How do I manage my clients' domains and hosting?
A domain portfolio grows quietly: 40 domains and 15 hosting accounts no longer fit in a spreadsheet on one person's laptop. What you need is an inventory with expiry dates, alerts and a clear rebilling rule.
Short answer
- Build one inventory: domain, owner, registrar, expiry date, hosting account, SSL certificate.
- Set renewal alerts at 60, 30 and 7 days before expiry.
- State in the contract who owns the domain: the agency or the client.
- Rebill the renewal cost with an agreed admin percentage on top.
- Keep registrar and hosting credentials in a password vault, with role-based access.
What the rules and the contract say
- For generic domains (.com, .net), ICANN provides a redemption window of about 30 days after expiry, with an extra fee.
- For .ro, RoTLD's published annual tariff is €12 plus VAT, and registrars typically retail it at €16–20 (roughly 90 RON); the grace period is the one in your registrar's contract.
- The healthy practice is for the client to be the domain owner, with the agency holding only administrative rights.
- Credentials and the registrar contact person are personal data — keep them in line with the GDPR (Regulation (EU) 2016/679).
- A renewal rebilled to the client is a service; it carries VAT only if the agency is VAT-registered (Law 227/2015).
Practical examples
- 40 .ro domains renewed yearly at roughly 90 RON each is 3,600 RON; rebilled with a 15% admin fee, they bring in an extra 540 RON a year.
- An SSL certificate that expires on a Friday evening costs three hours of emergency work and a client who calls before you do.
- A 120-domain portfolio with two missed expiries a year means a full working day lost to recovery.
What the domain inventory holds
| Field | What you fill in |
|---|---|
| Owner | The client or the agency, exactly as it appears at the registrar |
| Expiry | The exact date, with alerts at 60, 30 and 7 days |
| SSL certificate | The issuer and expiry date, tracked separately from the domain |
| Rebilling | The renewal cost plus the admin percentage |
Common mistakes
- Keeping the domains in a file on one person's laptop.
- Leaving the domain in the agency's name with nothing in the contract — then the client leaves.
- Auto-renewing without rebilling, so you pay the client's hosting out of your own margin.
- Tracking the domain but forgetting the SSL certificate, which expires on a different date.
How 4webagency helps
- Every client's domain and hosting portfolio in a single inventory.
- Expiry alerts for domains and SSL certificates, before the client calls you.
- Renewals rebilled to the client, with the admin percentage applied automatically.
- Honestly: we are not a registrar — registration and transfers stay with your registrar; we keep the records and the renewals.