Latest day was 61%, but it might be too early to draw conclusions.
New top level domain name mega-registry Donuts has been blogging daily renewal rate data for its first domain names released nearly 14 months ago.
The most recent data show a 71% renewal rate for the 37,857 Donuts domain names that have exited the renewal grace period. This includes 14 top level domains, and the majority of these names were registered in general availability.
Comparing day 4 to day 3, the renewal rate dropped to about 61% for the latest additions.
Donuts has predicted an overall 80% renewal rate for its domain names. The early data suggest this might be difficult, but there are two things to keep in mind:
1. Two of the earliest domains, .guru and .photography, are its two most-registered. TLDs with lots of registrations probably have lower quality ones (the 50,000th domain is not as good as the 5,000th).
2. There was also a lot of speculation early on, and much of this has waned as people realize the profit potential is a long way off.
I think it’s reasonable to assume that renewal rates for smaller TLDs that were launched later will be higher. Still, 61% for “day four” seems a bit discouraging. (We discussed this a bit on this week’s Domain Sherpa show, before the latest numbers came out). What do you think?
Domainer Extraordinaire says
People have a tendency to throw good money after bad especially if they feel their initial investment was high. I hung on to a .mobi way too long.
Andrew Allemann says
That was part of Donuts’ thesis for why people would renew domains. They’d already dropped higher-than-normal money to get the domains.
John says
>”good money after bad”
Such a good point. How many of us can say we haven’t done too much of that with domains already long before the new g’s? LOL – probably not many.
Drake says
Looks like they stopped reports or the bottom fell out, I am guilty of registering a few, one came with a premium renewal, I dropped all 4 of my .guru, really got caught up in the hype, guilty as charged. I learned early.
todd says
Donuts would be smart by giving a 20-30% discount on renewal rates. Lowering the renewal cost would up the rate of renewals.
Robbie says
Todd makes a good point, when I am looking at .com/.net/.org under $10, I don’t have to think about rolling the dice, at $25-50 you just pass it by to think about it, and it deletes, and you do not miss it.
Would have been great marketing, renew by X date save 20%, these domains are not like cars, or equipment that sits on a lot, to generate an electronic code there is little upkeep cost for donuts, it is all gravy.
All these executives making big salaries, and they can’t figure this crap out?
Sneaky Sam says
Hey boss, wanna’ buy a new TLD? Oh whiskey river, candy mountain!
Believe me, you are going to go far son, you are going to shine like a crazy .diamond! You are so smart. You are the shape shifter of the paradigm. Go get ’em!
Now, where is my .horse and my money bags? Gotta’ get on down the trail before anyone realizes what is going on.
Jean Guillon says
I am interested in .XYZ actually 😉
John says
lol
yyzyyc says
They could turn this around but dropping its insane renewals fee, effective now …
yyzyyc says
*by dropping …
JZ says
well if the rates keep dropping every day…where will it stop?
Andy Brier says
Based on the zone files, for day #5 we’re seeing an estimated 69.2% renewal rate overall with 59.1% for the latest additions.
This is only an estimate but correlation to Donuts figures is pretty close so far:
# 1 – Donuts: 91.6% – ours 90.6%
# 2 – Donuts: 85.3% – ours 82.6%
# 3 – Donuts: 74% – ours 73.6%
# 4 – Donuts: 71.0% – ours 70.6%
# 5 – Donuts: TBC – ours 69.2%
Of course the Donuts figures are authoritative, but good to see we’re somewhere near.
John says
Pricing = Marketing 101 (said it before, don’t mind saying again…yet) 🙂
Snoopy says
They have now changed the prediction to this,
“TLDs will stabilize at the 70% rate, and then gradually move towards an 80% renewal rate as the proportion of names with active, website-content increases over time.”
So they have now given up on claiming 80% and instead kicked that prediction down the road to an infinite time frame. My gut feeling is that the original 80% claim was about getting people to renew, not something based on actual analysis.
Robbie says
70% is already here, with some of the hype follow thru names still to show in the drop cycle, they are headed somewhere in the 50%, take away auto renewals that caught people, most likley at godaddy, and you would be in the 40%