Gateway Passthrough
DNS GatewayIf a Domain Registrar or Reseller is already accredited and has an account on any of the supported registries listed, that service can still be accessed and the domains can be managed directly through Gateway using Passthrough for a small per transaction fee. Setup costs for Passthrough are free.
The major benefit of Passthrough is a single endpoint for a domain portfolio in terms of codebase and administration.
There are currently a few ZACR, Verisign, Donuts and Registry Africa accredited Registrars making use of Passthrough on Gateway including ICANN Accredited Registrars.
Passthrough Setup
You provide your ZACR, Verisign or Donuts, etc, credentials and the DNS Team will link your Gateway profile. The domains will then be synchronised between the remote registry and the Gateway platform. You can then manage these domains directly with our online domain mangement tool Web-Rar in the Gateway Portal, WHMCS module, JSON Api or EPP xml using your Gateway account.
Passthrough Costs
There is a Passthrough fee ($0.25) for any transaction taking place through Gateway. It is important to note that you will be billed separately for any Passthrough transactions in Gateway.
For example, if you renew or create a domain for one year, for e.g. domain.africa, with your Gateway Account, you will be billed as follows:
Multi-Year Transactions
Should a multi-year create or renewal transaction take place then you will be billed for a Passthrough Fee multiplied by the number of years in the multi-year transaction. For example, a 5 year create will be billed 5 x Gateway passthrough fee + 5 x Registry Fee.
Account Balances
For Passthrough to work seamlessly you will need to maintain at least two or more balances. Balances with each Registry you are currently integrated with and the balance for your Gateway Account.
You will continue receiving your billing invoices and statements from each Registry independently. These transactions are typical domain transactions like creates, renewals, transfers, redemptions, etc. If your balance is insufficient at a Registry, no transactions will be possible via Gateway for any domains with that Registry.
Billing invoices and statements will be available in your Gateway Account for all Passthrough transactions as well as domain transactions for any ccTLDs and gTLDs not integrated with.
The illustration above indicates the connection via Gateway to any remote registry we are integrated with. Use your existing accreditation with Verisign or ZACR (username and password) to manage your domain portfolio. We have existing ICANN Accredited Registrars making use of our Passthrough service on DNS Gateway.
Passthrough Terms and Conditions
These are specifically covered in the Gateway Standard Terms and Conditions in clauses 6 and 7. Special note should be taken of clause 9.2 which states: "Transactions via Interface. The Customer may only effect Transactions via the Gateway Interface and is specifically prohibited from effecting or attempting to effect Transactions directly with the Registry Operator for the specific Namespace."
It is important to note that we can track domain renewals and creates done on the remote registries which were not performed via the Gateway platform. Should we find users in transgression we can terminate the passthrough service and user account on Gateway.
To view the Gateway Standard Terms and Conditions, visit the Gateway Integration page in https://portal.gateway.africa and view the 'User Agreement' entry in the "Namespace Activation" subsection.
Watch our YouTube video on Gateway Passthrough:
