Subscriber
Who pays for a domain, and how that passes from one owner to another
A domain may have several owners, but only one of them pays for it: its subscriber. The domain’s limits are those of the subscriber’s service plan, and of nobody else’s.
Becoming a subscriber
There are exactly two ways:
- by creating a domain — you’re its only owner, so you’re its subscriber too;
- by taking over the subscription of a domain you already own (see below).
Being added as an owner of an existing domain doesn’t make you its subscriber: the domain is someone else’s, and is already paid for. Paying for a domain is always something you agree to.
The first time you become a subscriber, you get a trial. Every time, the number of domains you pay for is checked against your plan’s limit: at the limit, both creating a domain and taking one over are refused.
The domain’s page tells who pays for it, and whether their plan covers it.
Taking a subscription over
Which of the buttons among the domain’s management buttons you get depends on whether the domain is covered:
- Take subscription over — when nobody pays for the domain, or the subscriber’s plan no longer covers it, you take it over at once.
- Ask to take subscription over — while the subscriber’s plan covers the domain, it takes their consent. They see your request, with Hand it over and Decline buttons, on the domain’s page, and the domain list flags the domain for them. Until they answer, you can Withdraw the request.
Once the subscription is yours, a suspension the domain was under because nothing covered it is lifted, provided your plan covers the domain.
Protection of the subscriber
While a plan covers the domain, its subscriber is the only one who can end that. Nobody else may:
- remove the Owner role from the subscriber, or
- delete the domain.
Both refusals lift the moment the plan stops covering the domain — it lapsed, was cancelled, or its plan is no longer offered — and so does the need for consent to take the subscription over. Being over the page view limit isn’t such a moment: the plan is paid and running, and a bigger plan is what fixes that.
Giving a subscription up
Give up subscription, among the domain’s management buttons, is how you stop paying for a domain. The domain is then not covered by anything: it enters the grace period, and is suspended after it, unless another owner takes its subscription over, which they can then do without asking.
The same happens when you stop owning a domain you pay for, and to every domain you pay for when you delete your account: the confirmation lists them.
Nobody is made subscriber in your place by default: the domain stays uncovered until one of its owners takes its subscription over.
Which domains a smaller plan covers
When your plan shrinks under the number of domains you already pay for — after a downgrade, or a change to the plan’s limits — the domains you became subscriber of first keep being covered, and the ones you took on last stop being covered. A website that has been running for months isn’t the one that goes.
Those domains then go the way of any uncovered domain: a grace period, then suspension, and any of their other owners can take their subscription over. You choose which ones to let go by giving their subscriptions up before the change takes effect; moving back up to a larger plan covers them again.