Renewal price to double — Wholesale .cloud

Clouds are rising.

Registrants of .cloud domain names are in for a surprise when it’s time to renew them.

The registry behind .cloud just notified its registrar partners that it is doubling the wholesale price of renewals from $7.50 to $15.00 beginning April 1, 2021. Registrars typically add a markup to the wholesale price.

Oddly, it appears that the first-year price of .cloud domains has actually been higher than renewals until this change. The wholesale fresh registration cost had been $15.00, but in practice, people rarely paid this much due to promotions. For example, GoDaddy right now offers .cloud domains for $1.99 for the first year.

.Cloud will remain less expensive than many other fresh top level domains. Still, I wonder if registrars need to change the wording they use in domain search results. Many registrars right now show the first year price and then “renews at” for the renewal cost. Based on what we’ve seen with fresh top level domains, this ought to probably read “Renews at X, unless the registry jacks up its prices.”