Andrew Allemann broke the news that Verisign will be permitted to raise the price of .com domain name registrations in the future. As Andrew wrote, “The deal will allow Verisign to negotiate with ICANN to raise the price of .com by 7% in each of the last four years of each six-year .com contract.”
For people with large domain name portfolios, this could become a substantial hit as prices for renewals and registrations continue to rise. Some people, especially those with smaller portfolios, don’t really care and the price increases will have a negligible impact on their business. Others may even own stock in Verisign, and the company’s stock is already up 23% (over $30/share) on the news.
One potential issue domain registrants face is the potential that domain registrars increase .com pricing by more than the 7% increase by Verisign. I could see a registrar potentially increasing the cost by 10% or even 20% and blaming the registry or even the government because many people might not even calculate the difference in terms of a percentage – and those who do may not even know about this.
I would like to know where readers stand. Do you care that Verisign is permitted to continue increasing price of .com domain names?
All investors should as it impacts our cost of doing business.
I’ll have to buy better and less often.
Yup- like anything else, only the rich and the privilege can afford to own domains!!
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Made Domains Great again.
As someone who would love the opportunity to see some leaves from the trees fall down so I can grab them, this is a good thing. I have lots of interest in domains held by large portfolio owners. Guess they have a choice now (1) pay up (2) drop some domains (3) lower your ask price.
The holding cost is generally minimal compared to the acquisition cost. This fee increase isn’t going to make many “leaves” fall, but it will be annoying to some.
option (4) Domain investors will just increase pricing. If you own 100,000+ .com names that $2-3/name price increase in renewal costs adds up to a couple Ferraris and Lambos. Do you think the Mike Mann’s and Frank Schilling’s of the world will let their names expire or drop their price?????? C’mon