DomainMonster.com Domain Name Registrar Review

Introduction

domainmonster.com appears to be a decent domain name registrar that appears to be in business for the past 8 years. Offering their services since 2006, they claim to offer domain names registration, web hosting services, website builder and other services such as Email and Web Forwarding, Spam/Virus protection on Mailboxes and fast web hosting.

Pricing

.com registration – $9.99/yr (But boldly advertised as $8.49 when you search for the domain)
Domain privacy – Free
Total – $10.17/yr

First time users, be ready to get confused

When you search for a domain name and you find it available for registration, they claim that the price for 1 year starts “from” $8.49. But when you add it to cart, the price is shown as $9.99, instead of $8.49. How did this happen? Checkout the screenshots below:

Before adding the domain to cart:

DomainMonster Pricing Mismatch 1

After adding the domain to cart:

DomainMonster Pricing Mismatch 2

But why did the price change? I had no clue! I kept searching and I found the following disclosure at the bottom of the page:

DomainMonster Bottom Note

It states that ICANN fee of $0.18 is applicable. So if we add up $8.49 + $0.18 = $8.67. This still does not explain how the charges went up to $9.99.

Things didn’t seem right. I did further research to find out what’s happening and this is what I found:

Domain Actual Price

I found that the cost of a single domain is $9.99. The cost varies for bulk orders. So if you order 10+ domains, the cost is $8.99 per domain. Only if you order more than 25 domains, then the advertised cost of $8.49 applies!

So now after spending a lot of time and brain racking, I finally figured out that this information was not made available clearly and hence I had to begin a search hunt to find out the actual price. So this means, if you are buying a single domain or not as specified by domainmonster.com, you end up spending the same amount as other domain name registrars.

User Interface (UI)

As far as the order and checkout goes, the website looks cluttered. Lot of information has been squeezed into the available space. The sheer amount of text and images make the page really heavy and clumsy to look at. The overall look and feel seems be non-intuitive and looks like the whole website could use a redesign to follow the current design and trends.

Apart from the design factor, the User Experience factor can be heavily improved upon. Feels like they still stuck with the design that they initially had in 2006! Here’s the screenshot of their homepage:

domainmonster.com Homepage

Other Services/Features offered

Domain Privacy
ICANN accredited
Bulk Registration
Domain Renewals
Domain Transfer
DNS Control
Discounts on .co, .me, .scot, .info domains
Web Hosting Services (It’s undisclosed whether their services are Linux or Windows based)
Payment: Credit Cards (Visa, MasterCard, American Express), PayPal

About the Company

In Service from 2006
Support: Email, Phone, Forum
Support Email: support@domainmonster.com
Support Contact Numbers: 1-877-977-6263; 0845 3662467; +33 (0)1 82 88 01 93

Pros

Pricing of the domain name is standard
Free Whois Privacy
Accepts PayPal and major credit cards
You own the domain
Initial signup discount and bulk discounts available
Phone, Email and Forum support available

Cons

User Interface is cluttered and can be overwhelming due to the sheer number of choices they provide.
Required information is not provided upfront causing lots of confusion.
No chat support

Domainmonster.com Review Conclusion

The total of $10.17/yr seems to be to a good deal, considering that the Domain privacy is included with the order. Although the domain price by itself, is similar to any other domain name registrar’s pricing, the free Whois is like an icing on top of a cake. I am sure it would have made lot of people happy had the price for each domain was $8.49 (as advertised) regardless of the order type (bulk or single domain purchase).