Uniregistry is launching the new gTLD domain name extension .Mom and it’s taking a whole new path a rather expensive one.
Aside from the .car. .cars and .auto new gTLD’s which is a joint venture between Uniregistry and XYZ, Uniregistry had avoided launching its new gTLD’s with an Early Access Program (EAP), but with .Mom Uniregistry is using an EAP period and premium registration rates for its domain names, which will renew at standard renewal rates.
Here are some examples:
If you have a trademark and want to apply during Sunrise for the domain name Great.Mom, it will cost you $15,000 plus a $325 application fee at 101domain.com
If you want to order the domain name Great.Mom on the 1st day of the seven-day EAP period, it will set you back $28,500 at 101domain.com
Yes $28,500.
Day 1 of EAP has a $13,500 charge, plus the cost of the domain.
By the time a Great.Mom gets to general availability (GA) the domain is priced at $15,000 at 101domain.com.
Either way the domain name will renew at $42 for each year thereafter.
So here are the EAP rates by day at 101domain.com for .Mom:
Day 1 $13,500
Day 2 $12,500
Day 3 $10,500
Day 4 $9,500
Day 5 $7,500
Day 6 $6,500
Day 7 $3,500
Best.Mom is priced the same $15,000 for the domain plus the EAP fee depending on the day.
The.Mom is also priced at $15,000 in GA
My.Mom is priced at $15,000
Fuck.mom is $15,000
New.Mom is $15,000
Nude.mom is $7,500
Hot.Mom will set you back $3,000 with a GA registration.
Our.Mom is $1,500 in GA.
Step.Mom is $750
The Sunrise period for .Mom started last Wednesday, 24 February, 2016 and ends on Friday, 25 March, 2016.
It will be interesting to see how .Mom does with this pricing plan.
Last person to pay $28.5k for a .MOM is an ungrateful child!
There needs to be regulation. This is beyond ridiculous. Every gTLD does their own thing. The pricing schemes are just that, schemes.
@Anticareer,
Regulation might be overkill. If prices are prohibitive than nobody need buy. When brand protection is the only issue, a trademark will often suffice; and exorbitant cost will deter cyber squatters.
If regulation is to accomplish anything, then that should be limiting price hikes on registrants come renewal time.
Price hikes is the only area regulation should come into play as Joseph said.
If you register for a price with an understanding that renewals may be a little higher that is one thing, but if after a year or two renewals are suddenly 4x the original quote when you registered then there is a problem, especially if you have built on it.
If too high to begin with, then don’t buy
Ok, let them charge whatever they want, and then wonder why the domain industry is viewed negatively in the real world.
You think everyone is going to be up front when they resell a gTLD in the aftermarket and the renewal cost is thousands of dollars? No. Now someone buys the domain in the aftermarket, renewal time comes, and they are beside themselves. And before you blame the buyer, the average buyer wouldn’t know to ask “Hey, is this renewal cost $10/year or thousands” during negotiating. There should be industry standards. It’s not like one domain extension is made of silver, another of gold, another of platinum to justify these ridiculous prices. It is greedy extension owners, nothing more.
@Anticareer,
There I agree with you 100%. Lots of aftermarket buyers are being set up for failure by premium renewal fees they don’t foresee. And that’s bound to cause bad PR fallout for those nTLDs and the nTLD program generally.
It’s unrealistic to expect domainers to mention those looming bills while they themselves are negotiating on the purchase price itself. A week or 2 ago, I found myself explaining a $1000 renewal fee as part of a Sedo counteroffer. Not easy to work that into a sales pitch, let me tell you! Probably tipped the scales from a “yes” to a “no”, killing the deal.
Registrars and market places could and should make these renewal fees plain to customers. That benefits everybody in the long run. Still, we must acknowledge it’s a tricky problem to integrate so many different variable pricing models into so many websites. For instance, whose renewal price should be listed at Sedo? Prices differ registrar to registrar, and not all TLDs are available everywhere.
This is a major challenge for companies in the domain industry – still largely neglected.
The aftermarket platforms won’t integrate/mention the renewal fee because it will significantly lower the sell through rate. The high renewal fees are a dirty little secret that nobody will want to talk about. It is hard enough to get someone to pay $5-10k for a domain. If there is a $1k renewal fee on top of that what do you think the buyer will do? Now they’ll only be willing to pay $1-3k for the domain, or they won’t be interested in it at all any longer.
For me, it’s an experiment worth trying in this case. The nTLD domain is a generic phrase that matches a .COM sale in the $40k -$60k range from a few years back. So I can renew it for 5-10 years myself and still make $xx,xxx when it sells. Meanwhile, the buyer can factor a 10-year renewal into the price and come in at an amount roughly matching the other sale.
With most of the premium-priced nTLD domains I looked, the numbers didn’t make sense. This 1 was an exception.
Seller can be legally liable for failing on full disclosure such as renewal fees.
If a seller doesn’t disclose renewal fees, then I wont bid full stop just because of the premium renewals existing. I may miss out on a good deal where the renewal is standard, but unless renewal is listed, next up
I do wish the gtlds had done out like .club, premiums at selling price, regular renewal there after. I know I would have snagged several domains I just left alone due to the premium renewal
In some aftermarket venues where the buyer and seller remain anonymous there is no possible way to list renewal fees when offer/counteroffer ensues. Buy It Nows are a fixed priced in all venues with no area for text.
Market is the real regulation. If people do not buy them he will be forced to change his strategy
$28,500 is so cheap for all that a .mom does, I think they should double it, do you know how many rich .mom’s there out there in the world.
Wow I think Betty Crocker should buy this extension, and give away free domains with every box of cake mix.
These guys have made a mockery of the GTLD’s, ICANN is to busy counting the money. These guys have gamed every loophole. What is the point of a public GTLD, if you can create a seperate company to warehouse all the premiums, and hold them back?
What is the point of telling everyone .com is the AM DIAL, then bidding like a mad dog at namejet against your very own customers, something is broken?
Good Luck
Sorry, I just don’t get these guys
I got a .tattoo on each butt cheek with an “M” on it. It says MOM.
If I do a handstand, it says WOW.
Ryan has a valid point. Before you give money to FS or his companies (gTLDS, Uniregistry, Domain Name Sales) please be aware that the same money is being used to aggressively compete against customers and buy up “AM Radio” .COM daily on venues like NameJet. He is spending many thousands of dollars a day acquiring .COM. The actions are not matching the pro-gTLD rhetoric.
Brad
My.mon should cost well over $1 million. Actually, priceless. But anything less than 1 million is “just not right”.
My.mom should cost well over $1 million. Actually, priceless. But anything less than 1 million is “just not right”.
Steve
Well you got a once in a lifetime bargain
It’s called we have had 30 other launches and all of them have lost money. Let’s at least make money off the trademark holders.
Pity M is not close to C on the keyboard for typo squatters lol
How much to buy up all the 3N.mom, I am sure domain shame is all over that, seriously back to basics, let the Chinese implode we all know domains are not as easy to sell as we see on the domain reports every week against portfolios tens of thousand strong.
I know these guys want to make you think these have value, but only natural supply, and demand will oversee all this.
I am appalled on some industry experts and how far they go to shove such nonsense down people’s throats.
Ie) .ws
Always think for yourself, and if it is to good to be true it usually is.
This gTLD doesn’t take into account it’s “Mum” in the UK. 😛
@Acro,
That does seem to limit .MOM. Short-term domestic marketing campaigns can get away with neglecting parts of an audience in order to target 1 segment. But when building the brand itself, why impose a barrier to expansion?
.MOM would be growing its brand baby in a bottle. After a few years, slightly cramped.
I’ve a lot of friends from the UK that can’t stand the US spelling. A lot of Europeans follow British English to a T.
That being said, the overall grammar these days seems to favor (favour?) American English. Just pointing out that even short words can hinder a portion of the end-users from adopting them.
I think the EAP pricing is following a familiar concept, based on the current almost zero adoption of gTLDs by the general public due to the lack of promotion. In other words, EAP exists for the investors alone, IMO.
No one applied for .mum
A few thoughts from a polar bear:
1. For those with even a small familiarity with the formal study of marketing, this is one of the oldest “tricks” in the book. It is known as “psychological pricing.” If you put a high price like that on something, then enough people may be mesmerized into thinking it’s something really special and extremely valuable and desirable that they want to pay at least that much for and want to have. In fact, in some cases a lower price will actually cause someone to lose interest in whatever the thing under consideration is, while the higher price may result in more sales and great longing. You don’t want that steak for $12.95 at the best restaurant in town, but you really want it for $59 or $79; you wouldn’t even give a second look at that really nice coat for $99.95 at Sears, but if the same coat were $1,200 at Macy’s or Bloomingdales you would long for it and even go into debt if you had to; and those are probably just poor examples where others could come up with better ones. Frank is successful and rich enough in life (lol, I’m calling it), so I’m not sorry for letting the cat out of the bag on this old tactic because it definitely does “trickle down” to affect “the rest of us.”
The summary version of this marketing tactic is also known in the world more loosely as “laughing all the way to the bank.”
2. Call.Mom – They should really put an opener of $100k on that one while they’re at it.
3. I most definitely agree that regulation rather than anything goes is needed. If there were regulation, I suspect ironically the new TLDs would also probably be much more successful. Part of the problem, however, appears to be the big upfront cost of applying for a new TLD to begin with, which also should have been regulated. Which means that despite the alleged oversight the DOC still may have, it seems to me that the hands-off approach to this was not in the best interests of the world, and a little benevolent action by the place where the Internet and DNS was invented could have been far better for everyone instead of creating in some people the need to engage in a big money grab. But now of course we have to cast the DNS adrift for phony trumped up “pc’s” sake so that the likes of Russian, China and others may gain whatever new influence they can and let’s see what happens then.
P.S. I still rather enjoyed Frank’s interview down under, though. 🙂
I still remember when Frank Schilling said that his extensions will not have premium renewals.
People who keep domains with Uniregistry should be ashamed of their stupidity.
They just allow Frank Schilling to spy on them, and let him know exactly what he should buy etc.
Well I must admit, I am definitely convinced he and his crew do do that. I have some very good factual reasons for saying that based on something I saw get gobbled up as one of those “North Sound” names a while ago and all the facts and circumstances leading up to it, though I am reluctant to even go into vague details and allusions here, that’s how confident I am that it was a case of acting based on that kind of knowledge. But without having tried any of his platforms myself, I don’t doubt Uniregistry is a really nice service as well as D.N.S., maybe even super nice. (And again, I still liked his Aussie interview.) 🙂 Frankly (pun not intended, but might as well go with it), can you blame him for that, and could anyone help but do that in a situation like that? But it is something to consider, and one of the reasons why I haven’t ever tried those services. And while I’m at it, in all fairness I would almost even stake my life that a certain .Club probably also began at normal reg fee but was bumped up to premium pricing after the first registrant dropped it, based on similar kind of inside access to knowledge and data about what some were up to with the extension.
after that we will hear feom news that com registrations are increasing ; )
Ada
To be clear these domains do not have a premium renewal fee, just premium registration fee
@Michael
I got a lifetime bargain indeed.
Also hardly seems fair, considering I hit the jackpot at birth with getting the greatest parents a kid could ever have.
On what day are there more long distance calls?
Christmas? New Years? Passover? Easter? Thanksgiving? Valentine’s Day?
Not even close. It’s Mother’s Day.
Call.Mom is a very good one. or even Call Your.Mom
@Michael
I got a lifetime bargain indeed.
Also hardly seems fair, considering I hit the jackpot at birth with getting the greatest parents a kid could ever have.
On what day are there more long distance calls?
Christmas? New Years? Passover? Easter? Thanksgiving? Valentine’s Day?
Not even close. It’s Mother’s Day.
Call.Mom is a very good one. or even Call Your.Mom
Call.Mom is priced at $15,000 registration fee at 101domain.com plus any EAP, if you elect to go that way
LOL
I really don’t like this one.
I understand the whole MILF thing as appealing to that niche in porn.
But I consider this “Fuck.mom is $15,000” to be vulgar and in poor taste. I wouldn’t buy that, even if I knew I could flip it for 100 K. the next year. Not worth the bad energy.
Great feedback everyone!
I stick to my opinion that EAP pricing is targeting investors, eager to open their wallets. As much as I want to see gTLD explore and succeed in every corner of the known cosmos, there has been zero zilch nada promotion at a scale that’d impress even the smallest marketing/branding exec in NYC. So end user buyers, that would love to have a chance to get e.g. Call.Mom for $40 dollars, will never get a glimpse of that, as investors will pay the EAP price to get the best names. So what will be left for the end-user buyer at reg fee later on? It’s an industry-wide issue, by the way.