Cost of purchasing domain can make a difference to the price

[Genesis]

So I had some fun today with purchasing domains. I used PayPal for the first time and learned two valuable lessons. To pay US dollars with a non US currency Credit Card will incur double charges from PayPal in addition to the currency difference that is added on to the price. My first "cheap" payment looked like this. Still a good price however for a .net domain:

Actual price USD = 5.74
Plus currency difference = 6.54 Canadian
Plus 1.13 Canadian PayPal Charge
Plus 1.13 Canadian PayPal Charge

Total charge for .net domain in US dollars = 8.02

I then decided for the heck of it to test the difference in price with using the Canadian dollar Paypal payment option. I purchased a .org for 5.74 Cdn

Paypal only charged me once so my total payment in Canadian dollar was: 6.87 and US dollar 6.26.
That was a really good deal for a .org.

As with the previous purchase my domain was up and running within minutes of the purchase.

OK now that I'm getting a bit more aware of checking cost, I purchased a .com from Namecheap. Namecheap looked the cheaper of the two on the face of it. Price of the .com including Safeguard was 10.72 USD but I ended up paying 12 USD. Namecheap must be charging me double in the same way that PayPal does. So in the end the Canadian Domain Registrar would have been the cheaper of the two. Lesson learned is to watch out for currency differential and to select the right currency. I'm sure there has to be an option to pay Namecheap in Cdn. I could have saved myself a dollar or more.

OK, think I've had my Domain fix for the day. Was fun!

 

[GigaGreg]

Yeah, PayPal is shocking with currency charges, but otherwise is brilliant for online purchase, safe, fast and secure!

 

[Genesis]

Right IG. That was one of the good parts of my experience today. I now have a PayPal account as well, and that went quite effortless for a change. If it hadn't been for Beachrat's glowing report about PayPal I wouldn't have selected the option for registering a PayPal account. Must say my PayPal account looks a bit better set up than it was when I first registered a few years ago. BUT I'll definitely watch out for those charges.

 

[Sander k]

Namecheap is a bit of fraud, as they used to (not sure if they still do it) set the prizes on their website without the ICAN fee. A few click further in the cart just before you had to pay $0.72 showed up from god knows where... The ICAN fee!

 

[Genesis]

I noticed that too today and I also thought that was not so cool. They're down two notches on my ratings. Godaddy however has just become TOO expensive, and they charge extra for privacy protection for whois.net. At least namecheap gives it for free, but no doubt they'll charge big time next year. I really need to transfer my domains out of there.

 

[Sander k]

Name.com gives it also for free.
Next year its $3.99

 

[Genesis]

Name.com gives it also for free.
Next year its $3.99

Right, I get the general idea of them playing with prices. Next year is going to be much tougher. So if one knows one is going to hang on to next year or maybe even for the long term maybe one should buy long term.

 

[Sander k]

Thats true, its cheaper that way. But most domains I let expire after a year.

 

[Pauline]

Great tip that Genesis. I haven't purchased a paid for domain yet, so when I do, I'll try and purchase it in my own currency. Hopefully there will be a reseller in the Philippines.