Seven Percent, in Four Years Out of SixWide moat

VeriSign (VRSN) — moat facet

$9.59 to $10.26 to $10.97, heading toward roughly $13.42 — the most forecastable revenue line in this collection, and none of it required a decision.

The arithmetic of the price ladder is the single most forecastable thing in this collection.

.com wholesale fee charged, per name-year ($)$9.59Sept 2021$10.26Sept 2024$10.97Nov 2026VeriSign filings and the November 2026 price notice; three 7% steps remain available to 2029
Two 7% steps taken in five years; the contract allows three more before 2030.

VeriSign may raise the .com wholesale fee by up to 7% in each of the final four years of a six-year period, and by up to 10% a year on .net, every year, through mid-2029.1 The .com fee went $9.59 to $10.26 in September 2024, then $10.26 to $10.97 on 1 November 2026 — the first step of the current cycle.2 Three more are contractually available.

Applied to roughly 163 million .com names, each 7% step is worth on the order of $115 million of additional annual revenue. Since the incremental cost of billing a name that already exists is close to zero, essentially all of it reaches operating income — against a 2025 operating income of $1,121.0 million.3

The clause also contains its own restraint, which is easy to miss. Two years in every six carry no increase at all. The 2019-to-2024 stretch that produced VeriSign's re-rating included the freeze years, and the price stood still at $9.59 from September 2021 until September 2024. So the price line is a staircase with landings, and the landings are why revenue growth has occasionally looked pedestrian in years when the base was also soft.

There is a further provision most summaries omit. VeriSign may also raise the .com fee by up to 7% to fund a new consensus policy or an extraordinary expense imposed on it — but only in years when it is not already taking the ordinary increase. The ceiling is a ceiling.

Moat trajectory: Widening

The 7% step that took the wholesale fee to $10.97 on 1 November 2026 is worth roughly $115 million a year at close to a 100% margin, and three more are contractually available before 2030. For four years this facet gets measurably stronger every twelve months, on a schedule anyone can read.

The number that tests this moat
Reported
.com wholesale fee
$10.97 from 1 November 2026

Up from $10.26, which had held since September 2024, and $9.59 before that. This is the first of four 7% steps available in the six-year period that began in October 2024; taking all four would reach roughly $13.42 by 2029. Watch it against the domain name base: the arithmetic only works while price rises faster than units fall.

Source: Domain Name Wire, 23 April 2026 ↗
⚠ Threats to the moat
⚠ THREAT 01
The Ladder Has Landings
The escalator is a staircase with landings: two years in six carry no increase, and registrars pre-sell around the ones that do.
References
  1. ReportedVeriSign may raise the .com fee by up to 7% in each of the final four years of a six-year period and .net by up to 10% each year through 30 June 2029, and may also raise the .com fee by up to 7% for a consensus policy or extraordinary expense only in years when it is not taking the ordinary increase.
    VeriSign, Inc., Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 31 December 2025 (SEC, CIK 1014473) — Item 1, Business. VeriSign operates the .com and .net registries under registry agreements with ICANN, and .com additionally under a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce (most recently amended by Amendment 35 on 26 October 2018, automatically renewed on the same terms on 30 November 2024 for a successive six-year term, renewing again on 30 November 2030 unless the DOC gives notice). The .com Registry Agreement runs a six-year term that must be renewed or extended by 30 November 2030 and contains a presumptive right of renewal, with ICANN able to terminate or refuse in certain prescribed circumstances; it permits an increase to the Maximum Price of up to 7% over the previous year in each of the final four years of each six-year period, the current period having begun on 26 October 2024. The .net Registry Agreement was renewed on 29 June 2023, runs to 1 July 2029 and permits increases of up to 10% each year. VeriSign remits $0.2575 to ICANN quarterly for each annual .com registration and $0.25 for each .name registration. It also operates .cc under an agreement with the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, operates .name and internationalised gTLDs, provides back-end services for .edu, performs the Root Zone Maintainer function for ICANN and operates two of the thirteen global internet root servers. Retail pricing is established by registrars; VeriSign must provide ICANN-accredited registrars with non-discriminatory access, faces marketing and bundling limits, must submit new Registry Services for ICANN review, and is subject to vertical-integration restrictions that apply solely to .com — obligations it states do not apply to ccTLDs and other gTLDs and may create a competitive disadvantage. Named registry competitors include CentralNic, China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), DENIC eG, GoDaddy, Google, Identity Digital, Nominet, Public Interest Registry, Radix and .xyz. Employee headcount 928 (256 cost of revenues, 240 research and development, 432 selling, general and administrative). — FY2025 · publ. 2026-02-05 · source ↗
  2. ReportedThe .com fee went from $9.59 to $10.26 in September 2024 and from $10.26 to $10.97 on 1 November 2026, the first of four steps available in the current cycle.
    Domain Name Wire — Verisign raising wholesale .com prices. Effective 1 November 2026 the annual registry fee rises 7% from $10.26 to $10.97, the first change since September 2024 and the first of four increases available in the six-year pricing period that began on 26 October 2024; taking all four would lift the price to roughly $13.42. — 2026 · publ. 2026-04-23 · source ↗
  3. ReportedOperating income was $1,121.0M in 2025.
    VeriSign, Inc., Form 10-K FY2025 — Item 7, Management's Discussion and Analysis. Revenues $1,656.6M (+6%) against $1,557.4M in 2024 (+4%) and $1,493.1M in 2023; operating income $1,121.0M (+6%). Costs as a percentage of revenues: cost of revenues 11.8% (12.3%, 13.2%), research and development 6.3% (6.2%, 6.1%), selling, general and administrative 14.2% (13.6%, 13.7%), total costs and expenses 32.3% (32.1%, 33.0%), operating income 67.7% (67.9%, 67.0%), interest expense (4.6)%, net income 49.8% (50.4%, 54.8%). The .com and .net domain name base was 173.5 million at 31 December 2025 (+3%) against 169.0 million in 2024 (−2%) and 172.7 million in 2023. VeriSign processed 41.7 million new .com and .net registrations in 2025 against 37.4 million in 2024; the final third-quarter 2025 renewal rate was 75.4% against 72.2%. The registry-level wholesale fee rose from $9.59 to $10.26 for .com effective 1 September 2024 and from $9.92 to $10.91 for .net effective 1 February 2024. Geographic revenues: U.S. $1,093.1M (+6%), EMEA $279.4M (+12%), APAC $184.6M (+5%), other $99.5M (+3%). VeriSign repurchased 3.4 million shares for $858.6M in 2025, with $1.08 billion remaining under a programme authorised to $1.50 billion effective 24 July 2025. — FY2025 · publ. 2026-02-05 · source ↗
Sources
Generated September 23, 2026