According to an email sent to its customers in mid-June, Gandi.net, a major European domain name registration and web hosting company, is increasing prices across its entire suite of products.
For domain names, the new prices will usually amount to a 25 to 50% increase, depending on the extension. For example, .com domain prices will jump by 34%, .net by 45%, .org by 32%, etc.
A much steeper price hike is awaiting web hosting customers, who will see their costs almost double in some cases. In particular, the Advanced web hosting plan will be raised from €8.25/month to €15.00/month, an 82% surge.
But by far the most egregious is the email service.
Gandi had already started to inform customers on their intention to discontinue their offer of 2 free mailboxes included with every domain name registration, including for users who had pre-paid for multiple years.
Now, Gandi will raise the prices of the Standard mailbox plan from €0.35/month to €3.99/month per mailbox, a 1040% increase. The Premium plan will go from €1.75/month to €5.99/month, a 242% increase.
In its announcement, Gandi appears to justify these price increases by describing the product as “new and improved”, citing increased storage (editor’s note: this does not apply to Premium plan customers) and other nebulous commitments, such as “better anti-spam protection”, and “stronger security”.
The price hikes will come into effect on July 13.
It is unclear how with the action of dropping extreme price increases on customers, backed by dubious justifications, and with barely a month’s notice can be reconciled with Gandi’s famous and long-standing “No Bullshit” policy.
At the time of writing, Gandi has still not updated its website (apart from the email hosting page, which does feature the new prices) to inform potential new customers of the upcoming changes.