GoDaddy Reseller Agreement 2026: Three Days Notice or You Pay Again

GoDaddy's Reseller Agreement is the longest document on its legal shelf that we have read - 289 substantive sentences - and it governs anyone selling GoDaddy domains, hosting or email under their own brand. We read it in full on 22 October 2026.

The clause most likely to cost a small Indian reseller money is three days. That is all the notice you get to stop an annual renewal, the obligation to give it is yours, and the renewal is charged at GoDaddy's rates on the day rather than the rate you signed up at.

The renewal clause in full: "You agree that you will be responsible for notifying us should you desire to terminate your use of the Reseller Program. Notification of your intent to terminate must be provided to us no later than three days prior to your billing date." And then: "In the absence of notification from you, we will automatically continue providing access to the Reseller Program indefinitely and will charge the Payment Method you have on file at our then current rates for the annual licensing fee."

Two words there deserve attention. "Indefinitely" sets no outer limit on the renewals. "Then current rates" means the price is whatever GoDaddy is charging on the billing date - which fits with a separate clause stating that all prices and fees "are subject to change from time to time, and at our sole discretion".

The sixty-day cliff is the one with no appeal in it. "We will be unable to reactivate a terminated Reseller account after sixty (60) or more calendar days." That is phrased as an inability rather than a policy choice, which leaves no obvious route back.

The refund clause is generous in its first sentence and narrow in its second. First: "If within thirty (30) days of the date you purchase a Reseller Program, you want to cancel your Reseller account for any reason, you are entitled to a full refund of the annual licensing fee only." "For any reason" is real - no cause is required.

Then: "You and your customers are not entitled to any refunds for any Services purchased and you will not receive any Commission Payments, if applicable." So a month of trading is not undone by the refund. Your customers' purchases stand and are not refundable through this route, and the commission you earned on them is not paid.

There is a related cost on the domain side. The agreement says GoDaddy "may charge your customer a small fee if the customer cancels a domain name registration within the five (5) day grace period and we refund the price of the domain name", and that the same may be charged to you. It also says no fee is charged where GoDaddy cancels a registration for fraud. The fee itself is not quantified in the document.

Breach forfeits everything, and the determination is GoDaddy's. "If we determine that you have breached any term of this Agreement, we may terminate this Agreement and you shall forfeit all Commissions earned." Not the commissions connected to the breach - all of them. And there is no second account: "If you open further reseller accounts with us, they will be cancelled and no commissions will be paid to you."

Chargebacks trigger a hold rather than a forfeiture. "Any earned Commissions may be placed on hold and not paid if, in our sole discretion, we receive an excessive number of chargebacks and/or refunds." "Excessive" is not defined anywhere in the document, and the judgement is explicitly GoDaddy's alone.

A trademark dispute is a third route. If GoDaddy determines, "in our sole discretion", that your use of its marks "constitutes a trademark infringement or dilution", it "may withhold Commission Payments until the issue is" resolved. That clause appears twice in the agreement, once in the turnkey section and once in the API section.

The API program is the one to read carefully. It is the only tier where GoDaddy states plainly that "We do not provide you with a turnkey Reseller site" - you sell from your own. It also carries an extra administrative duty that is easy to miss: "It is your responsibility to cancel your Prepaid Account should you decide to discontinue your API Reseller account." Closing one does not close the other.

The Super Reseller tier is the only one that lets you recruit. It provides a turnkey site "as well as" the right to "offer for sale Reseller Programs to your own Sub-Resellers (customers who purchase a Reseller Program from you)".

Several obligations apply across all four. You must display all registration and renewal prices on your website; you must state on your site that the registrar of record sends renewal notices; you may not alter, cancel or add a customer's account details without their express consent, and GoDaddy "may require that you provide evidence of such customer consent"; and "You may not do anything to give the impression to anyone that you are the registrar on record or an ICANN approved registrar." There is also an anti-bribery clause naming the UK Bribery Act 2010, and a confidentiality obligation that "shall last three (3) years after the termination of your Reseller Program".