In the underlying system there is no difference. A renewal is just a transfer/registration leaving the data unchanged.
All cost the same and add 1 year of lifetime to the domain.
Any other pricing is invented by that specific registrar and doesn’t reflect actual costs.
What a ripoff, .com has always been about 10$. The renewal being somehow more expensive than a new registration, while in actuality there is no difference in the process, really makes it obvious they charge what they think people will fall for.
$7.85 per year in 2012. $8.39 in 2021, $8.97 in 2022, and $9.59 in 2023, $10.26 in 2024, increases always in september.
Transfers, registrations, and renewals all cost the same and all charge the domain by 1 year. You can charge at any time for I think up to 10 years. Any registrar not passing that system on is being deceptive.
They aren’t even roping in people with prices below cost, they charge you a reasonable fee for the first year and then somehow bank on people not switching. Maybe they make the process really painful?
You could use njal.la, who charge a flat 15$ without deceptive schemes and actually protect your privacy properly too.
To be fair namecheap legally can’t do what njalla does since namecheap is a primary registrar and njalla secondary.
In terms of activism I’d think both getting the cheapest option and donating 8$ a year to the eff or a similar group directly, or taking a njalla domain and donating 3$, would be cheaper than namecheap and also more effective at defending internet freedom.
https://www.namecheap.com/blog/price-increase-on-identity-digital-domains-2025/
I mean yeah, vanity tdl’s cost more. What about .coms or .nets, or .orgs?
There’s definitely some upcharge in there. .coms at cloudflare are $10.46 for instance.
Since transfers are usually cheaper than renewals, I’ll often do that to keep costs down.
In the underlying system there is no difference. A renewal is just a transfer/registration leaving the data unchanged.
All cost the same and add 1 year of lifetime to the domain.
Any other pricing is invented by that specific registrar and doesn’t reflect actual costs.
What a ripoff, .com has always been about 10$. The renewal being somehow more expensive than a new registration, while in actuality there is no difference in the process, really makes it obvious they charge what they think people will fall for.
Transfers, registrations, and renewals all cost the same and all charge the domain by 1 year. You can charge at any time for I think up to 10 years. Any registrar not passing that system on is being deceptive.
They aren’t even roping in people with prices below cost, they charge you a reasonable fee for the first year and then somehow bank on people not switching. Maybe they make the process really painful?
Either way why would anyone use them?
Well, they’ve done advocacy for privacy online: https://www.namecheap.com/blog/advocacy-at-the-eff-rainey-reitman/
You could use njal.la, who charge a flat 15$ without deceptive schemes and actually protect your privacy properly too.
To be fair namecheap legally can’t do what njalla does since namecheap is a primary registrar and njalla secondary.
In terms of activism I’d think both getting the cheapest option and donating 8$ a year to the eff or a similar group directly, or taking a njalla domain and donating 3$, would be cheaper than namecheap and also more effective at defending internet freedom.