Maybe you’re launching a hosting business and want to round out your offering with domain names. Maybe you’ve created a next-generation site builder and want to give your customers a truly seamless experience. Or maybe you run a web design agency and are committed to delivering a white-glove service, taking care of every detail for your clients. There are many reasons to offer domain names and many ways to make it happen.
In this post, we’ll outline your options and the major factors you need to consider to make an informed decision that will serve your business both now and in the long term. By the time you’ve finished reading, you’ll have a clear idea of which route to take.
Here’s a quick overview:
What to consider when choosing how to sell domains
Option 1: Manually purchase and manage domains on behalf of your customers
Option 2: Let customers purchase and self-manage domains from your website (no API work)
Option 3: Sell and manage domains through a seamless API connection
Option 4: Don’t sell domains yourself — instead, partner with Hover
What to consider when choosing how to sell domains
For 99.99% of service providers, offering domain names requires partnering with a domain registrar. In fact, most of the world’s leading website builders opt to resell because operating as a registrar is expensive and complicated. So the question you need to ask is, “which domain reselling solution is right for me?” The main things to keep in mind when making a decision are:
- The cost, both in terms of money and time
- The experience it will offer your customers
- The management experience and level of automation it will offer you
We’ll discuss the integration options available through OpenSRS, focusing on these three considerations. Let’s get started.
Option 1: Manually purchase and manage domains for your clients
Integration method: OpenSRS Reseller Control panel
Payment method: Pre-funded account balance
Who it’s for: IT solutions companies, web developers, agencies, and other digital service providers that work closely with a select group of clients.
Work to get started: About 10 minutes. Complete account signup, provide a means to fund your account, and you’re good to go.
Benefits:
- It’s white-label—you can brand and customize your customer touchpoints
- It’s simple to get started, and it requires very little upfront effort; you register and manage domains on your clients’ or customers’ behalf.
- Your customers can be on file as the official domain registrant, but you control their DNS settings and manage renewals and all other aspects of domain management.
- Your customers do not need to do any work—they pick the domain they want, and you purchase it for them.
- You can register domains under all 700+ top-level domains (TLDs) supported by OpenSRS, which maximizes your customers’ choice
- Automates ICANN-mandated end-user communications, like renewal notices, and allows you to customize them
- You can easily offer email and SSL as value-added services
Potential considerations:
- There is no easy way for your customers to self-manage their domains or purchase them directly from your website or customer portal. If this feature is important to you, but you don’t want to spend resources on an API integration, check out option 2 below.
- If you want to bill your clients for their domains, you’ll have to manage that separately
How does selling domains using the Reseller Control Panel work?
Providers who, by the nature of their work, have a limited number of clients and take a hands-on approach often use the OpenSRS Reseller Control Panel (RCP) to purchase and manage domains for their clients.
The RCP lets you register and manage domains under any extension we offer (.COM, .XYZ, you name it.). You can process domain renewals, transfers, and contact info updates and enable auto-renew in just a few clicks. Our bulk tools even let you renew or update the contact info for multiple domains at once. When managing your customers and domains, you can filter based on a range of handy variables, including the registrant (owner), the domain expiry date, and the TLD type. This makes it easy to manage your domain portfolio as your client or customer base grows.
If you work closely with your clients to build or manage their website or other technical services, the Reseller Control Panel will let you manage their DNS records and renew their domains while having your client listed as the official registrant of record for the domain. Your client owns the domain, but you can manage it on their behalf.
Is the Reseller Control Panel the best option for me?
If you want to manage it all for your clients, and domains are a small add-on to the primary service you provide—be it web development, branding, or managed IT—the Reseller Control Panel is a great option.
Option 2: Sell domains and collect payments right from your website without any API work
Integration method: Our turnkey solution, OpenSRS Storefront
Payment method: End-customer credit card
Who it’s for: IT solutions providers, web developers, digital & marketing agencies, and small hosting providers who want a fast and easy way to sell domains from their website and provide their customers with a control panel for self-management.
It’s also a great option for providers who want to register domains on behalf of their customers but would like to charge the customer’s credit card directly. You don’t have to give your customers access to your Storefront’s domain search or their own account.
Work to get started: About 10 minutes. Simply create your account, set your branding and pricing preferences, and create and connect your Stripe account so you can collect payments. Learn more about setup.
Benefits:
- You can add a domain search page with a complete checkout flow to your website, without any integration work.
- It features a modern, minimalist design that can be customized to reflect your brand colors and logo.
- There’s an end-user control panel that lets your customers self-manage their domains.
- It includes a management portal that lets you manage your customers’ domains on their behalf.
- You have access to a huge selection of popular TLDs supported by OpenSRS
- You can control your prices by setting default and custom margins for TLDs
- ICANN-mandated end-user communications, like renewal notices, are automated for you
- Your domain search comes with the OpenSRS name suggestion tool, used by some of the world’s leading website builders. It offers relevant alternatives, helping you make initial domain sales that turn into long-term clients and customers.
Potential considerations:
- Storefront currently only supports the purchase and management of domains (email and SSL aren’t yet available).
- It doesn’t support all TLDs yet. Specifically, some niche country-code TLDs are not included.
How does selling domains using OpenSRS Storefront work?
Our turnkey Storefront solution is the faster way to sell domains from your website, offering some of the benefits of an API integration, without any of the heavy lifting. With a Storefront account, you can add a turnkey domain search and registration workflow to your website, allowing your customers to find and register domains in a few clicks. Storefront has a modern and minimalist look that you can customize with your brand color and logo. It was designed to fit seamlessly into your existing website and be easily updated as your brand evolves. Your customer pays for their domains via credit card, and we deposit your profits directly into your bank account each month. OpenSRS collects a processing fee (3% + $0.95 per transaction).
Storefront also makes it incredibly easy to empower your customers to manage their own domains. Customers can update their DNS settings, transfer and renew domains, and update their contact information without your involvement. The end-user portal can also be customized to reflect your brand colors and logo, so you maintain a cohesive customer experience. OpenSRS stays totally behind the scenes. You can also host your OpenSRS Storefront on a subdomain of your primary website domain to create a more cohesive customer journey. For example, if your main site is example.com, your customer-facing Storefront might live at domains.example.com.
Storefront Manager, the reseller admin interface, allows you to set a default margin for all TLDs and determine custom margins for specific TLDs or groups of TLDs. You can even choose different renewal, registration, and transfer prices. It also has intuitive views for searching your domains under management and customer accounts. And when you want to make changes to a customer’s domain settings, you can do so in just a few easy steps by logging into their account on their behalf.
Is OpenSRS Storefront the best option for me?
Storefront is likely the best option for you if:
- You want to create a smooth, on-brand customer experience and enable self-management without any of the API work that this usually entails
- You want to charge domain purchases to your customers’ credit cards
It’s used by IT solutions companies, marketing and digital event agencies, and small hosting companies alike. Some leverage Storefront to sell domains right from their website, while others use it to buy domains for their clients and charge it to the client’s card.
Option 3: Resell and manage domains through a seamless API connection
Integration method: OpenSRS’ SOAP XML API
Payment method: Pre-funded account balance
Who it’s for: It allows service providers that need to support a large customer base to seamlessly integrate domain registration into their current offering and add domain management capabilities to their existing end-user portal. The OpenSRS API is the solution of choice for some of the world’s leading website builders, hosting companies, and business solutions companies.
Benefits:
- Create a frictionless experience by integrating domain registrations, as well as SSL and email, right into your existing customer signup flow.
- Build domain management functionalities right into your existing customer portal to enable self-management.
- Automate registration and management of all 700+ top-level domains (TLDs) supported by OpenSRS, plus SSL and email.
- Have total control over your customers’ pricing.
- ICANN-mandated end-user communications, like renewal notices, are automated for you.
- Comes with OpenSRS’ name suggestion tool, used by some of the world’s leading website builders.
Potential considerations:
- You’ll need to invest time upfront to complete your API integration.
- Occasionally, you might have to make minor updates to offer new TLDs or accommodate updates to TLD registry requirements. We always implement changes in a way that minimizes work for our reseller partners.
How does selling domains using the OpenSRS API work?
The OpenSRS API is used by leading digital providers who care about customer experience. You invest a bit of upfront work to build out the integration, and in return, you get a seamless and complete user experience that your customers will appreciate.
You can leverage the OpenSRS API to build domain registration right into your sign-up or website-building flow. Our API includes a powerful name suggestion tool, which provides your customers with great alternatives if their first-choice domain is taken. You can also add the ability to purchase email or SSL certificates.
Integrating via our API also allows you to add domain management controls to your existing customer interface. You can allow them to manage their domains, including processing registrations, transfers, and renewals, updating DNS settings and nameservers, adding subdomains, or setting up domain forwarding. You can also allow them to toggle auto-renew on and off—we recommend enabling it by default—so they never have to worry about missing a renewal.
Is the OpenSRS API for me?
The API is for you if you’re looking to support hundreds or thousands of customers and want to add domain registration and management to your signup flow or existing customer portal. It’s robust, scalable, reliable, and trusted by industry leaders.
Option 4: Don’t sell domains. Instead, partner with Hover
‘If you know your customers need domains, but you don’t want to manage the service yourself, you can partner with Hover, our sister company. Their partner program, Hover Connect, makes it easy for your customers to register a domain and point it to your service in seconds. They also have an affiliate program where you earn a commission on domains sold through your unique registration link. We’ll provide an overview of both.
Integration method: None!
Payment method: Hover charges your customers directly via credit card.
Benefits:
- No work is required on your part.
- You don’t have to worry about providing support for domain names.
- You’ll point them to a service they’ll love—which builds trust and rapport.
- It decreases the chances that your customer will choose a competitor that offers domain registration.
- You can offer them a discount on their domain or a free domain under select TLDs
Potential considerations:
- You have less control over your customers’ experience.
- If you don’t offer domains in-house, your customers could ultimately choose to register their domain with a competitor, even if you point them to Hover.
How does partnering with Hover work?
There are two options.
If you onboard 50+ customers a month, Hover Connect is for you.
As a Hover Connect partner, you’re given a unique registration link, which you can add to your signup flow or control panel. Your customers use this link to register their domain, and Hover automatically applies the correct DNS settings, connecting their domain to your service.
You can also provide free or discounted domains to your customers. The Hover team will work with you to find the best option for your customer base. Learn more about Hover Connect.
Tons of big-name brands have leveraged Hover Connect to simplify domains for their customers.
If you onboard fewer than 50 customers a month, consider becoming a Hover affiliate. It’s super simple. You direct your customers to Hover through your unique affiliate link and earn 20% on all transactions. Learn more about Hover’s affiliate program.
Why companies choose the OpenSRS domain reseller program
No matter which of our solutions you choose, there are big benefits to partnering with OpenSRS. We’re the largest wholesale domain registrar and the platform of choice for the world’s leading digital service providers. What makes us different is that we’ve been 100% reseller-focused right from the start, and our thoughtfully built platform and award-winning customer support reflect this. We exist to make it easy for hosting companies, IT solution firms, agencies, site builders, and one-person web devs to offer domains and related services.
Truly white-label
OpenSRS stays behind the scenes so your brand can shine. If you offer hosted email through OpenSRS, you customize your webmail and customer login page so it feels like your service. If you offer domain names, we automate all the required end-user communications for you and let you customize them to ensure they are on brand. These are ICANN-mandated emails (for example, renewal notices) sent to all domain owners. You can edit their content, apply your logo and colors, and set your from email address so we stay behind the scenes. If you’re a B2B provider, you can even create sub-resellers within your OpenSRS account to extend our branding capabilities to your customers.
Free, 24/7 support from technical experts
We have a truly awesome in-house support team based in North America. When you reach out, you’ll connect with a real person who knows how to help. We don’t believe in phone trees.
A huge selection of TLDs, including premium domains
With your OpenSRS account, you get access to 700+ TLDs. With a wide selection of country-code extensions and new TLDs like .STORE, .LAW and .ART, you’re able to offer relevant options to customers around the globe, in every kind of industry.
Scalable
Website builders who register 100s of domains per month and have millions under management rely on our API to simplify this essential part of their service. But even if you don’t need to build out an API integration right now, there’s value in choosing a registrar partner that will meet your needs as your business evolves. Maybe you start by leveraging our control panel to register domains manually on behalf of your customers. If your business grows, moving to our Storefront Solution and letting your customers self-manage and register domains from your website is always an option. So is integrating domains into your signup flow and customer portal using our API.
Transparent pricing
We know that simple, fair and consistent pricing is important to service providers. When our registry partners announce price changes, we inform you asap via email. You can also view the TLD current prices and any upcoming changes on our website.
We only make money when you make money. We don’t charge monthly or annual subscription fees to use any of our solutions.
Making a decision
Offering domains brings many benefits, but how you go about it depends on what kind of client or customer experience you’re looking to create and the level of automation you require.
Any of the options we’ve outlined above will simplify domain management for you and your customers. But in a nutshell:
If you want to manage domains on behalf of a small group of clients, consider the OpenSRS Control Panel.
If you like the idea of letting customers buy domains directly from your website via credit card and perhaps giving them a means to self-manage, Storefront is likely your best fit.
If you’ve got—or you’re looking to quickly scale to— hundreds or thousands of customers and want to offer a seamless signup experience, the OpenSRS API is the best in the industry.
And finally, if you want to make life easy for your customers and keep them out of competitors’ arms, but you’d rather not manage a domains service, take a closer look at Hover’s Connect and affiliate programs.
Have additional questions? Reach out to us at [email protected]. We’re happy to help.