Namecheap's current .com renewal price of $14.58 is broken down as:<p><pre><code> $0.18 ICANN fee
$8.97 Verisign's current registry fee
$5.43 Namecheap's markup
</code></pre>
Namecheap's new .com renewal price of $15.88 will be broken down as:<p><pre><code> $0.18 ICANN fee (no change)
$9.59 Verisign's new registry fee (7% increase)
$6.11 Namecheap's new markup (13% increase)
</code></pre>
So the price increase is not entirely "out of [Namecheap's] control". They are also increasing their markup.<p>Edit: fixed error in Namecheap's markup - thanks everyone for pointing that out!
How is this anything but rent seeking on the part of Verisign?<p>Edit: not surprised how this got regulatory approval... <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/09/website-domain-more-expensive-00023524" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/09/website-domain-more...</a>
The 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]<p>[1]: <a href="https://itp.cdn.icann.org/en/files/registry-agreements/com/com-fees-01-09-2023-en.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://itp.cdn.icann.org/en/files/registry-agreements/com/c...</a>
.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.
I'm ok if this leads to de-squatting.<p>I wish there was some kind of bulk price increase.<p>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<p>Hoarding domains for ransom shouldn't be a business model<p>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
Does 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.<p>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?
I have been a bit reluctant to complain too much about prices going up recently since in many ways it feels like a hopeless battle.<p>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?<p>Sure it's not much, but I would still like a justification as to why.<p>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
.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.<p>"yourname@domainxyz.com??"
Ted 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.<p>Would love your feedback on this early version of Spaceship.
What about CloudFlare's "at-cost pricing for registration and renewal," they don't make a profit? [1]<p>[1] <a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/products/registrar/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.cloudflare.com/products/registrar/</a>
Is there a TLD that has a reasonable chance to <i>stay</i> low cost?<p>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).<p>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).<p>I just heard that .tk allows free registration, so that seems promising, but I doubt it will last since there are real costs involved.<p>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!
How 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.
I 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.<p>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.<p>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.
The 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.
And just to support how much verisign business is racketeering based on their Monopoly, look at their financials:
<a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/VRSN/verisign/financial-statements" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/VRSN/verisign/fina...</a><p>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.<p>The biggest part is just pure revenue. And they try to increase that consistently without valid reason.
This is a great opportunity to migrate to registrars like Cloudflare or Porkbun.<p>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.
VeriSign'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.<p>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!
.com is not going anywhere.<p>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.<p>Continuous price increase is unwarranted.
I 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?
Canned 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).<p>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.
These increases are so frustrating. Verisign is making so much money basically selling you an idea with almost zero cost.<p>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.
How 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?
Pff! 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.
This is what capitalism is: intermediation, rent-seeking and creating a monopoly via a regulatory moat.<p>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).<p>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.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fQtxKmgJC8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fQtxKmgJC8</a>
For years Google Domain allowed buying and renewing all tld they supported in Turkey's TRY regardless of registrant nationality and card issuance country.<p>I just checked for .com and its TRY195, around $7.17. For .xyz its TRY75, around $2.7.<p>Too bad they're selling to Squarespace. I just renewed my .dev for TRY75 there few days ago. Everywhere else .dev is around $10.
$15.88 per .com is pretty <i>steep</i>, damn. Dynadot shows $10.99 per renewal.<p>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.
Cloudflare too (there isn't a public page with the changes): <a href="https://i.imgur.com/QHUIWSz.jpeg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://i.imgur.com/QHUIWSz.jpeg</a>
Isn't this a duplicate? <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37211462">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37211462</a>
Ironically, 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.
This 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...
I 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.
Doubling 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.
I 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.
tl;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.