Verisign will be raising the wholesale price of domain names with the .NET and .COM extensions on July 1st. .NET domains will go up 10% while .COM domains will go up 7%. Most domain registrars will be passing the increase along to their customers.
The increase is not retroactive so you don’t have to worry about a new bill if you have a domain. You can also lock in the current price by renewing your registration for additional years. .COM domains can be registered for up to 10 years.
I just finished going through my domains. For ones like this one, that I intend to have for a long time, I renewed for multiple years. For the domains I use for email I renewed them for the maximum of 10 years. I don’t expect prices to decline, only go up, so I figure it’s worth the up front expense. I also went through my domains that are scheduled to expire this year and renewed the ones I want to keep for sure.
Name.com has a promotional price of $6.99 for .COM and .NET domains that are transferred into them. No coupon code required. I don’t use Name.com myself so can’t speak to their service, but they have a generally good reputation. While cheaper than my current registrar (Moniker) for .COMs (.NETs are currently $6.64) I decided not to transfer the domains just to save a few dollars. I stayed with what’s been working.
If you’ve got some domain names you may be able top save some money if you renew them in the next week.