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Upcoming .com and .xyz domain price increase
- nonoesp 3y agoWhat about CloudFlare's "at-cost pricing for registration and renewal," they don't make a profit? [1] [1] https://www.cloudflare.com/products/registrar/ https://www.cloudflare.com/products/registrar/
- nimish 3y agoNot off domain registration, clearly. It's a loss-leader and gets you in their product. Significantly cheaper than any of the "low cost" registrars I've seen for `.net` and I already used them for DNS anyway.
- Kwpolska 3y agoTheir prices are going to increase too (by $0.62 if my math is right).
- squokko 3y agoI wouldn't want my domain to be a marketing expenditure for a tech giant. Then you get a Google Domains style shitshow.
- benabbottnz 3y agoIs Cloudflare known for constantly starting up and shutting down products left, right, and centre though?
- garganzol 3y agoI find things like this to be a shady business practice. Not antitrust level shady, but still. For customers it's a win, but it kills competition long-term, turning the mid-term wins into a long-term loss.
- bsimpson 3y agohow hard is it to transfer? i was part of the godaddy > namecheap exodus, and it was such a pain in the ass that i never wanted to touch it again.
- WhereIsTheTruth 3y agothe rent economy is the economy of the dead!
- petecooper 3y agoPorkbun pricing: .com (9.73USD): https://porkbun.com/tld/com https://porkbun.com/tld/com .xyz (9.92USD): https://porkbun.com/tld/xyz https://porkbun.com/tld/xyz
- verst 3y agoFor now - but surely they too will increase as part of this. What are the rates after the increase which will impact every registry?
- judge2020 3y agoEvery registrar* Registry is like verisign owning .com Registrar is all of the people who sell you .com domains, by having a contract with the registry.
- verst 3y agoFunnily I even looked up this distinction before writing because I very much know of the difference (see my comment history) but wrote exactly the wrong one. Oh well. Yes I meant registrar, not the TLD registry.
- BXlnt2EachOther 3y agoCloudflare upcoming price changes -- yes, they like other registrars will be affected. The announcement page might be behind a login, couldn't seem to link it directly .com $9.15 -> $9.77 .xyz $9.33 -> $10.18 .org $10.11 (today's price... not affected?) .net $10.10 (today's price... not affected?)
- lxe 3y agoWow. What is porkbun and how is it so much cheaper? Is this worth transferring over?
- shiftpgdn 3y agoDomains are a loss leader product for everyone in the internet/hosting industry. Porkbun’s goal is to get you to buy secondary products.
- dwighttk 3y ago“Ahhh! My paycheck isn’t keeping up with inflation!” “How dare they do this!”
- CameronNemo 3y agoHow is this anything but rent seeking on the part of Verisign? Edit: not surprised how this got regulatory approval... https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/09/website-domain-more-expensive-00023524 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/09/website-domain-more...
- dismalpedigree 3y agoAlso rent seeking by namecheap. But agreed. It’s parasitic.
- ksec 3y ago>Also rent seeking by namecheap What has it got to do with namecheap when they dont own the registry of .COM or .XYZ?
- MuffinFlavored 3y agoI'm not saying they are doing anything right or wrong but they are probably a profitable company who could have theoretically spared to absorb some (or all) of it without passing it through to their customers Instead, they are passing it on 100%.
- Vanclief 3y agoWhy should namecheap subsidize the cost? That makes 0 sense and I say it as a namecheap customer. I don't see how its fair for them to cover the cost and I don't want them to do so because I am a happy customer and don't want them to go out of business or lower their product quality.
- MuffinFlavored 3y ago> Why should namecheap subsidize the cost Why are they entitled to have their profit margins protected no matter what? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage-price_spiral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage-price_spiral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation Certain businesses get made obsolete over time. Namecheap decided to pass along 100% of the cost, what if their competitor passes along 50%?
- benguild 3y agothe .xyz guy be printing money
- chomp 3y ago9% for Namecheap, maybe. Verisign is only allowed to raise prices 7% per year at the moment.
- leptons 3y agoI wish I got a 7% raise per year to afford the increase in domain prices.
- skilled 3y ago$15.88 per .com is pretty steep, damn. Dynadot shows $10.99 per renewal. How legitimate is the Namecheap claim about "its out of our control" part? I have a number of domains with Namecheap, enough to be an annoyance to transfer them all but that number seems excessively high.
- aodin 3y agoPorkbun has an excellent price comparison page for .com: https://porkbun.com/tld/com https://porkbun.com/tld/com They're still at $9.73 for both registration and renewal.
- bjord 3y agoIt's worth going directly to the source of Porkbun's data, especially if you're trying to broadly compare domain prices: https://tld-list.com https://tld-list.com
- barryrandall 3y agoThe upstream cost increase is 7% (the maximum allowed by Verisign's contract). Verisign is allowed to increase .com prices by up to 7% next year, and likely will.
- SoftTalker 3y agoIt's $5 over a year. If that's a meaningful amount of money you probably have no business owning domain names. Namecheap has always been good for me in terms of service and reliability. I only own a few domains but if $15/year was unaffordable I think I'd just let them expire.
- rewmie 3y ago> It's $5 over a year. If that's a meaningful amount of money you probably have no business owning domain names. I don't think you have a say on what others do with their money, or what could have possibly led you to believe you had. I've bought domains for my employer before. Domain name pricing was absolutely a factor in the decision-making process. Only a moron pays $20 for something they could pay $10 instead.
- swozey 3y ago.xyz was a terrible TLD. I used it a few years ago and giving people my email address was so annoying. Even some logins didn't accept it. No benefits whatsoever. "yourname@domainxyz.com??"
- CameronNemo 3y agoOh but if you don't like .com name prices you can always buy a .biz name! /s
- jimmySixDOF 3y agoI have a .live domain I am afraid to advertise for the same reason. But nowadays .xyz has become popular with anyone involved with 3D and it was good value. I swapped everything to Cloudflare as Registrar following advice on HN and their policy not to raise the rates but not much you can do about this kind of thing.
- swozey 3y agoI use .dev now. It's not much better tbh. I usually have to spell .dev "like developer," but I think people get it a lot more quickly than they did xyz. It's been awhile since I've had to say it to anyone though.
- stOneskull 3y agobe a .guru
- tomschlick 3y agoCloudFlare is only increasing from $9.15 to $9.77
- politelemon 3y agoHow are Cloudflare and Porkbun keeping the cost still 'low', isn't everyone affected by Verisign's increases?
- patmcc 3y agoCloudflare wants you on their platform so they can sell you everything else - it's a loss leader. Porkbun I don't know. Namecheap, I think domains are their primary business - they need to make money on them.
- Someone1234 3y agoCan I say something stupid but maybe true: Do you want to be on a domain registrar for whom registration is a loss-leader or their core business? Like, I like cheaper too, but even just in the last few years I can think of a few "loss-leader" registrars who decided they no longer wanted that division operating at a loss and scrapped it. Google Domains being the most popular example[0], but Gandi[1] is another where they operated at a loss then got acquired with huge price increases. Disclosure: I'm on NameCheap and AWS's Route53. I've seen way too many NameCheap alternatives come & go or turn "evil." If NameCheap starts being sketchy or misleading, I'll move, but that hasn't happened yet. I want a rock solid registrar for tens of years, with a business strategy that supports that, rather than saving $4/year. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Domains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Domains [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandi#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandi#History
- patmcc 3y agoYep, I'm still on NameCheap, for all the same reasons. They're not the cheapest any longer, but I've also never had an issues with them. And I like knowing that they're making a profit on me - keeps them likely to continue doing what they're doing.
- 9g3890fj2 3y ago.XYZ domains were already too difficult to use for anything other than a regular site since they have such a bad reputation (however warranted it may be) as being used for spam. Not sure what the point is in paying even more for a TLD that's discriminated against by default.
- echelon 3y ago.xyz is one of the most popular TLDs for crypto and web3, but it has a horrible email spam reputation and some gateways blacklist the entire TLD. With the exception of a16z, VCs aren't funding these businesses much anymore, either. https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/28/wtf-is-xyz/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/28/wtf-is-xyz/ The biggest user might be block.xyz. .io, .co, and .ai are still the most popular alternative TLDs for startups.
- stOneskull 3y ago> .io, .co, and .ai are still the most popular alternative TLDs for startups. is there a good link for this ranking? i'm curious as to 4th place and below too. what position does .app or .tech or .cloud come, etc.
- tepmoc 3y agoyou can lookup domain count for TLDs here https://deployment.rdap.org/ https://deployment.rdap.org/ (sorting works)
- poyu 3y agoI've been using .xyz as my primary email address. Everything from banking to shopping, to governmental stuff. The number of sites that gave me problems is probably less than 10 that I can remember. I have around 700 accounts in my password manager so go figure.
- 9g3890fj2 3y agoIt's not the receiving that's the problem, but the sending. Even with all necessary records in place and using a reputable email provider isn't enough in a lot of cases. You'll just end up in spam.
- Sytten 3y agoI just increased mine to the max of 10 years, I guess I should have done that anyway just for security. What happens though if namecheap goes out of business during that?
- bjord 3y agoYou can transfer it elsewhere at any point and you'll still get credit for the years you've paid for (though the receiving registrar will likely make you buy at least one additional year).
- pests 3y agoNamecheap can hand over their records to another registar before they go out of business or ICANN can step in after the fact and give their domains to another registar to manage. The new registar would likely reach out to introduce themselves.
- dathinab 3y agoAdditionally there is a good chance that a different registrar would buy it up to acquire the customers and then transfer them to their system, etc.
- fckgw 3y agoThis happened several years ago with a registrar I had at my domains at called RegisterFly. Upper management fraud and fighting led to the company spiraling, ICANN accreditation getting canceled and the site shutting down. ICANN transferred all ownership over to GoDaddy at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RegisterFly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RegisterFly
- scblzn 3y ago"What happens though if namecheap goes out of business during that?" .COM agreement between registrars and ICANN requires registrars to regularily store all registrant contact infos in IronMountain and set ICANN as escrow, therefore allowing ICANN to contact all registrants should a registrar fold and allow them to transfer to another registrar. Another reason to keep the domain ownership informations up-to-date. [1] [1]: https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/rde-agreement-09nov07-en.pdf https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/rde-agreement-09...
- scblzn 3y agoThe ICANN wholesale prices to registrars, from 1st of September are $9.59 per domain (+ $0.18 ICANN fee per domain) for registrations and renewals [1] [1]: https://itp.cdn.icann.org/en/files/registry-agreements/com/com-fees-01-09-2023-en.pdf https://itp.cdn.icann.org/en/files/registry-agreements/com/c...
- xd1936 3y agoAnd as long as you don't need custom nameservers, Cloudflare's Domain Registrar sells domains at that price. https://www.cloudflare.com/products/registrar/ https://www.cloudflare.com/products/registrar/
- adventured 3y agoI have had a good experience with Cloudflare's registry service over the last couple of years. I have taken to gradually pushing my registrations out as far as they can go. I just occasionally add years onto domains I buy, so as to lock in the $9 price for that term. Seems like an excellent way to avoid inflationary price increases, or general pricing creep.
- hnarn 3y ago> as long as you don't need custom nameservers Are you saying that it's not possible to use your own nameservers for domains purchased through Cloudflare?
- e12e 3y agohttps://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/zone-setups/zone-transfers/cloudflare-as-secondary/ https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/zone-setups/zone-trans... Kinda, but enterprise only? There's also vanity DNS for business and enterprise plans - but AFAIU that's basically just slapping another name on cloudflare DNS - not ability to point ns records to non-cf servers? https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/additional-options/custom-nameservers/ https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/additional-options/cus...
- petecooper 3y agoPorkbun pricing: .com (9.73USD): https://porkbun.com/tld/com https://porkbun.com/tld/com .xyz (9.92USD): https://porkbun.com/tld/xyz https://porkbun.com/tld/xyz
- dpkirchner 3y agoThat phrasing is hilarious. "If you want to take advantage of our higher price..."
- hiatus 3y agoIt appears to read, "If you want to take advantage of the current price tag," which seems to suggest locking in the current price before the increase. Not sure what you mean.
- dpkirchner 3y agoRight you are. I should not have been posting comments that early.
- HumblyTossed 3y agoGood thing I paid Google (ugh Squarespace) rent on my domain for a few years up front.
- deltalima25 3y agoPorkbun's pricing is incredibly keen (almost at cost) for those TLDs. What is their business model?
- brianbreslin 3y agoA lot of them including porkbun make money on add-ons, like $40/year for an email account that likely costs them $3 to service.
- sitzkrieg 3y agocouldnt really tell you but i switched from namecheap to porkbun and recommend it. better prices, better site (and the only non stupid bulk editor ive seen on a frontend), better support and supporting a small company
- tpmx 3y agotl;dr: NameCheap is now NameExpensive. I'm a long-time customer of theirs and I was surprised at the price differences compared to the newer competitors.
- doublerabbit 3y agoWhat's the reason for the price increases anyway? New root servers?
- azinman2 3y agoInflation something something
- rabuse 3y agoThey'll just blame COVID, like everyone.
- toast0 3y agoRoot server costs should come out of the ICANN fee, which I believe is $0.18/domain year for all domains that aren't in a ccTLD. Running the TLD servers for .com is likely more challenging than running the root servers; the .com zone is tons bigger, changes more often, and is clearly a commercial endeavor as opposed to the root servers which is collaborative in scope.
- cobrabyte 3y agoDamn, I need to start shopping for a new registrar.
- TechBro8615 3y agoWhy? The price increase is not limited to Namecheap, as stated in the article: > All .COM domain renewals will see an approximate 9% increase. This price increase will happen across registrars, not just Namecheap You can shop for a new registrar but you'll be paying more for .com domains regardless of which one you choose.
- nonoesp 3y agoHow reliable is Porkbun?
- topicseed 3y agoVery!
- hysan 3y agoHow do other registrars compare with Namecheap? I've been using them for a long time and haven't had any problems with their services, so I stopped keeping track of how the industry has evolved.
- mplewis 3y agoPorkbun has provided me better service at an extremely competitive price.
- kyrra 3y agoI just moved all my domains there. Porkbun's UI is fast and simple, I love it.
- MerelyMortal 3y agoI like/use Dynadot: cheap, free privacy, and they pass on the ability to domain taste (get refunds within 72 hours).
- stavros 3y agoI use Cloudflare, they rent their domains at cost, and provide privacy by default.
- ntac 3y agoI can't say how they compare, but I've had no complaints with Domain Monger in 20+ years.
- kristopolous 3y agoI'm ok if this leads to de-squatting. I wish there was some kind of bulk price increase. I know all the issues but if you own 1,000 domains you're just sitting on, that 1,001th you're trying to snatch should be more expensive Hoarding domains for ransom shouldn't be a business model I guess another model is you could regulate the transfer and selling of domains to a certain cap. If the most you can legally get is say $5000, then people wouldn't collect and squat in such giant volumes
- geniusmind 3y ago[flagged]
- autoexec 3y ago> I'm ok if this leads to de-squatting. It wont. If anything it'll just consolidate the squatted domains into fewer hands. Progressively increasing prices for each domain purchased seems pretty reasonable, but unless it raises very quickly it'll still end up being worth it to a wealthy few. Combining those raising prices with capping the resell price of domains seems like it would actually work! Someone somewhere might find it worth it to buy their 600th domain at a huge price, but if they can only sell that domain for a small fraction of what they paid for it they'll lose money if they aren't planning to use it themselves.
- kristopolous 3y agoThere's a balance I'm trying to strike. If you're sitting on say, news.com then I get it, that's a good asset to have. It's those other groups that throw combinatoric dictionaries at the registrars that force the latest round of startups to have a bunch of letters smashed together for a name, they're the problem. I've got half a mind to just go with katakana for my next company, register a domain like ツイッター.com and just say "well, there's 46 characters. You can memorize it in like 2 weeks. Not my problem!"
- Spivak 3y ago> It wont. If anything it'll just consolidate the squatted domains into fewer hands. This is actually great if your end is to get rid of squatting, consolidate the market into a number of throats that's feasible to choke and then do it via regulation.
- jusoren 3y agoFor years Google Domain allowed buying and renewing all tld they supported in Turkey's TRY regardless of registrant nationality and card issuance country. I just checked for .com and its TRY195, around $7.17. For .xyz its TRY75, around $2.7. Too bad they're selling to Squarespace. I just renewed my .dev for TRY75 there few days ago. Everywhere else .dev is around $10.
- andersrs 3y agoDoubling the price seems reasonable to reduce squatting. $20 or $30 would be nothing to anyone starting a project but a much higher cost for someone squatting on thousands of domains.
- jmyeet 3y agoThis is what capitalism is: intermediation, rent-seeking and creating a monopoly via a regulatory moat. Some time ago I watched this excellent video on the history of Tetris [1]. The only "innovation" of capitalism in this entire story are layers of licensing agreements. Again: intermediation, rent-seeking and regulatory moats (through intellectual property). A domain is nothing more than a digital record. The cost of providing that service is essentially zero. The cost should be pretty much zero. You'd have to do something about squatting but, hey, that's already an unaddressed problem. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fQtxKmgJC8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fQtxKmgJC8
- shiftpgdn 3y agoThe people on here complaining about a $1/year price increase while earning $400,000/year as a software engineer never fail to make me laugh.
- Sohcahtoa82 3y agoI was thinking basically the same thing. The cost of a domain for a year is still less than a lunch at Five Guys. Even when I was working at Subway for $10/hr, I wouldn't sweat a $1/year raise on my domain price.
- Ekaros 3y ago7-9% increase doesn't really seem the biggest problem with .com domains. I think there is lot to fix before that. And I'm not entirely even sure if it could be run too much cheaper. And by whom and what process.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- durpleDrank 3y agoI wanted to share my experience with Namecheap over the years. I made the switch from GoDaddy to Namecheap back in the day when they launched a notable campaign against elephant poaching around 2009. At that time, Namecheap seemed like a solid choice, even if it meant paying around $100 annually. However, times have changed, and my opinion has shifted. Lately, I've noticed that shared hosting with Namecheap has lost its edge. The performance has taken a hit, making it hard to justify the cost. Notably, the speed has slowed down significantly, and there are certain limitations on access that were not there before. Unfortunately, the support, which used to be a strong point, has also declined. As a result, I'm currently in the process of migrating most of my content away from Namecheap. I'm on the lookout for an alternative hosting provider that offers a robust and affordable package without compromising on speed. If any of you have recommendations for a hosting service that strikes that balance between quality and affordability, I'd love to hear about it.
- marvinblum 3y agoHetzner
- kwanbix 3y agoYou are mixing domain registration with shared hosting. Did you ever have a problem with domain registration?
- codegeek 3y agoI don't quite like it but namecheap has one of the best customer support and just for that, I don't mind paying the extra. It is price of 1 or 2 starbucks coffee anyway.
- BeFlatXIII 3y agoIsn't this a duplicate? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37211462 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37211462
- dang 3y agoIt is, but since that submission is just an image link, and this one has the source it points to, we'll merge the comments hither. Thanks!
- frankjr 3y agoCloudflare too (there isn't a public page with the changes): https://i.imgur.com/QHUIWSz.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/QHUIWSz.jpeg
- tiku 3y agoThose database records are getting expensive. Guess I got to charge my clients more as well.
- nnurmanov 3y agoIt is almost impossible to find nice .com domains, most of them are either being used or resold. So I don’t see any impact.
- pcdoodle 3y agoI kinda want to switch. Namecheap started playing into politics which is a very bad move for an internet infrastructure company.
- ted0 3y agoWhat are you talking about specifically? Namecheap has always been vocal and active with advocating for issues like net neutrality and SOPA.
- water9 3y agoHow would someone go about registering domains on their own? Why do I have to go through like GoDaddy where every year it seems to exponentially increase in price? Does anybody have information on how to cut out the middleman?
- AnthonyMouse 3y agoVerisign has a monopoly on .com domains and everyone else is effectively a reseller. When they raise the price, so does everyone else. There are other top level domains and some of them are cheaper.
- kube-system 3y agoThe public Domain Name System that we typically think of as "the public internet" is a hierarchy which is ultimately managed by ICANN. ICANN delegates management of various TLDs to various registries, (for example, .com is managed by Verisign). In order to register a domain with a registry, you must be a registar that is officially accredited by a registry. GoDaddy is one of these , but there are many other alternatives. Starting your own registrar is not impossible, but it is also not a way to save money: https://www.verisign.com/en_US/channel-resources/become-a-registrar/index.xhtml https://www.verisign.com/en_US/channel-resources/become-a-re... If you want to be included in ICANN's global DNS system, you really have no choice other than to play by the rules that ICANN sets. If you don't want to pay registration fees, but you'd like to participate in the internet, your best alternative is to ask your users to connect via your IP address.
- water9 3y agoGreat info, much appreciated.
- nektro 3y ago[flagged]
- jl6 3y agoDoes ICANN have a position on whether domain name prices should be high (e.g. to discourage squatting), or low (e.g. to avoid being a rent/tax)? Because the price seems entirely driven by whatever ICANN wants it to be (by virtue of assigning the monopoly to Verisign, with an ICANN-defined cap on price rises), rather than any market mechanism. For example, if a startup approaches ICANN saying they can manage the .com registry while charging only $1 per domain per year, is that attractive to ICANN?
- mikea1 3y agoI think ICANN would not entertain a startup taking over registry operations for .com or .net. ICANN recently defended their no-bid contract renewal for .net with Verisign: > If ICANN were to put every TLD out for bid every renewal cycle to give it to the lowest bidder there would be no incentive for registry operators to invest in long-term stability and growth of the TLD(s) they operate. https://domainnamewire.com/2023/08/16/icann-says-putting-tlds-out-to-bid-is-against-internet-users/ https://domainnamewire.com/2023/08/16/icann-says-putting-tld... I find it odd that "growth" is a justification. I was unaware that ICANN has a mandate to promote growth of specific TLDs. These justifications, especially of "stability", make more sense to me in the context of the root DNS server that Verisign operates. Verisign would not agree to run a critical part of DNS infrastructure without a big TLD contract. I'm certain that maintaining and running those DNS servers with 100% uptime is an engineering accomplishment and its stability requires safe hands.
- CharlesW 3y agoThis is a great opportunity to migrate to registrars like Cloudflare or Porkbun. I bought a great domain name from Namecheap, after which they voided the purchase and made it a $1,500 premium domain. I recommend avoiding them.
- nocoiner 3y agoI used to hear the best things about namecheap like a decade ago, and have been using them since then, but I’ve heard too many horror stories since then. This comment tipped me over the edge. Porkbun officially has a new customer now.
- stOneskull 3y agoporkbun has been a breath of fresh air. i love their copy and images. and their specials. i just got a .gay domain for $2. it is the first name of a friend of mine. best-value prank ever. (nothing homophobic, just a little fun).
- garganzol 3y agoDoes anybody still use GoDaddy? (I do for some older domains, but I'm thinking to totally migrate to something else)
- DonnyV 3y agoI think this is because of Google Domains going away. They could afford to sell domains pretty cheaply so they were the price setter in the industry. Now that they're going away. I bet everyone is going to start raising prices.
- donmcronald 3y agoNo. They’re contractually allowed to raise prices by 7% for a 4 year period. 2020 = 7.85 2021 = 7.85 x 1.07 = 8.39 2022 = 8.39 x 1.07 = 8.97 2023 = 8.97 x 1.07 = 9.59 2024 = 9.59 x 1.07 = 10.26
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nerdjon 3y agoI have been a bit reluctant to complain too much about prices going up recently since in many ways it feels like a hopeless battle. But in this particular case, I don't quite understand why Verisign needs to increase the cost of this. I can't imagine the infrastructure costs are really that high for this. So I am really curious where this extra money is really going? Sure it's not much, but I would still like a justification as to why. I am also curious that I can't find any information about AWS increasing their cost for .com domains. They are still sitting at $13 for both .com and .xyz
- sigio 3y agoThey dont _NEED_ to raise their pricing, but the contract they have with ICANN states they _MAY_ raise their prices with a fixed percentage, which means as much that they WILL raise their prices with this percentage every year. It's not like you are going to migrate your domains to a different TLD.
- McDyver 3y agoEasyDNS pricing - over 11% increase, from $17 to $19.
- iambateman 3y agoIronically, rent seeking by the registrars reduces rent seeking by speculators, so more domains remain available for the people who want to use actually use them.
- ajonit 3y ago.com is not going anywhere. Verisign sits on gold with the most popular TLD on the planet. Any registry, if offered a chance, will takeover .com in a heartbeat at any price. Continuous price increase is unwarranted.
- p1mrx 3y agoIt seems you're describing exactly why the price increase is warranted.
- CameronNemo 3y agoNo, he is describing a situation where a single company has monopolized the stewardship of a common resource, and the government has not sought out alternative bids despite that being best practice.
- schemescape 3y agoIs there a TLD that has a reasonable chance to stay low cost? I just want a domain for hobby projects and I don’t really care which TLD as long as it’s short, but I don’t like having to guess which TLDs are trying to lure people with low prices, only to suddenly raise prices in the future (I’ve seen this happen a few times). I’d also like to use a TLD that is unlikely to be bought by private equity (I vaguely recall this being attempted with a popular TLD; edit: it was .org, but the purchase got blocked after an outcry). I just heard that .tk allows free registration, so that seems promising, but I doubt it will last since there are real costs involved. For now, I’m sticking with .com because it’s the most popular and I’m hoping that, as such, price hikes will cause enough outrage to be addressed eventually, but I’m hoping there’s a better option!
- donmcronald 3y agoI would say .com, .net, and .ca if you happen to live in Canada. > I’d also like to use a TLD that is unlikely to be bought by private equity (I vaguely recall this being attempted with a popular TLD). That was Ethos Capital and .org IIRC. They’ve managed to acquire two major registry operators [1]. A huge number of the new gTLDs are under that umbrella. The new gTLDs are a great idea, but (IMO) the poor management and greed that comes along with private equity makes them too risky to use. 1. https://ethoscapital.com/portfolio/ https://ethoscapital.com/portfolio/
- schemescape 3y agoThanks! Why .net? It seems to be owned by Verisign but isn’t as critical as .com, so probably more likely to be exploited.
- donmcronald 3y agoI don’t know this for sure without looking it up, but I include .net because I think .net and .com are both using a legacy registry agreement. Everything else uses a new agreement that has fewer protections for registrants. For example, there are no price caps on the new gTLDs IIRC.
- agwa 3y agoNamecheap's current .com renewal price of $14.58 is broken down as: $0.18 ICANN fee $8.97 Verisign's current registry fee $5.43 Namecheap's markup Namecheap's new .com renewal price of $15.88 will be broken down as: $0.18 ICANN fee (no change) $9.59 Verisign's new registry fee (7% increase) $6.11 Namecheap's new markup (13% increase) So the price increase is not entirely "out of [Namecheap's] control". They are also increasing their markup. Edit: fixed error in Namecheap's markup - thanks everyone for pointing that out!
- inspector-g 3y agoHere to point out (friendly) a typo - their markup is 13% higher now
- smnrchrds 3y ago$5.43 -> $6.11 is 12.5% increase, not 1.13%.
- echelon 3y agoNamecheap should use some of this new revenue to fix their UI. Owning more than 10 domains on Namecheap is a burden. Trying to manage more than 50 is an outright headache [1]. I'm nearly to the point where I'm going to transfer all of my domains just to escape the poor management console. I've been giving them this same complaint for awhile [2]. I'm no fan of Godaddy [3], but they really did a good job with bulk management and organization. Any recommendations for alternative registrars on the dimensions of price, security, TLD support, DNS, and bulk operation / organization features? [1] I'm not a squatter. I own typos and alternative TLDs of my primary product domains, and I operate lots of websites for various side projects. [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29406698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29406698 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32470260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32470260
- mort96 3y agoI literally moved away from Namecheap when they did a UI redesign many years ago. Their old control panel was ugly but functional. Their new one looked much more "modern", but was way less information dense, and they introduced jank and made stuff take more clicks and hid stuff behind collapsed-by-default menus iirc. They also made their billing details UI no longer accept the letter "ø". The billing details UI which made clear the importance of making sure the name you enter matches the name on the card. And the name on my card happens to contain an "ø". That doesn't exactly instil confidence.
- bennyp101 3y agoIs this not a sign that letsencrypt has taken away their golden goose?
- ted0 3y agoTed from Namecheap here. We have launched a new beta registrar, Spaceship.com, which has wholesale pricing on most extensions. A reminder that wholesale pricing is set by each TLD’s registry, not us. Would love your feedback on this early version of Spaceship.
- geetee 3y agoIf I'm leaving Namecheap, I'm leaving Namecheap.
- ted0 3y agoWell fair but I welcome you to at least check it out! It’s an entirely new codebase and platform.
- hnarn 3y agospaceship.com has a "sale" on .com domains, $7.88 now and $8.80 list price. since both of those are lower than the current fee of $9.15, how is anyone expected to trust that the price will not increase in the future if you're selling them at a loss?
- ted0 3y agoWe are committed to having competitive pricing at Spaceship for the long term. If you’re concerned, you can also lock in current pricing with multi-year registration. Fwiw, you could say the same about anyone else in the market. Wholesale pricing is controlled by the registry, retail pricing can be updated by the registrar at any time.
- ShadowBanThis01 3y agoNo. You're creating a pain in the ass for Namecheap customers. Your only chance of keeping my business (and probably that of other pissed-off customers) is to give us a one-click way to migrate all of our domains to your new "less of a rip-off" brand. I'm not about to reward a company that WASTES MY TIME by shuffling my business between THEIR brands. I will make damned sure that my next registrar has nothing to do with Namecheap.
- nikolay 3y agoVeriSign's monopoly should be ended but won't until big changes happen with the ICANN mafia. Cloudflare and Namebright offer at-cost pricing. How can they afford it and Namecheap (which should rebrand to Namescam) are marking up so much? You always make profit from addon services, not from domain registrations. Be aware of the poor security of Namecheap. 2 years ago I was able to persuade their support via chat to remove the 2FA without providing any info! I didn't even try that hard!
- ShadowBanThis01 3y agoCanned TLDs should have been abolished years ago. Domain names should be able to end in any string, period (except the ones that are actually enforced, like gov and edu). I'm sure many of us were excited when ICANN announced years ago that they were allowing free-form TLDs... but then (per usual ICANN) it turned out to be a massive money-making scam for ICANN.
- danjoredd 3y agoThis makes me glad that I paid for the whole 10 years for my domain. Yikes. Makes me wonder what prices will be like in 2032 when I have to pay up again...
- jklinger410 3y agoThe entire internet is built on a capitalist ponzi scheme.
- qingcharles 3y agoPff! I remember when .com domains were free! I owned several. Then they upped it from free to $100. And I dropped pretty much all but one as I was a starving student. I owned home.com at one point.
- greatgib 3y agoThese increases are so frustrating. Verisign is making so much money basically selling you an idea with almost zero cost. I'm surprised that there wasn't an internet revolution about that. But probably the bad apple/corrupted part here is the ICANN that let it go. We got some proof of that with the .org case.
- greatgib 3y agoAnd just to support how much verisign business is racketeering based on their Monopoly, look at their financials: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/VRSN/verisign/financial-statements https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/VRSN/verisign/fina... They have stable negligible costs. R&d is just symbolic. Their biggest costs are administration fees that we can probably explain by their executives paying themselves q lot more than what their deserve. The biggest part is just pure revenue. And they try to increase that consistently without valid reason.
- rasz 3y agoComputers got slower, more expensive and more power hungry thus Namecheap costs went up.