No, Google Did Not Hike the Price of a .dev Domain from $12 to $850 explains how domain pricing works. It’s important to understand the difference between registers and registrars.
- Every top-level domain (TLD) is controlled by a register. Registers do not sell domain directly to the public.
- Registrars broker the transaction between a domain registrant and the registry.
The registration fee of a domain usually consists of
- Registry fee
- Registrar markup, and
- ICANN fee.
Usually, registers have an agreement with ICANN that has certain limitations on how much they can charge for the fee. However, country-code TLDs (2-letter TLD) do not have an enforceable registry agreements with ICANN. They are governed by their respective countries (or similar political entities), which have full control on the pricing.