Escrow.com Domain Holding Transactions Priced More Competitively

Escrow.com ShieldWhen I learned that Escrow.com was offering domain holding transactions where a buyer could pay over time, I was excited. This type of transaction allows a buyer to pay for a domain name in installments without having to seek financing. The one issue I found was that if a deal wasn’t for high five figures or more, it was quite expensive to transact in this way.

According to Escrow.com CEO Brandon Abbey, the price structure for this type of deal has changed, and it is now much more competitively priced. The lower price structure is now in effect on the Escrow.com website, and you can price out a transaction by clicking the “fee calculator” link and selecting “Domain Name Holding” for the type of transaction.

Previously, the fee was structured off a minimum $75,000 purchase price and the minimum fee was $1,167.50. Now the fee is calculated by using the standard escrow fee plus a monthly holding charge. If the buyer is managing the DNS  (via GoDaddy control panel)  the monthly charge is $25, if Escrow.com manages the DNS, the monthly charge is $40. Now, the fee on a 12 month, $20,000 transaction with the buyer managing the DNS is $501.50. The initial contract may include three domains for no additional fees. For transactions that include more than three domain names, there is an additional yearly fee for each additional domain name (either $100 or $125 depending on who is managing the DNS).

According to Abbey, the reason for this change was due to customer demand. “We have always been about providing a valuable  service for a reasonable fee. I had an opportunity to speak to a number of customers earlier this year at Namescon and one of the  things they asked for was a more competitive offering for the lower priced domain name holding contracts. I want to thank those  who worked with us putting this together.

On lower value domain transactions with a payment plan, Escrow.com now has a very competitive offering, and I expect to use it soon.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

14 COMMENTS

  1. Good news, I had many deals that could fit this criteria, deals in the $10-25K range, I was checking EscrowHills as an option as they were a bit lower, but this will help close many new deals.

  2. Very nice tip, Elliot!! One of the better posts on the domain industry blogs in some time.

    I see they lowered their threshold completely, even a $100 domain can be financed at $325.00 for a one year contract with the buyer managing the DNS.

    Great news, really.

    It sure took Escrow.com a long darn time to do this, but better late than never.

  3. Yes, Francois, but who would want to send a buyer to your website?

    Your website is a complete joke…

    Change the domain and hire a designer!

    • I agree ecop offers all the right services, but the site turns off end users, who already have trust issues, and with all those catchy names you have access to much better domains than ecop, which sounds like something illegal is going down.

  4. I am a positive person, so I want to thank them.

    Anyway it is difficult to forget this has been 50% the cause of the dead market for 10 years.

    Anyway, again, I am a positive man, so thank you Escrow for having left everyone of us alone under the bombs for only 10 years. Almost each one of us has losen a couple of legs and a couple of arms, but now we can use your services.

    Thank you Escrow.

  5. They need to be more clear about all the fees: there are incongruences on their web pages dedicated to explain Domain Holding Service, but in particular they need to make available a simulator to calculate automatically all the costs. Maybe there is already that simulator, I didn’t do the login to check it, anyway the simulator should be placed in plain view for all the visitors, in particular those that not have already an Escrow account.

    I hope also they will want to recover the lost time making that simulator available for all. I hope I will be able to EMBED it in my web pages, so a prospects can spend some beautiful minutes thinking about the possibility to buy the domain he desires paying in installments, with all the cost clearly indicated automatically.

  6. Need confirmation on these revised Escrow.com services.

    Escrow.com’s FAQ still states the $75K limit, at this time.

    “These transactions have a dollar minimum of $75,000.00 and a term minimum of six months.”

    Also somewhat confused about their ‘…control of DNS’ statements.

    Is the buyer now getting control of the domain’s DNS during the Domain-Holding period ?

    • Thanks for the catch on the FAQ. If you want to manage the DNS we will point the nameservers for you and you manage the zone file, mail, etc.. If we manage the account we use Go Daddy’s Premium Name Servers and make any requested changes on the buyer’s behalf.

    • Hello Brandon. Thanks for the followup.

      May I address the question of Escrow.com giving DNS control to the buyer during the purchase period, rather than (say) pointing the domain to a holding page designed by either yourselves, or the seller ?

      I am extremely concerned that I can see no evidence that you will be monitoring usage of the domain and protecting the seller’s valuable asset(s) from such activities as spam or illegal usage etc.

      I am aware that other services have addressed this problem:

      http://www.goforthe.com/domain-monitoring-protection/

      Given that the domain could be blacklisted, or worse, the domain owner charged with offenses, what is your policies on protecting the owner, and the domain(s), until the escrow is completed ?

      Thanks

    • I think that is much more of an issue for a contract between buyer and seller than the role of an escrow agent. I don’t see why Escrow.com (or any escrow service) would be responsible for monitoring how a domain name is used. Further, that type of stuff (and more) can be done even if the escrow agent controls the DNS.

      Let’s say I sell you Elliot.CO and in the purchase agreement, it says you can’t use it for porn or illegal activities. If you do use it for porn, I can take action against you for violating the terms of our agreement.

      This seems to be out of the scope of an escrow agent.

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