Last month IPOWER sent a ripple through the domain name market by offering $2.95 domain names. Unlike offers from other registrars there were no strings attached. Now IPOWER is offering free Whois privacy as well. Some other companies charge $8-$10 for this feature.
But I don’t recommend you run out to take advantage of IPOWER’s offer. The company is a Tucows reseller that uses the OpenSRS platform. Each domain you register generates its own unique login (in other words, there’s no centralized management). Additionally, you have to open a support ticket with IPOWER to unlock your domain before changing the DNS servers. It took several days for me to accomplish this.
$2.95 per domain is cheap. In fact, IPOWER loses at least $3.30 per .com domain. The company is counting on you buying other services. But I’d only suggest using IPOWER if you are very patient and don’t value the time and frustration of support tickets more than $5 or so. Otherwise, use a different registration service.
ParkQuick says
There is another catch – the $2.95 price is only for the first year. All domains renew at a higher price.
Editor says
Good point. I guess if you decide a domain is good after one year you can transfer it for around $7 to a competitor.