Wednesday, 2 December 2015

Nominet jacks up price of UK domains, further increases to come?

Nominet has announced that the cost of buying a .UK domain is going up, for the first time in ages.

Indeed, the price tag has remained the same during the whole of the 21st Century, with the last hike seen back in 1999.

So how much is the increase? Instead of paying £2.50 to secure your corner of the web (with .co.uk, .org.uk and so forth), next year the price will rise to £3.75, a 50% increase. This change will actually be implemented at the beginning of March 2016.

Note that this is the wholesale price, with the retail price set by domain name registrars, although as ever wholesale price increases will be passed on to the end customer – though the extra money required isn't likely to break the bank.

Annual review

The reason for the increase is rising costs incurred by Nominet, apparently. As CEO Russell Haworth explained in a statement (which was spotted by Digital Spy): "We're committed to running a first class service for .UK registrants, including our renowned customer service, and we're doing more than ever before to ensure the .UK space is a safe and trusted home for all. But costs have risen considerably since we last changed the price, and we need to compete in a promotion-driven industry.

"We won't compromise on the quality of our service or dial back our efforts to counter cyber-threats head on. However, it's important to us that .UK domains represent value for money as well as quality, and the price we have set reflects that."

What's perhaps slightly more worrying is the fact that Nominet has said that the price will be reviewed yearly going forward, so it sounds like the next increase is likely to come well before 2033 (the year we'd see it if the same amount of time passed as since the last hike).