How Much Does a Domain Name Cost? Real 2026 Prices Compared

You found the perfect name, typed it into a registrar, and the price looked almost too good: a few dollars, maybe even one cent. Then a year later the renewal email shows a number two or three times higher. So how much does a domain name cost, really? It depends on the extension, the registrar, and whether you’re looking at the first year or every year after it.

We checked the live price pages of seven popular registrars (Namecheap, Spaceship, Cloudflare, Porkbun, GoDaddy, Squarespace and Hostinger) on the same day, for .com and eight other extensions. Below you’ll find what you’ll pay on day one, what you’ll pay at renewal, where the money goes, and the extras that quietly push the total up. Prices checked October 2026.

Quick Answer

A .com domain usually costs about $9 to $12 for the first year at a budget registrar, and renews at roughly $10 to $23 a year depending on where you buy it. Promo deals can drop the first year to a few dollars or even $0.01, but the renewal price is the one you’ll pay for as long as you keep the name.

One timing note: the wholesale price of .com goes up on November 1, 2026, so expect most .com prices in this article to creep up by about 70 cents a year after that date. More on that below.

What Sets the Price of a Domain Name?

Every domain price is built from three layers. Once you see them, the wild price differences between registrars start to make sense.

1. The registry’s wholesale price

Each extension is run by a registry. Verisign runs .com and .net, Public Interest Registry runs .org, and country codes are run by national bodies or companies they appoint. The registry charges every registrar the same wholesale fee per name, per year. This is the floor: no registrar can sell a regular .com below it without losing money.

For .com, that wholesale fee is $10.26 a year right now. Verisign announced in April 2026 that it will rise 7% to $10.97 on November 1, 2026, as Domain Name Wire reported. Its contract lets it raise the price by up to 7% in each of the last four years of a six-year cycle, so more increases are possible in the next few years. Registrars that also sell .net should take note too: one registrar, OSIR, reports that Verisign has told registrars the .net wholesale price goes from $10.91 to $12.00 on March 1, 2027.

2. The ICANN fee

ICANN, the nonprofit that coordinates domain names, charges registrars $0.20 per domain, per year on each registration, renewal and transfer of generic extensions like .com, .net, .org, .dev and .app. It’s tiny, but it explains odd totals at checkout. Namecheap, Spaceship and GoDaddy show it as a separate line. Porkbun and Cloudflare build it into the price you see. Country codes such as .io, .co, .ai and .uk don’t carry it.

3. The registrar’s markup

This is where prices really split. Cloudflare sells at cost: its regular .com is $10.46, which is exactly the $10.26 wholesale price plus the 20-cent ICANN fee. Porkbun and Spaceship sit just above cost. Bigger brands often take a loss on the first year to win you as a customer, then make it back at renewal. Neither model is a scam, but you should know which one you’re signing up for.

First Year vs Renewal vs Transfer

Almost every registrar lists three prices for each extension. They mean different things, and mixing them up is the number one reason people overpay.

• Registration is what you pay to create the domain, usually for one year. This is where the eye-catching promo prices live, and they’re often limited to new customers, one domain per household, or a multi-year term.
• Renewal is what you pay every year after that to keep the name. It’s the price you’ll live with longest, so compare this one first.
• Transfer is what you pay to move a domain from one registrar to another. For .com and most generic extensions, a transfer also adds a year to the expiry date (Cloudflare’s FAQ says so plainly), so it doubles as a renewal. Registrars may block transfers in the first 60 days after a domain is registered, according to ICANN’s registrant FAQ.

Here’s a real example. Namecheap’s .com page shows a first-year price of $11.28 (on sale from $14.98), a renewal of $18.48, and a transfer of $11.48. That’s a 64% jump from year one to year two, and it’s completely normal in this industry.

Over five years, that gap matters more than the headline price. A domain with a tiny first-year price and a high renewal usually ends up costing more than one priced flat and close to cost from day one.

How Much Does a Domain Name Cost at Each Registrar? (.com)

Here’s what a .com cost at seven well-known registrars when we checked their pages. “First year” is the regular first-year price anyone can get, without coupon codes. Promos and their conditions are in the notes.

A few things jump out. Spaceship, Cloudflare and Porkbun keep the first year and the renewal almost the same, so what you see is what you’ll keep paying. Namecheap is competitive on day one but renews higher. Hostinger and GoDaddy advertise a $0.01 first year, but only when you pay for three years up front, and the other two years in that term are billed at the regular price. That’s why the GoDaddy page says “3-year purchase required. Additional year(s) 22.99.”

Cloudflare deserves a short caveat. Its prices are the lowest renewals you’ll find for most extensions, but every domain registered there has to use Cloudflare’s nameservers, according to Cloudflare’s own FAQ. That’s fine for most sites (and Cloudflare’s DNS is free), but if you want your DNS somewhere else, pick another registrar. New to nameservers? Our plain-English guide to DNS explains how they work.

Look at the Porkbun screenshot for a perfect example of the first-year trap. A .xyz domain is $2.04 for the first year, then renews at $14.21. A .lol is $1.54, then $26.26. Cheap to start, not cheap to keep.

Prices for Other Popular Domain Extensions

Outside .com, the spread between registrars gets even wider. Each cell shows first year / renewal per year in USD. Where only one price appears, the registrar showed no separate first-year discount. Namecheap, Spaceship and GoDaddy add the $0.20 ICANN fee to the generic extensions (.net, .org, .dev, .app) at checkout.

.net, .org, .dev and .app

.io, .co, .ai and country codes (.us, .uk)

The pattern is the same as with .com, just louder. A .io can be had for around $30 in year one, but renewals run from about $50 at the near-cost registrars to $90 at GoDaddy. And .ai is in a league of its own: about $80 a year at the cheapest, usually sold two years at a time, so expect to pay around $160 up front.

What a .com Really Costs Over Five Years

If you plan to keep your domain (and you should, since changing it later hurts), the five-year total tells you far more than the first-year price. Here’s the math at today’s regular prices, including the ICANN fee where it’s charged separately:

The “one cent” offers end up in the middle of the pack, and the most expensive option costs nearly twice the cheapest over five years. None of this is huge money for one domain, but it adds up fast if you own a handful. After November 1, add roughly $0.71 for every year of .com you renew, since that’s the wholesale increase most registrars are likely to pass on.

Free Domain With Hosting: What’s the Catch?

Many web hosts throw in a free domain when you buy a hosting plan. It’s a real saving, but only for the first year. Hostinger is a good example: its Premium and Unlimited plans list “Domain – free for 1 year”, and its free-domain FAQ says the domain is $0.00 in the cart when you pick a term of 12 months or longer, then “renews at the regular price” after the first year. For a .com at Hostinger, that regular price is $19.99 a year.

There’s a second catch if you change your mind. Hostinger’s refund policy says free domains from special deals are non-refundable, and it may refund only the difference between what you paid and the domain’s price. So if you cancel hosting inside the money-back window, the domain’s value comes out of your refund. You keep the domain, but it wasn’t free after all. Other hosts have similar rules, so read the refund terms before you count on the freebie.

Our take: take the free year, then decide. Once the domain is past the 60-day mark you can move it to a cheaper registrar before it renews, and the transfer adds a year anyway. We cover more of these surprise charges in our guide to the hidden costs of website hosting, and the hosting side of the bill in how much web hosting costs.

Temporary offer: Hostinger is running its Black Friday sale right now, with lower first-term hosting prices than usual. Sale prices end when the promotion does, so check the renewal line before you buy.

Premium and Aftermarket Domains

Everything above assumes a regular, unregistered name. Short, catchy or keyword-rich names often aren’t regular. They come in two flavors, and the difference matters for your long-term bill.

• Registry premium names. The registry itself sets a higher price for certain names, and that higher price often applies to every renewal too, not just the first year. Registrars flag these with a “premium” label. Namecheap’s pages, for instance, note that premium names aren’t eligible for promotions and may be priced differently.
• Aftermarket names. Someone already owns the name and wants to sell it, usually through a marketplace. You pay the seller a one-time price, which can be anywhere from a few hundred dollars to six figures for great one-word .coms. After the sale, a regular aftermarket name typically renews at the normal price for its extension.

Some extensions are simply expensive across the board. On Spaceship’s pricing page, a .inc domain was $258.75 for the first year and $2,059.30 a year to renew. If a search result looks unusually pricey, check whether it’s a premium name or a pricey extension before you click buy.

Hidden Extras That Raise Domain Costs

The sticker price is rarely the whole story. These are the add-ons and fees that most often inflate a domain bill:

• The ICANN fee. Only 20 cents, but it’s why your cart total doesn’t match the advertised price at Namecheap, Spaceship or GoDaddy (GoDaddy’s small print says its prices exclude ICANN fees).
• WHOIS privacy. This hides your name, address and phone number from public lookup. Namecheap, Spaceship, Porkbun, Cloudflare, Squarespace and Hostinger all include it at no charge for eligible domains, so don’t pay extra for it anywhere.
• Email. A domain doesn’t come with mailboxes. Registrars push email bundles at checkout, often with a free trial that turns paid. Spaceship, for example, offers its Spacemail Pro free for 30 days, then $0.98 a month.
• Protection bundles and SSL. Hostinger offers an optional “Domain Shield” add-on at checkout, and Namecheap promotes discounted SSL certificates for the first year. Most hosts include free SSL, so you rarely need to buy one with a domain.
• Required multi-year terms. The $0.01 deals at GoDaddy and Hostinger need a 3-year term, and many .ai registrations need two years. The total charged today is much bigger than the headline.
• Late renewal and redemption fees. Let a domain expire and you may get a grace period, but after that it enters redemption, and restoring it costs an extra fee on top of the renewal. Cloudflare’s FAQ notes that restore fees are separate from renewal fees and vary by extension.
• Taxes. Some registrars show prices before VAT or sales tax. Hostinger’s domain table says so in its footer.

How to Save Money on a Domain Name

1. Compare renewal prices, not first-year prices. A registrar that charges $10 every year beats one that charges $3 now and $20 later, as soon as you hit year two.
2. Consider an at-cost or near-cost registrar. Cloudflare, Porkbun and Spaceship came out cheapest over five years in our check. Our Spaceship review covers what else that company sells.
3. Renew .com before November 1, 2026. Renewals paid before the wholesale increase are charged at today’s price. Namecheap’s .com page currently advertises up to 15% off multi-year renewals before that date. Only do this for names you’re sure you’ll keep.
4. Use the new-customer deal, then compare at renewal. Namecheap’s $6.48 first-year .com for new customers or GoDaddy’s $2.99 one-year .com are fine to grab, as long as you plan to transfer or accept the renewal price later.
5. Transfer instead of renewing at a high price. A .com transfer at Spaceship ($9.48) or Cloudflare ($10.46) includes a year of renewal, which is cheaper than a $18 to $23 renewal at the big brands.
6. Skip the add-ons. Untick email bundles, SSL and protection packages you didn’t ask for. You can always add them later.
7. Turn on auto-renew. It’s the cheapest insurance against losing your name or paying a redemption fee.
8. Keep domain and hosting separate if renewals are high. It’s convenient to have both in one account, as our Namecheap hosting review points out, but you don’t have to buy your domain from your host.

FAQ

How much does a domain name cost per year?

A .com costs about $10 to $23 a year to keep, depending on the registrar. In our October 2026 check, renewals ranged from $9.98 at Spaceship (plus a 20-cent ICANN fee) to $22.99 at GoDaddy. Cheaper extensions like .us or .uk can cost $5 to $11 a year, while .io and .ai cost much more.

Why is my domain renewal so much more expensive than the first year?

Because the first year was discounted to win you as a customer. Many registrars sell the first year below their normal price and charge the regular rate at renewal. If the renewal feels too high, you can transfer the domain to a cheaper registrar, which also adds a year.

Is a free domain with hosting really free?

Only for the first year. After that it renews at the host’s regular domain price, and if you cancel the hosting during the refund window, many hosts keep the domain’s value from your refund. It’s still a good deal if you stay, just not a free one forever.

Can I buy a domain name forever?

No, you can’t buy a domain permanently. You rent it by the year, and most extensions let you register or renew for up to 10 years at a time. Keep auto-renew on and you can hold it as long as you like.

Do I need to pay for domain privacy?

Usually not. Namecheap, Spaceship, Porkbun, Cloudflare, Squarespace and Hostinger all include WHOIS privacy for free on eligible domains. Some country-code extensions don’t support it, but you shouldn’t pay extra for it on a .com.

Will .com domains get more expensive?

Yes, the .com wholesale price rises from $10.26 to $10.97 a year on November 1, 2026, and Verisign’s contract allows further increases of up to 7% a year in the coming years. Most registrars pass these increases on, so renewing early for names you’ll keep can save a little.