It is going to get a little bit more expensive to register .com domain names later on this year. In a press release sharing Verisign’s Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 results, the company that operates the .com domain registry announced a 7% price increase in September. As you may recall, the wholesale price of .com registrations was increased in September of last year.
Here’s what Verisign shared about the upcoming wholesale price increase:
“Verisign announces that it will increase the annual registry-level wholesale fee for each new and renewal .com domain name registration from $8.39 to $8.97, effective Sept. 1, 2022.”
The 7% price increase is the maximum amount allowed by regulators (you can read more about this on the ICANN website). Domain registrars like GoDaddy and Namecheap tack on their margin to domain registrants. Oftentimes, the margin on domain name sales is thin. For instance, the wholesale price of .com domain names is currently $8.39 and the rack rate to register a .com domain name at GoDaddy is $11.99 + ICANN fee without any promo codes or special pricing offer. Domain investors with larger portfolios tend to get better pricing depending on where they register domain names and the size of their portfolios.
For my business, the fee increase is more of an annoyance than a major problem, but I can see why some larger domain portfolio owners would be unhappy to face another price increase, particularly so close to the last price increase.
Verisign stock closed down 3% for the day (a big down day for the entire market), and it was relatively unchanged in after hours trading.
Greatest business model ever.
In one way I see this as an advantage: there are too many domain “investors” hanging onto stock that they think is worth a small fortune, but will likely never sell, and this will encourage them to drop some of them, with a few good ones scattered in there. I guess you can call it “”shaking the tree”. Bring it on.
But I too will drop a few. I will however make sure that I drop MORE than 7% so that their bottom line actually goes down, not up. We have to engage in asymmetrical warfare and hit them hard enough to ensure that prices will drop in future, not endlessly go up.