.com renewals go up on 1 November, the first of up to four yearly rises

Verisign's wholesale price for a .com name goes from US$10.26 to US$10.97 a year on 1 November. That's 71 cents, or 7%, and it's the biggest rise the company's contract allows, according to Domain Incite. Domain Name Wire reported the increase in April.

US registrar Porkbun puts the changeover at 04:00 UTC. In New Zealand that's 5pm on 1 November, about five weeks from now.

On its own, 71 cents isn't much. The bigger issue is that more rises are likely to follow. Domain Name Wire reported that under Verisign's contract with the NTIA and ICANN, the company can raise the price by up to 7% in each of the last four years of a six-year contract period. This November is the first of those four years. If Verisign takes every rise, webhosting.today puts wholesale .com at US$11.74 in November 2027, US$12.57 in 2028 and US$13.45 in 2029. Domain Name Wire's final figure is US$13.42. Either way, it's roughly US$13.40 by 2029, about 31% above today's price.

In the last cycle, October 2018 to October 2024, Verisign took every 7% rise it was allowed, lifting the price from US$7.85 to US$10.26, webhosting.today reported. The two reports disagree on one point. Webhosting.today says there was no year in that cycle in which Verisign chose to forgo or reduce the permitted increase. Domain Incite says Verisign has never failed to use its price-raising powers, but that it did freeze its fees during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. The contract terms that allow this cycle expire in October 2030, according to webhosting.today.

Verisign doesn't need the money. Its 2025 gross margin was 88% and its operating margin 68%, among the highest in the S&P 500, Domain Name Wire reported. Chief executive Jim Bidzos has said that US$10.97 is only the most Verisign can charge registrars. Registrars, he said, are "entirely price unrestricted" and can sell at whatever retail price they choose, Domain Incite reported.

He's right that registrars set the retail price. They also pass the rise on. Porkbun says registrars pay the wholesale price and pass it to customers along with the ICANN fee and a card-processing fee. Its own .com price rises to about US$11.81 on 1 November, and it expects increases of about 7% a year until 2030.

New Zealand businesses with a .com name face the same wholesale price, whether they registered the name themselves or a web agency did it for them. Local registrars and resellers buy the names at the US-dollar wholesale price and pass that cost down the chain, so exchange rates also affect what local customers pay. None of the reports on this rise comes from a New Zealand registrar or mentions New Zealand pricing. The Domain Name Company Limited has confirmed it will not be increasing its .com registration or renewal cost. Webhosting.today says retail prices have historically followed wholesale rises after a delay, and that customers will see the increase in renewal notices from late 2026 and through 2027.

For most, the one real option is to renew early. Domain Incite says existing holders can lock in today's price by renewing for up to 10 years before 1 November. In practice it's usually nine, because a name can't be paid up more than a decade ahead and time already left on the registration counts towards that limit.

For a single domain, the saving is small. At wholesale, it's 71 cents in the first year and about US$3.19 a year by 2029 if every rise goes through. That comes to roughly US$7.70 a name over the four years of rises. In return, the owner pays nearly a decade of renewals upfront. For a business with one name, the main benefit is not having to think about renewals for a long time.

For an agency holding dozens or hundreds of client names, the numbers add up faster. Webhosting.today calculates that a hosting provider with 10,000 .com names pays about US$7,100 more in wholesale costs in the first year alone. It says smaller registrars and resellers working on margins of a few dollars a name will have to raise prices or absorb the cost. Agencies that include a free domain with a hosting or website package will pay the rise out of their margin unless they reprice: 71 cents a name this year, and about US$3.19 a name by 2029.