Breaking: Verisign announces .com price hike to $8.39

.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/

 

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

 

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.

 

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?)

 

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.

 

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

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

 

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.

 

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

This is going up 7% max -

 

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?

 

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

 

Just run your calculation on 300000 names portfolio renewal costs.

 

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

 

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

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....

 

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

 

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.

 

I guess u may not get what he said....thinking keep the ROI instead cover the cost. while do the math...if only cover the cost u simply add 0.54 each name....but it is not the case if u want keep same ROI...

 

I have other idea that passed my mind and wanted to contact Verisign directly but i see it fit in this topic.
My idea was to suggest them to increase prices for only one dictionary word to prices similar to .io extension and don't bother the others, this will be a better move.

 

Not all domains in the portfolio are going to be sold.

On a portfolio of 300000 domains with a 1% yearly sale through rate that means that 3000 domains are going to be sold per year.

If the average sale price for the domains sold is $3000 then you need to add around 1.82% to the price of each domain sold to keep your ROI the same as before.

Passing the buck to the end users might solve the problem for domainers, but the question still remains whether these price hikes are justified in the first place at the time that the total number of .com registrations are on the rise and then what happens to all the money that is being generated by these price increases which is money being made on top of the profits that are already being generated by the increase in the total number of .com registrations.

Disclaimer: I don't hold a large portfolio and I don't sell domains on a regular basis since I am more of a hobbyist and collector, my concern in this matter is more from the public interest angle.


IMO

 

A bit of rounding here and there, it seems to me. The rise is not, or should not be, a significant factor to a domainer. If a domainer is squeezing prices to their buyers downwards to such an extent they are missing the point of domaining. What is the point?

As with every new appearance of a financial security on the markets, speculators in a capitalist society will take positions. Pointless moaning that "things" should cost this much or that much if the populations insist upon electing capitalist parties to government who do not agree with that position.

Domaining is speculating. Argue it whichever way you will, if you are not speculating as a domainer you cannot possibly make an honest profit. You will either have an unfair winning situation or you will lose money if your are a domainer not taking a chance on the greater value domains. The only one who can (almost) guarantee a profit is the biggest domainer of all, GoDaddy.

I fully agree with those who argue a private company or listed corporation is the wrong type of organisation to be trusted with a public property. But that is and always has been the American way and the USA effectively runs the domain name system.

So back to the main point. The whole idea of domaining is to make a profit. It is not to be "fair" or otherwise. It is to buy cheap and to sell dear. If your wish is to do people a favour by selling low, do yourself a favour and don't try that in a speculative environment.

As for extrapolating a small purchase price hike to a huge selling price hike, or trying to add pennies to huge sums, my suggestion is to learn about marketing and, just as importantly, do the sums. It is simple arithmetic, not high mathematics.

 

The point is, that 1*1,07*1,07*1,07*1,07 = 1,31.
That's a 31% increase in 4 years alone.