in, they would have to go through the somewhat cumbersome process of registering a new domain with another provider and only then transfer their domain to Cloudflare.

As time went by, however, we began to hear requests from our existing Registrar customers.

After all, domain portfolios are not static. Companies, large and small, are continually updating their domain assets. Whether through the development of new products, expansion into new markets, M&A activities, or brand protection, the ability to register new domain names is vitally important. In Q2 of this year, there were 11.7 million new registrations in .com and .net alone. Cloudflare customers have registered over 2 million new domains through other registrars in the first half of this year alone. And these are just the ones we know about!

Today, we’re excited to open up new registrations to all of our customers.r. You no longer need to register new domains at another registrar and then transfer those domains to Cloudflare.



https://blog.cloudflare.com/registrar-for-everyone/




Picture0008.png



Notice the .ca in the picture above, it is coming real soon and priced at the same cost whc, canspace or godaddy would pay for it.

Now traditionally registrars mark up by about a buck and I'm not sure if I want to go through the hassle of a USD conversion to make a switch for that. I hear they have no bulk tools and what tools they have are quite basic. I would not want to do wothout proper bulk tools.
 
I've got two domains at Cloudflare. I like their DNS features, but their registrar features are extremely limited. The last time I checked, I could not point my domains to other nameservers but the Cloudflare ones, not sure if that is still the case.

This is the blog poster's LinkedIn profile:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-brown-728b292/
 

Members who recently read this topic: 2

Support our sponsors who contribute to keep dn.ca free for everyone.

New Discussion Posts

CatchDrop.ca

New Market Posts

Google Ad

Popular This Week

CIRA.ca

Popular This Month

Google Ad

Back