The real reason .io domains are so expensive

Working at Indiebrands.io I'm often faced with the question of why dot io domains are so expensive. And since there are many misconceptions I decided to investigate that a little and write a blog entry about it.

The main reason is: the registry "Internet Computer Bureau" setting high fees

A registry that has the right to sell domains of a particular TLD determines the standard fee for its transactions. The "Internet Computer Bureau" holds the rights to sell dot io domains and it is likely that they charge high fees. We can't know the exact fees they take. But every domain marketplace like Namecheap, Godaddy etc have higher prices for dot io domains than dot com. This can either be due to higher demand or the higher fees are the reason.

Often the higher demand is given as the reason for these prices, but there are reasons that suggest that the fees charged by the "Internet Computer Bureau" are the main driver of the cost.

First, because the "Internet Computer Bureau" not only holds the right to sell the dot io TLD. They also hold the rights to the dot sh and dot ac TLDs. However, these two TLDs are not nearly as popular as dot io, but still cost $29.57, leading me to conclude that they have set relatively high transaction fees.

Second, if demand were the main driver behind the high prices, then dot com should be more expensive. As of September 2020, there were 3.4 million dot com domains registered. That represents about 68% of all registrations that month (4.9 million). While dot io didn't even make it into the top 10 TLDs of newly registered domains. This leads us to believe that "Verisign" has lower fees than the "Internet Computer Bureau".

But the demand argument is not completely absurd. While it's not true that demand for dot io is higher than for dot com, there is something to be said for customers being willing to pay more for dot io. GoDaddy has made the decision to price dot io 20% higher than the other "Internet Computer Bureau" TLDs they sell. This suggests that a higher price will be accepted by most customers looking for a dot io domain. They have even removed the promise of having the "same price next year". And by that, keeping all options open to generate even more income if the trend continues to grow.

If you want to read the full entry & see some more interesting statistics read the full article here 👇
https://indiebrands.io/blog/io-domain-expensive-popular