Forget about the price tag

by Stuart Fuller

“It’s not about the money, money, money, forget about the price tag, we just wanna make the world dance.”

Next April ICANN will open their TLD Application System (TAS), for the first time since 2012, and organizations will be able to submit their carefully crafted dotBrand Top-Level Domain applications.  Whilst the criteria is strict, the Applicant Guidebook (AGM) hefty at just shy of 400 pages and the application window just over three months long, it is the ICANN fee that has perhaps caused the most consternation among the brand holder community.

The Application Fee

At $227,500 for each and every dotBrand TLD application, it is certainly not for every organization, but many firms are looking beyond that number, and building a business case that will not only deliver tangible return on investment, but also applying standard accounting principles to mitigate the cost to the bottom line.

A rough definition of an intangible asset is that it is an identifiable non-monetary asset without physical substance. This means it is a non-physical asset that can be separately identified or arises from legal or contractual rights. Such assets are controlled by a company due to past events and are expected to provide future economic benefits. Examples include patents, trademarks, copyrights, brand names, goodwill, software, and domain names, or as in this case, a dotBrand Top-Level Domain.

Businesses can typically depreciate or amortize  intangible asset costs over its useful life for financial reporting or tax purposes. This does depend on the company’s accounting policies and applicable accounting standards (such as IFRS or GAAP), but it is possible to capitalize the TLD as an intangible asset and then depreciated or amortized over the period the TLD rights and benefits are expected to be used (e.g., over the initial 10-year term of the ICANN registry agreement).

The Budgeting Process

There are no volume discounts, no negotiations, no instalment plans, and no loyalty bonuses on the ICANN application fee.  ICANN have stated thought that if there are over 1,000 applications received during the second-round window, then there will be a rebate for every applicant, although the details of that are still to be confirmed.

It’s not a small sum for most organizations, and with less than a year until the application process begins, any businesses that is serious about applying to own and operate a TLD needs to start the internal planning process as soon as possible, especially when it comes to securing the budget for the application fee, which ICANN will expect payment for during, or shortly after the application window closes in the summer of 2026 (the actual timing for the payment of the application fee is yet to be determined by ICANN).

Therefore, it may be necessary to create a specific business plan

It is entirely possible that an applicant will need to find the money to fund the initial application fee, as well as ongoing costs to operate the TLD and meet the ICANN compliance requirements.

A Marketing Perspective

Owning and operating a dotBrand TLD is a strategic decision that can deliver immense, measurable value compared to traditional marketing spend.  As digital ecosystems become increasingly crowded and customer trust is more important than ever, applying for your own Top-Level Domain can bring measurable advantages in terms of control, security, and differentiation that standard domain names or digital advertising may not be able to match.

A dotBrand TLD has the ability to transform a company’s digital identity from being “one of many” on .com or .net to standing alone in owning a slice of internet real estate. This brings operational autonomy: your brand becomes the registry, with complete authority over every dotBrand domain.  Many firms look to acquire third-party owned domain names each year to support new campaigns or brand launches, often having to pay tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands to registrants. There are numerous stories of major brands left red-faced after creating expensive advertising campaigns, only to realise at the last minute that the domain name being used is owned by a third party, a situation, and a cost, that is avoidable by owning a dotBrand TLD.

Digital Market Advantages

Beyond cost savings in domain name acquisitions, the marketing impact of owning a dotBrand TLD is transformative. It signals legitimacy and trust, combating phishing and cybersquatting, key concerns in the age of digital threats. Customers quickly learn that only domains where the brand is to the right of the dot are authentic, building trust and enhancing every campaign and channel’s resonance. With all traffic directed through a dotBrand TLD, organisations recover more direct navigation, improve SEO opportunities, and present a focused, cohesive digital front.

From a digital marketing perspective, a dotBrand enhances search engine optimization (SEO) and reduces the need for paid advertising. Because brands can create keyword-rich, exact-match subdomains within their own namespace, they gain SEO advantages without competing on costly keyword domains or running expensive Google AdWords campaigns. This organic search visibility lowers paid search costs and contributes to a more sustainable, long-term marketing strategy.

Another way to look at finding internal spend for a dotBrand TLD application is to compare it to typical marketing campaigns that even mid-size organisations may budget for every year. Recent data shows that average marketing budgets for companies have been around 7.7% to 9.2% of total company revenue in 2024-2025, based on Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey and other industry studies. Marketing budgets were approximately 9.1% of revenue in 2023 but have seen some recent dips to around 7.7% in 2024, with typical ranges between about 7% and 10% depending on the source and sector.

A prime-time TV ad or global digital burst may consume a significant portion of the marketing budget, with effects fading in weeks or months. In contrast, a dotBrand TLD is an owned, lasting asset that continues to deliver value by enhancing all digital activity, improving agility for product and brand launches, and supporting new markets, verticals, geographies, and microsites without friction.

If a global brand’s marketing budget is about 9% of its total revenue, then on a revenue base of $1 billion, the dotBrand TLD application would be about 0.25% of the annual marketing budget in 2026, falling to less than 0.1% in subsequent years.

Summary

For forward-thinking brands, applying for a dotBrand TLD in 2026 is an investment in digital sovereignty, marketing agility, and enduring trust. When compared to ongoing marketing expenditures that deliver only short-term results, a dotBrand is an enterprise asset, one that returns more the longer and smarter it is used, whilst being able to be depreciated in line with depreciation policy.

In a landscape where digital reputation, customer security, and brand unity are critical, the value of a dotBrand TLD eclipses that of any single campaign, making it a compelling centrepiece for the next decade of brand strategy.

However, organisations need to move quickly to consider how they will internally fund an application, as well as determine if there are any risks in applying for a specific brand or keyword.

For a senior Marketing or Branding officer aiming to leverage a dotBrand TLD as a strategic marketing asset providing security, unique customer experiences, and operational control, partnering with Com Laude offers the best chance of success, starting with a feasibility study to identify any risks that exist in an application, as well as building a value creation model for the ongoing success of owning and operating a dotBrand TLD.

Talk to us today to find out more about the next round of TLDs.