Domain Name Price Increases Upcoming

On January 3, 2020, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) announced major changes to its contract with Verisign.  ICANN and Verisign made these changes without consulting or incorporating feedback from the ICANN community or internet users.  (ICANN typically is said to operate in this fashion).  

Domain names (.com’s mainly) saw increases in 2020, 2021, 2022 (effective September 1, 2022), and again in 2023. There will be a price freeze for 2 years, then prices can continue to increase in 2026, 2027, 2028, and 2029, with another 2-year freeze.  

There is a possibility of additional expenses or larger increases, as the contract allows a bit of a free-for-all in how pricing is set, enabling monopolies and other self-serving business practices.  

Domain names are expected to increase exponentially from their current level to where they will be in 2029.  We don’t yet know what price increases will ultimately be passed on to you, the business owner.  

We recommend you lock in your domain names now, if you can financially afford it, renew them for as many years as you can, up to 10 years.  That will help your bottom line for a bit. The 2022 price change takes effect on September 1, 2022.

Key points:

There is a price cap on .com domain names only (see above).  The other top-level domain names do not have a price cap, so .org and similar domain names can be raised as much as ICANN deems appropriate.

New .com domain names will cost more.

Renewals will rise in pricing each year, except from 2026 to 2029, so plan accordingly.

At Simply Web Services, we do not mark up our domain name pricing; we pass on to our clients the same cost we pay for a domain name. If there is another TLD (Top Level Domain) that you are interested in, please let us know, and we will tell you if we can register it and how much it will cost.