Nominet AGM - price rise likely

[rob]

'scene setting' as they say on prices going up from today's AGM.

I asked:

DUM is dropping, renewal rates are basically static, dot uk take up has been poor - I would agree self created shocks could impact that. Public Benefit spend was £9.9m (24) then £11m (25). With the discussion on price rises earlier in the presentations is Public Benefit spend being reduced, and would that be looked at first before passing pain on to registrants?

It seems Public Benefit funding will continue as is, Nominet has huge reserves, so to whittle them down reserves can be used to fund PB stuff.

Prices though look likely to go up due to inflation / costs up etc. My feel is that is sooner than later as the Chair was keen to point out a few times that batting that further down the line in one hit (for that I think 30% was given as example) would be a shock to the system and probably mean less renewals / DUM lowering more in one go.

To be clear generally speaking I support the Public Benefit outputs and it is a Good Thing. What I don't agree with is no fresh debate with the membership on what Public Benefit should look like, how it should be funded, and what the future should be on it.

The world has moved on in many ways and unfortunately I don't see how Nominet can operate in that new world yet have a section entirely off limits.

 

[astutiumRob]

Immediately on opening the AGM they launched into prepping you for the pending price rises. PessimistIc graphs ( missing key data ), dropping '30% in real terms' into the discussions - benchmarking against other TLDs and keeping their half-a-million salaries makes upping the reg/renew fee innevitable

 

[Jeff]

And even more likely now:

https://nominet.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Nominet-UK-NED-Election-Result.pdf

To coin a phrase, there can be only one. It's a shame he's never deigned to post here, despite being a member.

 

[Ree]

Immediately on opening the AGM they launched into prepping you for the pending price rises. PessimistIc graphs ( missing key data ), dropping '30% in real terms' into the discussions - benchmarking against other TLDs and keeping their half-a-million salaries makes upping the reg/renew fee innevitable

Someone seems a little peeved at Nominet! Maybe the extra, unforseen, expenses being incurred by Nominet at this time should be taken into consideration before slagging them off!!! I personally hope they push up prices by at least 1000%!!!

 

[Jeff]

I personally hope they push up prices by at least 1000%!!!

How to win friends and influence people on a domainer forum.

 

[GreyWing]

How to win friends and influence people on a domainer forum.

I know Rees is talking about other things here, he's also a domainer with a very decent domain portfolio so I don't think he means it literally.

I do sometimes think there is a fair debate to be had on prices rises and whether or not they are good for the domain extension.

If prices were 1p a year, all domains would be stockpiled, never dropped and the extension would become stale. If they were £1000 a year, few would buy domain names to develop on the off chance they could make a decent business.

Somewhere in-between those numbers is the sweet spot for domainers, where that spot is is debatable, raising prices may not always be a bad thing for domainers in the long run.

 

[Ree]

Somewhere in-between those numbers is the sweet spot for domainers, where that spot is is debatable, raising prices may not always be a bad thing for domainers in the long run.

Ha ha... I'm with you all the way on this, brother; between those figures you quoted is good for me @ £500 per reg/renewal. I'll personally take the hit if it fucks up AssPukeiumSlob and his band of merry followers!

 

[astutiumRob]

I do sometimes think there is a fair debate to be had on prices rises and whether or not they are good for the domain extension.

Price matters to Registrants of course, as it's a direct expense.
It matters to Registrars far less, as invariably it is just passed on to the registrant.
Whether it should matter to a Registry ( that has no requirement to make a profit ) beyond a value needed to run the operation is to me the debate that gets overlooked.

That .uk is relatively cheap has historically been why it grew to the 10M level, their own research projected exponential growth if it came down, which at the time would have increased the profits significantly - an interesting exercise in what constitutes 'success' in ccTLD terms.

My concern on pricing remains the justification of why, and the planned uses of the funds - previous rises have been for building war-chests, expansion into non-core areas, CV enhancing twaddle and so-on.

Do members really want Nominet going that way again and extending their services to yet more things that compete with their members ?

If the baseline costs of running the tld have outpaced the income, then yes, basic business would indicate price increases are needed - although realy that's what reserves are supposed to be for, not ringfenced for feelgood projects.

However the detailled financial slides did not indicate that, unlike the sky-is-falling graphs shown by the chair to prep the agm watchers for increases.

 

[Ree]

This must be the AGM everyone is talking about. Wish I could have been there. Looking smart, Andrew. Well done to the Nominet board, who took part in the presentations. I hear you were fantastic. Great job with the safeguarding initiatives, long overdue in my opinion and of course, I will be shooting over some of my ideas to make our industry safer and more productive for everyone. Shame everyone doesn't have the same dress sense as Andrew and the other board members, who were kind enough to give up their time to attend.

 

[Nigel]

I am strongly opposed to any reg fee price rise. As Rob said there doesn't seem to be any justification for it. Now I've only taken a brief look at the 2025 Report and Accounts so if I get some of these figures wrong then please let me know.

It appears that the only reason for a loss this year is because 20% of revenue was spent on 'Public Benefit'. Approx £11m from an income of £55m. I've never been a fan of taking fees from registrants and distributing a portion to causes Nominet deems to be of 'Public Benefit'. I think registrants would rather decide themselves what good causes they give to. Does anyone ever tell customers reg fees are higher because of this.

So let's say 'Public Benefit' is capped at a maximum of 5% of revenue (say £2.5m this year) and there you go - all sorted! - Nominet would have made a healthy profit (approx £3m). In addition they are sitting on investments of £88m. In fact they could afford to bring reg fees down and spend a few quid on marketing the .uk domain.