Why my domain became $28 per year? Any known workarounds?

About one year ago I got a nice sounding .co domain for regular price of about $10. I worked on it on and off and site got some traffic (not much income, but that's fine).

I have big plans for this domain as people seem to like this site and link to it easily. I wanted to renew it for 5 years in advance to send additional "quality signals". To my surprise now it costs $28 per YEAR to renew my domain. So I would need to pay $140 to renew it for 5 years

I had many domains before and this never happened to me. Why this happens? Is there a known workaround? Maybe if I transfer it elsewhere they'll give me better price? Will this price rise again in the future?

Domain was registered via Name.com

Thank you!

you should always take a look at the little star (*) sometimes the price that you pay is just for the first year , you need to pay attention to the hidden rules
take a look at this page here : https://www.name.com/pricing and look for your domain extension (CO and see the prices and the prices of renewals

Try to transfer it to a different registrar like namecheap.

i just took a look at godaddy's pricing table and it seems that the .CO domains renewals is expensive , it costs 29$ !!

seems like namecheap is the "cheapest" one it costs $22 / year

Yeah I never had .co before and didn't pay attention to hidden rules. Keep researching but all seem to offer about this price, the cheapest is $22 for transfer so doesn't make huge difference. I will not transfer to NameCheap since I decided to use it for my PBN sites. Seems like I have to pay $28 for year now

Thanks everyone!

Most registrars give you free private registration the first year, then they charge for it the next year. Also, a lot of .com (not your case) domain registrars are cheaper the first year, just to bring in more clients, then they double the rate the next year. This really sucks. Holding a bunch of domains with no websites can really add up.

That is unusual, although I think VAT of 23%, but that shouldn't make the price jump to 28. Ask the support about it. They are very helpful.

try to get some discount coupon.. it may help to reduce cost a bit..

UPDATE: domain renewed for 2 years ==> $56. Hopefully it's enough for one small additional "quality signal".

I learned something new today!