.net Domain Prices — Compare 51 Registrars

A .net name can be registered by anyone; there are no eligibility requirements, no checks to see if people reside in a particular place, and no rules about the intended use. That was not the original intention. The document RFC 1591 from 1994, which explained how the top-level domains were to work, had described .net as being "intended to hold only the computers of network providers". That restriction no longer applies.

Verisign carries out the administration of the registry on the basis of a contract with ICANN; it acquired .net from Network Solutions, the company it bought in June 2000. The operator is described by ICANN's own 2023 .NET decision paper as "Verisign (previously Network Solutions Inc.)". In 2005 ICANN opened the contract out to competitive bidding and Verisign retained it.

It is the pricing aspect of .net that is important to buyers. The contract allows Verisign to increase its wholesale price by as much as 10% each year, giving six months' notice for such an increase. Although it has omitted a few years, whenever it does raise the price it has taken the full 10%. The current contract was extended on 29 June 2023 and is valid until 30 June 2029, including the same 10% clause. A number of public comments made at the time of the renewal criticized the 10% clause and called for a competitive bidding process. ICANN decided to renew the contract without making any changes to it.

The price for the wholesale rate has been $10.91 since February 2024; Verisign announced on 27 August 2026 that it would be increasing the rate to $12.00, effective from 1 March 2027. Registrars also have to pay ICANN an extra $0.75 per year. Each registrar then adds its own margin, which is the reason why the .net prices in the table above are so different. Before a price increase comes into effect, owners can renew their names for up to ten years at the previous rate. If you intend to keep a name, that is usually the most cost-effective option.

As of 30 June 2026, Verisign stated that the number of registered .net domain names was 12.5 million. This figure has remained almost unchanged for several years (according to Verisign's DNIB report for the second quarter of 2026). The same report gives an estimated renewal rate for .net of 78.7%, which is the highest of all the ten major generic extensions.