Lock in today's .au domain prices before 1 October
Straight to it: the wholesale price of .au domains is rising from 1 October 2026.
auDA (the organisation that runs the .au namespace) has announced it's lifting the wholesale price it charges registrars for every .au domain licence, from $8.64 to $9.50 (ex GST) per year. That's about a 10% jump, and it applies no matter what term you register for. You can read auDA's full announcement here if you want the detail straight from the source.
What that means for Chirpy customers
Here's the honest bit: Chirpy doesn't buy directly from auDA. As a reseller, we go through a middleman supplier who sets the price that we actually pay. We fully expect our costs to go up on the back of this - it would be strange if they didn't - but our supplier has a habit of announcing their own price changes with very little notice.
(If you're interested, here's a little bit more about resellers, auDA, and how the domain industry all fits together.)
So right now, we genuinely can't tell you what Chirpy's price will be from October 1. We're not dodging the question, we just don't know yet.
What we can tell you is what to do about it.
Lock in today's price before October
If you register or renew a .au domain before 1 October, you lock in today's low price for the term. Simple as that.
And here's the bit that makes a real difference: multi-year registrations are charged at today's price for the whole term. Register for three years now, and you pay today's rate of $12.50 (ex. GST) for all three years - not today's rate for year one and whatever-it-becomes for years two and three.
So if you've been sitting on a domain renewal, or you know you'll want that name for a while yet, now's a smart time to go longer than the usual 12 months. A 2, 3, 4 or 5-year registration locks in your price for that whole stretch.
We'll update you on prices as soon as we can
Once we hear from our supplier, we'll know what Chirpy prices will look like from October. Until then, the smartest move is the one you can make today: get in before the price rises, and go long if you can.