Why have .co.uk domains gone up so much?

[Karimbo]

I have some .co.uk domains stuffed on various 123-reg accounts.

There are 3 domains in total that were in accounts that I hadn't logged in and were set to automatically renew over the last 7 years.

Back in 2013, you could get a .co.uk for 2 year for £8.38 inc vat

The same domain now is £23.98 for 2 years inc vat

How did domain prices almost treble in 4 years? Is there is a nominet fee or have 123-reg decided to become a bit cheeky?

Also as an aside, .uk domains, completely unnecessary and a pure money grab. What do you guys think? I decided not to get the .uk domain out of principle.

Picture above of a domain I bought, but never used and was sitting dormant. I have now cancelled the auto-renewal. In previous years I wouldn't have bothered. But I needed to find out why I had so many £23.98 fees from 123-reg as I was doing my self assessment p&l.

 

[John Hemming]

I used to be a member of Nominet, but sold the company with that membership about 6 months ago so I cannot comment as to current Nominet Charges. However, this gives a market comparison for .co.uk

https://tld-list.com/tld/co.uk

 

[Karimbo]

Dynadot is so cheap, but the reviews are a bit disconcerting though. I may transfer these domains over to dynadot instead of letting them expire.

123-reg used to be cheap when I first got them. But it seems that they have decided to become the godaddy of the UK and did a complete u-turn in their approach.

Edit:

alldomains.hosting come up tops by rating, they're not the cheapest, but they are on the cheap spectrum

 

[SYN]

Nominet is increasing prices but not by a lot, you will be able to find .uk reg quite bit cheaper elsewhere than what you have you renewal at for sure.

 

[UrbanRetail]

I've used CrazyDomains for years and their prices have remained pretty consistent at £4.95 a year for a .co.uk, very reasonable indeed.

 

[John Hemming]

123-reg used to be cheap when I first got them. But it seems that they have decided to become the godaddy of the UK and did a complete u-turn in their approach.

In the end internet businesses need to have sufficient revenue to continue. Hence there needs to be a revenue stream somewhere. Also if they can keep their own costs down then they can manage to be more cost effective for customers.

I do this by running a freemium system for accounts and general office software (including Making Tax Digital). The basic system is free, but premium items are chargeable and I keep my costs low.