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Comment by firloop | Hacker News Reader

I like the .io TLD but it seems like Namecheap and others haven't really done much to make it cheaper. I can't see myself paying more than $30 a year for a single domain registration, so I've simply used other TLDs when I've had opportunities to register a domain for a project. If .io was cheaper I'd buy a couple of domains in a heartbeat, though.

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The upside is that the higher price may be inhibiting squatting and thus you're more likely to find a good name available.

Actually, this is something I've found too, and people seem a little bit more motivated to actually use the domains they've bought. Plus I love this extension for web apps that are used by the tech community because they actually understand understand generic ccTLDs.

Exactly this. I was able to easily snag a two letter domain name (iz.io) before thanks to the high prices. Eventually let it expire when that startup had run its course though.

"the higher price may be inhibiting squatting"

The high price is a result of the fact that the base cost of the domain is much higher than it is for .com/.net/.org/.info.

Here is the wholesale .io pricing which is based on volume (doesn't work that way for .com/.net/.org/.info)

http://www.nic.io/join.html

So for example nic.io regular price is $60 US.

Even at the top bracket the best a registrar could do is $30 per domain.

This is compared to around $8.xx for .com that a registrar pays (we are a registrar).

Where do you see the nic.io price is $60? I just paid $96 us dollars last week from the site. Nic.io prices are in pounds.

Your right. I missed the pound saw it for EU but missed it on non eu.

What's nice about Namecheap is their UI doesn't suck. I've found nic.io confusing compared to my experience using Namecheap.

Why would you expect the domains to get cheaper anyway? That's not really within Namecheap's control.

I guess it could be if they were to be able to buy in significant enough bulk (although not sure how much of that is already factored into the price): http://nic.io/join.html#benefits

I suppose they could, in theory, negotiate a better deal with the nic.io folks, with the pitch that making it easier to register domains will increase overall registration. Like you've said, nic.io isn't the most user friendly experience. I stopped myself a few times when registering, wondering if I was indeed on the correct site (because the official domain registry for a TLD couldn't possibly be this awkward).

Hey, at least it's cheaper than what InterNIC used to charge ($100 initial, then $50/year).

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