Cloudflare is also upping prices. Since Cloudflare sells domains at cost, I expect domain prices have simply increased.

This isn't only namecheap. Porkbun notified me about it a couple of weeks ago:

Verisign — the registry behind .com and .net — is set to increase wholesale pricing on .com domains industry wide on September 1. This has become an annual trend, and we expect the .com price will steadily increase through 2029. This increase affects every registrar that offers .com domains, not just us.

As others mentioned, Verisign administers the .com space and they’re raising prices. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/09/website-domain-more-expensive-00023524

I do like to keep track of the budget gTLD renewal prices at tld-list.com and use that for my personal use. I have an offbeat domain I registered for 10 years for something like $25 a few years ago.

I believe they are seeing higher prices for those domains so they are passing it along. Email I received from Namecheap.com:

We partner with many registries to bring you a wide range of top-level domains, but occasionally their prices increase, which means we need to increase our prices too.

On September 1, 2023, the domains registry for .COM and .XYZ will implement universal price increases of up to 9% for .COM renewals, and up to 9% for .XYZ renewals, registrations, and transfers.

If you want to take advantage of the current price tag, renew your .COM and renew, register, or transfer your .XYZ domains before September 1, 2023.

It always puzzles me when technology gets more expensive. Processors and storage are cheaper, why does it cost more for them to have a database entry for a domain that's updated every X years?

The prices are going up for every provider. It’s across the board. Porkbun.com too.

I've been with namecheap a long long time now. They rarely raise prices and it's usually because upstream costs go up and everyone is raising prices. I'm a happy customer and ain't switching. I don't get bothered for endless upgrades. I only get emails when my domains come up for renewal or on the very rare occasion this happens.

I don't know enough bout registrars to know for sure, but I don't know if this is namecheap's doing. This is the only increase I've seen in years, I think those actual domains have gone up in price. I may be wrong though

https://domainnamewire.com/2023/02/09/verisign-announces-another-com-price-hike-2/

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) today announced a 7% increase in .com prices to take effect on September 1, 2023.

...

Under its agreement with ICANN and the U.S. government, Verisign is allowed to increase prices by 7% per year in the last four years of every six-year contract term. This will be the third hike of this contract term, and the company is expected to increase .com prices to $10.26 in 2024.

Would be nice if ICANN changed the agreement a tad .

I couldn't be arsed with this kind of thing and just renewed for 10 years.

Nothing like a week and a half notice, eh? I honestly don't care for how much control over the internet Cloudflare has, but I've been extremely happy with them since transferring my domains over to them a few years back.

Can't decide if I just want to renew everything for as long as possible to delay the price increase or just move to a different registrar.

Use Cloudflare. They are the cheapest out there because they don’t add a markup. After the Verisign increase the new price will be $9.77.

laughs in .dev

I got this same email. Of course the only domains I own are .com and .xyz. Going to lock in as many years as I can before September.

I signed up at gandi.net earlier this year. I even read their Wikipedia, which said they merged with another company in February. Still went ahead, because they had email included in the cheap domain name. A month after I got the mail they'll be increasing prices too. Not sure if I'll go somewhere else now, or if I'll just start paying for email (4€/month or something)

I heard .org domains were preferred to avoid these kind of price hikes, how true is this?

go cloudflare, renew for 10 years. nobrainer.