registries Breaking: Verisign announces .com price hike to $8.39

[koolishman]

.Com domain name registry Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) announced today that it will increase the wholesale price it charges registrars for .com registrations and renewals from $7.85 to $8.39. The price hike will go into effect on September 1, 2021.

https://domainnamewire.com/2021/02/11/breaking-verisign-announces-com-price-hike-to-8-39/

 

[Future Sensors]

Hey guys, we have a news coming in that the prices for .COM's would go up globally by end of this year.

Please share your thoughts on the same and how would the industry and its users react to it !

Verisign will indeed increase the annual registry-level wholesale fee for each new and renewal .com domain name registration from $7.85 to $8.39, effective Sept. 1, 2021.

This happened in the past, I suggest you do a Google search:

q = verisign .com increase site:namepros.com

 

[Ntmt]

This is about 7% increase. People with huge portfolios will increase end user prices as well. So we may see retail prices increase at aftermarket.

 

[hemirate]

So we may see retail prices increase at aftermarket.

While in reality we will see many people dropping their undeveloped domain names because they are not worth anything.

With 150,925,990 registered .com it means Verisign will pocket $81m more (time to invest in the stock?)

 

[Future Sensors]

While in reality we will see many people dropping their undeveloped domain names because they are not worth anything

I understand the concern, but at an aggregated level, don't you worry With free money supply, the number of .com domains will keep growing YoY. Godaddy and Verisign will keep this profitable ecosystem intact. Quality of the domains doesn't matter to them.

 

[King]

Inflation.. still cheaper than 90% of other tlds just means end users will need to pay more too.

While in reality we will see many people dropping their undeveloped domain names because they are not worth anything.

With 150,925,990 registered .com it means Verisign will pocket $81m more (time to invest in the stock?)

Why don't they pay dividends though, it's not like they need to innovate.

 

[mboumhaou]

No good.

 

[Future Sensors]

No good.

It was expected though. Verisign is allowed to increase .com prices in each of the last 4 (from 6) years of their agreement extension. By 7% per year.

 

[Samer]

.co renewal was always closer to double .com’s.

This is going up 7% max -

 

[Name Trader]

This is about 7% increase. People with huge portfolios will increase end user prices as well. So we may see retail prices increase at aftermarket.

How do you reprice 1 domain for an annual wholesale increase of $0.54/domain? By adding 0.54x10yrs=$5.40 to the price of every domain?

 

[TauseefKhan]

should not be on yearly basis.

 

[Future Sensors]

should not be on yearly basis.

You may contact one of these largest VRSN shareholders with this suggestion.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VRSN/holders?p=VRSN

 

[Ntmt]

How do you reprice 1 domain for an annual wholesale increase of $0.54/domain? By adding 0.54x10yrs=$5.40 to the price of every domain?

Just run your calculation on 300000 names portfolio renewal costs.

 

[oldtimer]

It's understandable that these people (as a company) want to make some profit for themselves and their shareholders,

But they are already making a nice profit considering that the total number of .com registrations has been increasing consistently over the years and so logically there should not be any need for price hikes like this and as the matter of fact with most other products and services as the number of customers and sales increases the prices usually go down.

But some companies get a little greedy when they have a monopoly over a large group of captive customers who have no other choice but to pay up because they are already heavily invested in their .com domains and websites.

Unfortunately those who are supposed to watch after things like these are themselves sharing in the windfalls of the free money that is being generated through these price increases and so they choose to be silent or look the other way.

Even the original price of .com is hard to justify considering the minimal cost of the maintenance and upgrades that have been done for upkeep of the backend infrastructure.

So what it comes down to is that the price increases are in effect a mandatory Tax that is being imposed on the public by a monopoly.

The only way I can see this Tax being justified is if All The money that is being generated by these price increases goes directly towards making high speed internet and owning a website or online business possible for the masses of people around the World who are currently being left out of the digital revolution.

But if the money ends up in the pockets of a few investors (and the watchdog groups that are supposed to look after things like this) then it basically amounts to mishandling a public resource.

IMO

 

[Name Trader]

Just run your calculation on 300000 names portfolio renewal costs.

Can you do the maths for me to clarify what you mean?

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

No problem, the end user will pay it ...
... the point is just that as long your domain name(s) isn't (aren't) sold, you are the end user.

 

[Ntmt]

Can you do the maths for me to clarify what you mean?

300000 * $0.54 = $162000 increase in cost of holding of 300k names portfolio.So holder will increase end user prices to at least cover this $162000 additional cost. 0.54$ = 7% increase. Seems holder should increase end user prices by 7% to maintain previous ROI.

 

[hemirate]

The problem is that for some reasons the Americans have decided to give something fundamental for the Web as .com to a private company.

My country of birth hasn't changed the price of its country TLD since forever.

What I paid in 2005 is what I pay today to register or renew the domain (5€)

Ask me why?

Because the government gave the registry to a non-profit national research entity. That's common sense....

 

[bmugford]

Verisign does not own .COM. They merely run it under contract.

The extension needs to be put out for public bid. It is not in the interest of the general public to give Verisign a non-competitive contract to have a monopoly over .COM.

There is no legitimate reason to raise the price above inflation levels.

Brad

 

[Name Trader]

300000 * $0.54 = $162000 increase in cost of holding of 300k names portfolio.So holder will increase end user prices to at least cover this $162000 additional cost. 0.54$ = 7% increase. Seems holder should increase end user prices by 7% to maintain previous ROI.

OK. I got it. You add $0.54 to the price of each .com domain you hold. I can understand that. That's recovering the cost. But to add 7% to the price of $100 domain or a $1,000,000 domain seems a bit unfair. IMHO. For a simple $0.54 annual price hike on every .com you own.