How domain prices are calculated

A domain through Magic Pages costs what the registry charges us, plus the card fees for taking your payment, plus a service fee of €1.00 a year. The total is rounded up to the next 10 cents. VAT comes on top.

The €1.00 is what we keep, and there's no other mark-up.

Every price in the portal has a What's in this price? link that shows the split: Registry, Payment processing and Magic Pages service. When the price changes from the second year, it shows both years, Year one and Every year after.

The calculation

1. Start with the registry price. That's what Openprovider, the registrar we work with, charges us for one year of the domain.
2. Add the fixed costs: €0.30 per payment for Stripe, who process our domain payments, and our €1.00 service fee.
3. Cover the percentage fees. Stripe takes up to 4.35% of each payment: 3.15% for a card issued outside Europe, 0.7% for recurring billing and 0.5% for working out the VAT. Stripe charges that percentage on the total including VAT, so we work it out for the highest VAT rate we sell into, Hungary's 27%. In numbers, we divide by 0.944755, which is 1 − 4.35% × 1.27.
4. Round up to the next 10 cents.

As one formula: (registry price + €0.30 + €1.00) ÷ 0.944755, rounded up to the next 10 cents.

An example

Say the registry charges us €10.00 a year for a domain. (That's an example, not the price of any particular extension.)

(€10.00 + €0.30 + €1.00) ÷ 0.944755 = €11.96, rounded up to €12.00 a year.

In the breakdown, that shows as:

• Registry: €10.00
• Payment processing: €1.00
• Magic Pages service: €1.00
• Per year total: €12.00, plus VAT

Where the numbers aren't exact

Payment processing is everything in the total beyond the registry price and our €1.00, so it includes the rounding. It's also worked out for the most expensive case: a card from outside Europe, and 27% VAT. Most payments cost less than that.

On the €12.00 example, Stripe's actual fee would be:

• €0.96 with a non-European card at 27% VAT, as in Hungary
• €0.92 with a non-European card at 19% VAT, as in Germany
• €0.69 with a standard European card at 19% VAT
• €0.62 with a standard European card and no VAT, for a business with a valid VAT number

So the difference stays with us, between 4 and 38 cents a year on this example. We work it out this way so the fee is covered on every payment.

VAT

Prices in the portal are before VAT. Before you pay, the summary shows the VAT for your billing country and the total you'll be charged. If it can't work that out at that moment, it says "VAT is added at checkout." and the payment screen shows the VAT instead.

Which VAT applies depends on where you're billed. A business in another EU country with a valid VAT number pays no VAT, and the invoice says the reverse charge applies. In the UK, we can only sell domains to businesses, so without a UK VAT number we'll ask you to confirm the domain is for your business or publication.

Renewals, transfers and restores

The same calculation applies every time you pay.

• Renewals use the registry's renewal price at the time you renew. It isn't always the same as the first-year price. We email you the renewal price 14 days before you're charged.
• Transfers use the registry's transfer price. When that's nothing, the portal says Free to move, and you first pay at the domain's next renewal.
• Restoring a domain that went offline, when the registry charges a restore fee, goes through the same calculation. The email you'd get in that case tells you the amount.

We fetch the registry's prices every night, so the portal's prices are at most a day old.

Extensions you can register

You can buy .com, .net, .org, .info, .de, .eu, .at, .ch, .nl, .be, .fr, .uk, .co.uk, .io, .co, .me, .blog, .dev, .app, .page, .online, .site and .xyz. Search for a name in the portal to see its current price.

Two of them have rules about who may own them. A .eu domain needs an owner with an address in the EU or the EEA, and a .fr domain one in the EU, the EEA or Switzerland. .dev, .app and .page only work over HTTPS, which your site already uses.