The Gandi Community

Open letter on price increases

Dear Gandi users,

As you know, the mutual trust and respect we seek to build between Gandi and our customers has always been one of the pillars of our business. The idea of a democratic and accessible web is one of our core principles. Our commitment to “No bullshit,” means among other things, that we do everything we can to be transparent. Along these lines, I’d like to respond to some of the concerns that have been expressed recently on social media and elsewhere regarding price increases on certain domains.

At the time of writing:

  • Donuts is announcing a change in pricing starting October 1, 2019 on 225 top-level domains (TLDs), including .media, .network, .social, and .education
  • the .biz registry has notified us that, just like last November, another price increase will take place on this domain on November 1, 2019
  • the registry for .whoswho has informed us of a four-figure pricing increase set for October 22, 2019

And others are still to come.

These changes impact all registrars, and you’ll notice price increases among our competitors as well. Such increases are not in your interest, so they aren’t in our interest either. But, like any company, Gandi needs to remain economically viable. Rest assured, whenever possible we aim to avoid making unreasonable changes in the pricing of any domain. In order to survive and to continue to assure the quality of service that you have come to expect from us, we must nonetheless ensure a modest margin that allows us to recuperate the rise in price for us.

Choosing Gandi means choosing a package of services:

  • We are comprehensive: the registration of a domain name at Gandi also entitles you to two email mailboxes, 50% off hosting on Simple Hosting, a free SSL certificate, and unlimited email forwarding
  • We are accredited: Gandi has one of the largest TLD catalogs in the market, which gives us the ability to offer rare general domains and geographic domains that are harder to find elsewhere
  • We are by your side: with four offices distributed globally, our Customer Care follows the sun, allowing us to answer your questions at any hour of the day. At Gandi, a customer is a customer. Real people, not robots, work in real Gandi offices, not outsourced call centers
  • We are flexible: our products are designed to meet your needs as precisely as possible, without selling you needless extras
  • We are involved: our values are what really differentiate us. When we provide domains or hosting instances to the projects we help out through our Gandi Supports program, it’s to advance the values and ideas that we hold most dear and want to see succeed
  • We are reliable: we do not sell your data and the respect for your privacy is the backbone of our vision. We will always step up to fight for your interests

At Gandi we still present ourselves as an alternative in the face of the rhetoric of our competition, which doesn’t always live up to expectations when problems arise. The domain name, and the added value we bring to it, is still at the core of what we do, and we want to be as competitive as possible, thanks to the services we hope are options at our competitors at best, and at worst are non-existent, and which for us are just the norm.