Why GoDaddy costs more than other registrars for .TRAVEL renewals.

[ste99]

I'm considering a .travel domain. GoDaddy's renewal rate is 60% higher than several competitors!!!!! GoDaddy charges $159.99 ($39.99 intro) for renewals whereas registrars like name and namecheap are $99.00 ($39.99) and $98.88 ($26.88) respectively. I can understand a bit of an upcharge, but 60% is beyond ridiculous!

[MrVapor]

@ste99 

Different registrars have different deals made with the TLD owners.

[ste99]

Thanks for the quick answer. I didn't realize that was the case. But at the same time, why would anyone give a worse deal to one of the biggest registrars out there compared to perhaps smaller competitors?

Upon further research, I found that name.com is a wholly owned subsidiary of the .travel TLD owner (so it would make sense that they're cheaper), but it doesn't explain namecheap also being cheaper than GoDaddy. If you're a TLD owner, wouldn't you be shooting yourself in the foot by charging GoDaddy more, given their market share? Unless of course this is exactly because GoDaddy has more market share, and they want name.com to have an advantage (which still doesn't explain the namecheap price). Thanks again.

[Nate · Accepted solution]

The Community is primarily made up of other users like yourself, so we can only guess to how these contracts came about.  Some may include a certain amount of "co-op" advertising or some other promotional consideration.  Or it could be that some of the companies hold grunges they may not with others.