floof.org
On the theory that it should be cheaper to register domains for my customers directly at the registry instead of going through another registrar, I've been looking (again, I seem to do this every few years) at the costs for getting ICANN-accredited.
Wow, reducing costs is incredibly expensive!
Rough costs, as far as I can see:
3½ grand to apply to be accredited. That's just to put the application in, no guarantee you'll be accepted.
4 grand for the application being accepted, then another 4 grand at yearly intervals.
To get accepted, you have to prove your business has access to 70 grand in working funds, or to demonstrate that you can get by (hah) with less.
An additional quarterly "variable fee" which looks like it's probably a couple of hundred dollars, at least for small businesses like mine. For non-small (which they define as 350,000+ domains under management, so at least I'd be unlikely ever to hit that) it triples.
And finally the small matter of 20 cents per registration or renewal. Note, that's *not* the wholesale price for a registration or renewal. None of this goes to the registry, this is all just to gain the right to sign up with domain registries to be a registrar! Registries have their own charges, which I haven't even found out what they are yet.
So, as usual, this is way way WAY out of my price range. I'll have to stick with using wholesalers for most suffixes and be satisfied with only being an actual registrar for a few suffixes like .uk, .uk.com and .uk.net which don't require ICANN's exorbitantly expensive permission.