A Premium Name That Renews at the Premium Price

The perfect name, marked premium

A wedding and portrait photographer searches the new .photography ending for a short name built from her town. It is available, marked premium, at several times the price of an ordinary domain.

The checkout shows one price beside the name and a term of one year. She reads it as the cost of owning the name, like paying once for a sign.

At some registries that reading is right. At others the same premium price comes back every year, for as long as she keeps the name.

Who sets the price

Each of the hundreds of new endings going on sale this year is run by a registry, a company that sets the wholesale price for every name under it.

Registrars, the companies you buy from, add their own margin. For ordinary names, the registry charges the same wholesale price whichever registrar sells them.

For names it considers more valuable, such as short words, common terms and place names, the registry sets higher prices in tiers. Those are the names marked premium.

Each registry decides for itself whether a premium name renews at the premium price or at the ordinary one. There is no common rule across the new endings.

What premium can mean

The word premium covers different arrangements, and the renewal depends on which one you are looking at:

• A registry premium that renews at the premium price, every year the name is kept.
• A registry premium charged once, then renewed at the ordinary price.
• A name resold by its owner, a one-time purchase that then renews at the ordinary price.
• An early access fee paid in the first days of a new ending, charged once.

The first catches buyers out, because its checkout can look exactly like the second.

What to read at checkout

Look for a renewal price shown separately from the first year's price. If the page shows only one figure, find the registrar's price list or the registry's terms for that ending.

Price a registration for several years. If every year costs the premium, the premium renews.

Ask the registrar in writing what the name will cost to renew next year and the year after, and keep the reply with your records.

Check transfers too. A premium renewal price usually follows the name if you later move it to another registrar.

The cost over ten years

A domain is rarely bought for one year. Multiply the renewal price by the years you expect to use the name, and compare that with what it is worth to you.

A name that will sit on business cards, vehicles and a storefront for a decade is a ten-year commitment, whatever the first year costs.

Seen that way, a premium name can still be worth it. The point is to choose it knowing the full price, not to discover it at the first renewal.

The address customers already know

If the business already has a .ca or .com address on its cards, invoices, listings and old links, that address carries years of familiarity and links from other sites.

A new name inherits none of that. Making it the main address means updating every listing and redirecting every page, and some old links will still be missed.

The new name usually serves best as an addition: printed on a campaign, sent on to the main site by a permanent redirect, and renewed for as long as it is in use.

Keep email on the established address too. Moving email to a new ending means telling every contact and testing every form that might reject it.

A worked example

A camera club in the Comox Valley runs monthly meetings, field trips and an annual show, with a website at a .ca address its members have used for years.

A member found a short name under one of the new photography endings, marked premium, and suggested buying it with club funds before anyone else did.

The treasurer read the registrar's terms and found the premium price applied at every renewal. Over the years the club expected to keep it, the name would cost more than its hosting.

The executive kept the .ca address as the club's home and registered a longer, ordinary name under the new ending for the annual show, pointed at the show's page on the main site.

Its renewal went into the club's budget as a line of its own, with the treasurer named as the person who renews it. The club pays ordinary renewals, and members still find the club at the address they know.

Renewals that go unnoticed

A premium renewal charged automatically to a credit card is easy to miss until the statement arrives, and easy to lose if the card has changed.

Record every domain you hold, where it is registered, what it costs to renew and when, and who is responsible. Set renewals to run automatically on a card someone checks.

Letting a premium name lapse by accident can be costly to undo, because once released it may return to the registry and be priced as premium again.

The counter-case

For some businesses the premium name is the right purchase. A new business with no established address, choosing a name that will be its main identity, may find the yearly premium fair.

A name bought from its previous owner, rather than reserved by a registry, often renews at the ordinary price, so the cost really is mostly up front.

The advice is not to avoid premium names. It is to know the renewal price before buying, and to have someone who handles domains read the terms with you.

Before you pay for a premium name

1. Find the renewal price on the checkout or price list.
2. Ask the registrar in writing if it is unclear.
3. Price a multi-year registration to see the pattern.
4. Multiply by the years you expect to keep it.
5. Keep your known address as the main one.
6. Redirect the new name to the right page.
7. Record the renewal and who is responsible.

Step three is the quickest test. If a five-year registration costs five times the premium, the premium renews, whatever the checkout's headline price suggests.

Who in a club or society should hold its domains, and how addresses such as treasurer pass from one board to the next, are covered in role addresses that pass from one volunteer to the next.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.