02 March, 2015

Dear Daily.co.uk - That is NOT the way to treat your customers!

I thought it important to squeeze in a little rant about the company we've used since just after it launched - we even mentioned daily.co.uk in a blog post 3 or 4 years ago. We were impressed with the service to begin with and were comfortable enough to remain with them as their services deteriorated - but these last few days has sealed the fate of any future relationship. We no longer trust them to respect their customers.

Last Friday, we were asked to register a domainname.co.uk for a client and logged into daily.co.uk as usual to do so. As we were choosing the length of registration, we noticed what we thought were pricing errors - an increase in excess of 50% to register a .co.uk domain for 2 years.

We then checked the price of our upcoming renewals of some daily-previously registered .co.uk domains that are due in a couple of months: it showed the same price hike.

We searched online forums to find that others were equally shocked at daily's sudden price rise.

So, in the same way that we transferred a load of domains to them over the past few years, we decided to begin transferring away and were stunned to discover that they had anticipated this action and have added a charge for this previously (and generally) free service!

Here are the sums:

You can register/renew.co.uk domains for up to ten years with most reputable companies. Using the figures in the illustration above, the savings for transferring away would be even greater for each added year.

No prizes for guessing what we're doing. In fact, shopping around for cheaper domain names can save even more money but we have to consider other aspects that are important to the way we work with our clients.

For example, at the time of writing, Heart Internet is £5.98+vat for 2 years registration/renewal and, if you are willing to pay in Euros, Blacknight.com charges €7.98+vat for 2 years .co.uk registration/renewal which is (today) approximately £5.82+vat. Disclaimer: please check the prices and services for yourself before proceeding as we will not be held responsible for the consequences of any action taken, citing this blog.

In the interests of balance, we should add that if you wish to pre-pay for at least 150 .co.uk domain names with daily.co.uk, the price does come down to £5.30+vat for 2 years' registration/renewal.