123 Domain renewal

kwikbreaks

The last domain I renewed with 123 (a .me.uk) cost me £8.38 for 2 years in Jan 2016. From memory this was the same for .co.uk domains.

They have just sent me advance notice for a .co.uk 2 year renewal at £23.98 including vat. This is just a domain not including any hosting.

Has there been some sky rocketing in domain costs? Are they trying it on? Any recommendations where to move the domain to?

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I have found there was an increase announced which I never saw but not to the amount they want to charge. I've raised a ticket with them querying the cost.

Still wonder if there is a cheaper alternative...

Neil_Jones

Brand new domains are £23.97 for three years at 123-reg for both .co.uk and me.uk.

HostPresto have them for £7 per year for the domain only, no hosting and appears to be ongoing.

1&1 are doing a one year deal at £1.20 for the first year and new customers before it goes back up to £12 a year per domain, and GoDaddy seem to kicking them out for a penny for the first year and then £10 a year after that.

virgo17

Nominet did increase the cost of domain names about a year ago. Looks to me like some UK suppliers took the opportunity to add their own little hike as well.

I have started moving UK domain names I am responsible for to Namecheap in the USA as they are more reasonable, even with the fallen pound. For example, I have just renewed a .co.uk domain for three years with them at a cost of $20.67 which is just over £16.

chunter

After complaining about the price of 123-reg, someone on here put me on to www.thenames.co.uk
I have a few domains with them now.
New registrations are a tenner for two years, including the vat.
Renewals & Transferred renewals are twelve quid, including the vat.

As for the USA stuff, the continuing collapse of the pound due to brexit means it's just going to get more and more expensive.
The .coms are still cheaper to register over there, because you don't pay VAT.

Neil_Jones

.com is not the "American" equivalent of .uk, it actually stands for COMmercial site not tied to any specific country (the American equivalent of .uk is actually .us, not often seen but are in use) but you'll find many American-focused sites on a lot of .com names.

virgo17

chunter wrote: »

As for the USA stuff, the continuing collapse of the pound due to brexit means it's just going to get more and more expensive.

It will take GBP to go a lot lower to bring parity between a company like Namecheap and the leading UK registrars. If that should happen, moving back is not an issue. I have no connection or affiliation with Namecheap. Value for money and good service is my sole criteria.

To anyone contemplating a cheap UK offer (eg. £1.20 first year) it would be wise to research the company before committing. Personally, I won't use 1&1 but that's a personal choice. Also, with cheap companies, make sure you have full control of DNS and other configs including privacy.

kwikbreaks

123 answered the ticket. Their prices rise again from the advertised £7.99 a year to £9.99 a year (both + vat) before the autorenew. I decided to just renew manually for 2 years at £7.99. If I still want the domain after that I'll consider moving but their nameservers have been reasonably good over the years.

I used to have quite a few domains but lack of time since retiring means just about all of them have withered on the vine so there is only one left active now and I'm home hosting that. My main reason for keeping it is that I use the email and changing umpteen email registrations doesn't seem to me to be a good use of my time.

Farway

There was an option on my domains to renew for 10 years before the rise. I did just that on two of them which will be long lasting ones. The others may just wither away as per kwikbreaks