We recently encountered a concerning situation involving a competitor's domain registration practices that we felt compelled to share. A customer attempting to register a domain discovered hidden charges and deceptive addons, ultimately inflating the cost significantly beyond the initially advertised price. This included an unexplained 'protection fee,' automatically renewing premium email accounts with exorbitant renewal costs, and unclear pricing for website builder services.

While we're not going to call out a specific provider here, this is common practice across the industry in varying forms and counter to what we believe is the "right" way, in a moral sense, so we decided to dig a little further. It's also worth mentioning that this information was all correct and true at the time of publishing this article.

Initial Findings

When we investigated, we identified a default charge described as an "expiry protection fee." While this service is presented as safeguarding domains against accidental deletion, it's important to note that standard domain management practices already include robust locking mechanisms designed to prevent such occurrences. Our analysis indicates that the primary function of this fee appears to be covering domain renewal in cases of payment failure – at a rate of 75% of the domain (which appears to be the wholesale cost of the domain). This structure raises concerns about transparency and potentially unexpected costs for customers.

This is particularly deceptive, because if the renewal payment goes through fine - you're essentially paying double the list price, while receiving the same exact product available from other providers. Hidden near the bottom of the terms and conditions is further clarification that if the payment doesn't go through and the "protection" is invoked, you'll still need to settle the bill for the full domain cost again at a later date.

This is a problem, since most domain registries also provide a redemption / grace period to avoid accidental deletion at the registry level, to ensure the rightful owner has the option of renewing in the event something goes wrong (say renewal date falls on a holiday or the customer is unable to check emails for whatever reason). While this option technically extends the grace period, the terms indicate that the provider claims ownership during the protection phase and can do as they please with the domain.

Local Responsibilities

This investigation took place in our Auckland office where, in addition: the local tax is applied at the checkout stage (GST for New Zealand), adding another 15% to the total.

While it's fine to omit the GST on prices for business services, this is a provider who is geared towards providing service to "everyone" (not just businesses) so not displaying the final checkout price from the get go can potentially catch some customers out.

At least it's displayed and made clear before the actual transaction step, but it's a far cry from the gold standard for a business operating in New Zealand. Notably, even for B2B facing products, Conspire displays what you pay at all stages.

Hidden Fees

Finally, the inclusion of automatically renewing "premium addons" is where the potential cost blow out adds up: the provider in question adds an email service that includes two accounts (by default). The item in the cart states that it is free, but the fine print says that it will renew automatically at $208.80 per account. So within 1 month of ordering a $30 domain, the customer will be charged again for $417.60 - 14x the original domain price.

Also included on the checkout page is an AI powered website builder, this time it renews after 3 months for $54 for another 3 months. From the checkout page it is unclear whether this includes hosting, or is just the website builder. Does hosting cost more? the wording suggests that hosting is separate (but also included alongside 3-months free) and also renews at $54.

Thankfully another page suggests that the product not only does include hosting but ALSO INCLUDES EMAIL SERVICE for unlimited domains. Presumably there is additional benefit of the premium email service, but even for industry pros this takes a minute to unpack - for an inexperienced consumer, it's unclear there are multiple options for the same service and unclear that they could potentially drop the email service if they intend to use the version that comes bundled with the website builder if they don't need the professional features.

Adding up everything in the cart, by the end of the first year the customer would be charged:

• $29.99 for the domain

• $22.99 for "expiry protection"

• $417.60 for 2x premium email accounts

• $162 for the website builder (after the initial 3-month trial ends)

Making for a total of $632.59 for a product advertised "on the shelf" for $29.

This is all before applying GST. The checkout page only mentions that $7.95 will be applied if you opt for both the domain and the additional "protection". It's unclear whether or not the prices listed for the addons include GST or not - in which case, the customer might be liable for even more.

Why is this bad?

When dealing with customers of all levels of technical ability this behaviour is simply not good enough.

The consumer might not recognize the additional "free product" means they'll be billed at a higher amount later, especially true since the word TRIAL is nowhere to be found on the checkout page for the products in question. The fine print visible on the page only accounts for some of the total cost to the consumer and further research is needed to fully assess the final damage.

Since we were in the middle of a revamp of our own website at the time, we made it a mandate to ensure that it is clear at all times how much the customer will pay and while we've always avoided any murky areas, including deceptive practices and bait-and-switch techniques, we made additional effort to review our process from a customer perspective.

With Conspire, if you want a domain - you get a domain.

If we say on our page it'll cost $30 for a year, you'll pay $30. We won't automatically sign you up for anything extra and if we do offer a free bonus, it is 100% free - no strings attached.

So, for refreshingly simple - deception-free domain registration, (the Kiwi way), give Conspire Web Services a try at over on our domains page.

Or, if you're not sure if you actually needed any of those extras? Get in touch with our human team and we'll steer you in the right direction.

Finally, we call on everyone in the industry to do the same. While it might see some short term profit gains, alienating customers with hefty unexpected bills is only going to send them elsewhere. Building the loyalty of your customers is going to keep them coming back time after time. Another well-known and reputable provider simply includes the options during checkout, but leaves them disabled by default - this seems to be an acceptable compromise between capturing potential up-sales and protecting the consumer from unexpected bill shock.

As an industry, we can do better.

A look at deceptive fees, hidden costs and how we can do better as an industry

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