While nobody likes price increases, this one doesn’t sting so much.
The wholesale price for .org domain names will increase from $9.93 to $11.00 on June 1.
Unlike most top level domains that increase their prices nearly every year, this is the first increase for .org since 2016. The history could have been very different.
In 2019, .org registry Public Interest Registry (PIR) signed a new registry agreement with ICANN that removed price caps on .org domains. Previously, it had the right to increase prices 10% a year.
People were rightfully concerned that this would usher in a period of large price increases, even though PIR hadn’t raised prices in three years.
At the time, I wrote:
In the near term, I don’t expect the impacted registries to make significant price increases. In fact, I suspect .org registry Public Interest Group may increase prices less over the next few years than it would have had it had the old 10% price increase option because now it’s under the microscope.
The long term is a different story. It’s likely that first-year prices will remain low through promotions but renewal prices will increase. And if one of these registries decides to sell itself to a private equity group or another company? All bets are off.
Guess what happened?
Just months after ICANN lifted price increases, Internet Society, the group that receives the bulk of the profits from .org, announced it was selling the registry to a private equity company for $1.135 billion. Adding insult to injury, ICANN’s former CEO, Fadi Chehadé, was part of the private equity buyout.
ICANN faced intense pressure to stop the sale. Despite this, it looked like it would move forward…until California’s attorney general stepped in.
The deal was nixed, and PIR remained a nonprofit steward of the .org registry.
Had Ethos won, it would have certainly raised prices. Even if it had restrained itself to 10% a year, the wholesale price of .org domains would be nearly $20 this year.
Registrars and registrants don’t like price increases. But, given what could have been and what has transpired since 2016, I have no problem with PIR raising its prices to $11 a decade after its last price increase.
We all know what has transpired in the past decade. A pandemic, rampant inflation, etc. Eleven dollars today is equivalent to about $8.50 in 2016.
A spokesperson for Public Interest Registry told Domain Name Wire that the organization has no further plans to increase prices at this time.
.Org registrants can renew their domains for up to ten years at current prices before the June 1 price change.
Dear Andrew (Neo),
Longtime reader/listener of your blog and podcast. I have an alternative explanation for the rise of gTLD registry pricing. However, this requires you to make a Matrix-like blue-pill/red-pill decision. If you want to believe that PIR and other gTLD registry operator price increases are primarily attributable to the pandemic and rampant inflation, go ahead and take that blue pill. If you want to open your eyes to an alternative view of the domain name marketplace matrix, then take the red pill. If you choose the red pill, perhaps we can collaborate on investigating some of the following data points/anomalies:
According to PIR’s 2016 990 tax filing, it paid Afilias, its RSP, and its largest external vendor approximately $38 million. However, according to PIR’s 2024 990 tax filing, it only paid Identity Digital, its RSP, and its largest external vendor $10.5 million. That does not seem like rampant inflation to me.
In 2019, the Colombian government was collecting 7% on every dollar of .co domain name registrations. In 2020, after a competitive bid between 2 respondents, the Colombian government’s share increased to 81%. In 2025, after another competitive bid process involving 4 respondents, the Colombian government’s share increased to 92%. These market dynamics do not seem to reflect rampant inflation either.
Why has ICANN never undertaken a comprehensive economic study of the domain name marketplace, despite having the contractual authority under 2.15 of the baseline registry agreement?
Why does Verisign, which controls approximately 70% of the gTLD market with over 173 million domain names under management, not have the contractual requirement to participate in ICANN economic studies like other gTLD registry operators?
ICANN currently has a staff of over 400 FTE and is in the process of hiring two new attorneys. How many economists does ICANN currently have on staff?
Let me know what pill you choose and whether you would like to collaborate on getting to the truth.
Best regards,
Michael (Morpheus)