Verisign, the wholesale registrar for .com, has increased the price of registration and renewal of .com domain names to ALL REGISTRARS as of August 31, 2021 at 9:00 PM Pacific (September 1, 2021 at 4:00 UTC).
We are aware that this price increase may have a negative impact on you. Unfortunately, due to the increase in costs, Lightspeed has no option but to carry this price increase into our pricing.
How much is the increase?
ICANN is allowing Verisign increase the wholesale rental price of “.com” domain names by 7% per year for the next four years. Then there will be a two-year breather, followed by another four years of 7% annual hikes. As such, the cost of .com will rise cumulatively over between Aug 31 2021 and Aug 31 2031 a total of 71% (7% compounded for 8 years).
Here at Lightspeed, we are holding prices constant for one full year until 31 August 2022. Thereafter, it is with a heavy heart that we will raise prices at a constant 6% over the next nine years for a cumulative increase of 68%, which is a full 3% less than the rise in our cost.
There are similar increases for other top-level-domains (TLDs) like .org and .net which you can read about here and here.
What can I do?
If you plan to keep your domain for the foreseeable future as most companies do – a transition to a different domain is traumatic if you don’t persist the old one (e.g. a corporate buyout) – we strongly encourage you to renew your domain names for the maximum renewal period of 10 (ten) years before August 31, 2022 in order to maximize your savings.
For example, if you have a balance of one year or less on your domain name, you can renew it for up to an additional 9 years (10 year maximum applies to the total).