Should I change from UKReg?

gunpowda · Feb 5, 2008

My domain name will expire towards the end of the month.

UKReg are asking for £5.90 + VAT (so £6.93) for renewal, and I think this may be slightly expensive. (Also, the last time I renewed with them I was annoyed that they didn't make it clearer that their prices excluded VAT, but it was too late and I'd paid for my carelessness).

Does anyone have recommendations for cheaper registrars? Can I transfer free from UKReg to another registrar, and then do the renewal there for less?

Essentially what I'm asking is, am I paying too much by being lazy and sticking with them?

monaghan · Feb 5, 2008

Are you happy with the facilities offered? You may get it cheaper elsewhere, but support staff and servers need to be paid for from somewhere. A breakdown of the costs...

£5 - to Nominet
£0.10 - £0.50 for credit card processing depending on their processing company

This would leave between 40 pence and 80 pence in the pot to pay for the server, people to manage it and provide you support, assuming minimum wage and excluding overheads gives you between 4 and 8 minutes of someone's time for the whole 2 year registration period.

You may well get it cheaper, but think about the real costs and what you expect in terms of support and reliability.

retired_member3 · Feb 5, 2008

When you say domain name are we talking singular? Hardly worth the hassle of moving for the savings on one domain?

gunpowda · Feb 6, 2008

Yeah, just the one domain name. You make good points. It's just that I've never needed support (unlike, say, with hosting): the registration just sits there, working.

retired_member3 · Feb 6, 2008

I use ukreg and found them to be ok on support and good control panel. I have my own tag but still transfer to them for ease of admin.
With any of these companies you will get 50% saying they are crap and 50% saying they are great. I personally think 123 reg are useless but others will disagree there. heart always get recommended but again i have had issues with them when it comes to support.

For the sake of 1 domain I would say stick with them.
don't host with them though as they are expensive.