On the 2nd January 2014, Tucows, the registrar we use to register top level domains (.com .net .org and many others) introduced a completely new pricing structure and also started charging for their whois privacy service; prior to this date the whois privacy service was available to us at no charge and we passed on this benefit to our clients.
Because of this change, from the 2nd January 2014 whois privacy will now be a chargeable service. The initial charging for this based on our transparent cost plus domain pricing model works out at £7.54 plus VAT per year per domain with whois privacy enabled.
The whois privacy charge along with the updated domain pricing can be seen on our Domain Name Pricing page here.
As we invoice on the 1st of each month for everything falling due for renewal in the following month and because we cannot know quite when people will pay these renewal invoices, this change causes us a timing issue.
To keep things simple, we will honour the previous domain pricing on all domains already invoiced (i.e. all domains falling due for renewal up to the end of February 2014).
All new orders from now forwards and all renewal invoices issued on the 1st February for March renewals and thereafter, will be at the new pricing.