Update: 7/14/2023 – .COM prices updated to show recent increase. Network Solutions showed zero increase, Google is closing Google Domains.
Update: 5/3/2022 – Prices updated to reflect most recent prices, some corrected, and ICANN fees added to all prices shown to ensure they are evenly compared.

About This List

I personally own and buy hundreds of domains every year. Sometimes for future projects, sometimes for investments, and sometimes for clients. The domain registrar space is a vibrant one with constant changes happening at older more established brands and new brands finding new ways to make domain searching and purchasing feel different. This list is designed for people in the USA and Canada but may apply to those living in other countries too.

We DO NOT use any affiliate links anywhere on our site or in this document. All of the following are honest and informed opinions based on my personal experience over decades of working online and using various domain registrars across thousands of domains. No registrar can pay to be included on this list or for special treatment. The list may be updated as new information is made available to me.

General Domain Purchasing Information

If this is your first time purchasing a domain you should always consult with a professional in your country / region to determine the right domain name, TLD, and registrar to use. Typically an SEO agency or professional or even a web designer should have the appropriate level of knowledge to help guide your foray into domains.

Businesses that sell domains are known as “Domain Registrars” and are governed by ICANN, an international agency that overseas the entire domain name system and determines things like domain fees.

Domains are paid for in yearly increments and then renewed. Your initial purchase should tell you the length of time the first purchase covers in number of years. After this period you will pay a separate and sometimes higher renewal rate every year until you sell or drop the domain.

Most domain registrars practice a model where the initial purchase (first year or two) is done at a discounted rate, but after this period of time the rate to renew goes to their current market rate, which also will likely increase slightly over time.

General Domain Purchasing Advice

Domains Only – I recommend keeping your domains separate from other digital assets such as web hosting, email, social media marketing, SEO, etc.. While obtaining the right domain is a great first step in your online marketing journey, a domain registrar will most often not be the right place to manage various other aspects of your businesses online pressence. When buying a domain you may be shown various other services with descriptions that sound like you need to add those to your cart too. Review these very carefully and weigh your options with other alternatives around the web.

Cart Stuffing – Be wary of ‘Cart Stuffing’. Some domain registrars automatically add other services into your shopping cart for each domain you purchase. These fees may appear small and useful at the moment, but they are often designed to be difficult to remove and will become costly as the number of domains you purchase increases and as you hold them for a number of years.

Chose The Best – .COM is the best domain, but in today’s world your domain doesn’t have to be a .COM to win at marketing or SEO. Make sure the domain you select works for your brand though and your budget. For example you may want to use a .COM but it is taken and not being used. You might then look for the country TLD for your country (i.e. .CO.UK for the United Kingdom or .UA for Ukraine). If that is also taken and not in use you would then look at alternative domains such as .IO, .NET, or another gTLD.

1. Porkbun

Award: Best Overall Domain Registrar

Porkbun is our top selection for a Domain Registrar for a variety of reasons. Their system is simple and intuitive to use, their prices are some of the most affordable, and the whole brand is focused on providing a great domain registration and management experience.

Nearly the exact opposite of every other domain registrar out there today, Porkbun appears to be purpose-built to be as simple and useful as possible without providing distractions or pushing other products. Porkbun does offer a lot of other options including a service to turn your own URL into a BioLink URL along with standards like email hosting and web hosting if you need them.

DNS updates from here are also universally fast. One curiosity about Porkbun is that their domain search almost always ommits .NET domains unless you search for one specifically. That is the one and only thing I was able to find with Porkbun that I don’t like, making them the single best domain registrar available today.

• Current .com price: $9.73 (up from $9.13)
• Current .com renewal price: $9.73 (up from $9.13)

2. Namecheap

As the name implies domains registered at Namecheap are likeley less expensvie than domains registered elsewhere. Often times even less expensive than our number one pick. Beyond .COM domains Namecheap frequently has deals and specials on registrations of domains from all types of TLDs and GTLDs.

The Namecheap default search experience is called “Beast Mode” and automatically searches for your keyword across all TLDs available on the service. Users can easily sort through the list or narrow their search using their advanced search feature.

When you pick a domain you like Namecheap also offers a variety of addons and upgrades including web hosting, email hosting, and other things you might expect from a domain registrar. They also offer a legal service to setup your LLC, a logo design tool, a business card printing service, a graphic design tool, credit card fraud prevention, and a CDN. They also offer beyond WordPress support including Strikingly, Ghost Machine, and Weebly.

• Current .com price: $9.58 (up from $8.98)
• Current .com renewal price: $14.58 (up from $14.16)

3. Name.com

Name.com is a good domain registrar, but unlike our top picks they do a lot to try and get users to purchase other products. One of the worst things Name.com does is automatically add a $4.99 / year fee for each domain purchased for “Advanced Security + Privacy”. The service doesn’t explain this until you see the shopping cart where the charge is appended to each domain and under the charge it is explained as “WHOIS privacy, Domain Lock, an SSL certificate”. These addons are of course unnecessary for a domain purchase but may be helpful if you need them.

The default domain search on Name.com feels cluttered and right on the home page they are already pushing email hosting next to the domain search utility. Once you select a domain and add it to your cart, the first time you click to visit your cart Name.com takes you instead to a page that lists other things you might want to addon to your order, which can be disorienting for some.

Name.com does have a neat partnership with Digital Ocean allowing users to purchase and spinup droplets directly from their Name.com account. They also do come in less expensive than other registrars from time to time on specific TLDs such as .IO.

• Current .com price: $12.99 (up from $9.99)
• Current .com renewal price: $16.99 (up from $15.99)

4. Dynadot

Dynadot offers a good buying experience mixed with standard things you might expect from a modern domain registrar, low prices, and unique features few other registrars offer.

The buying experience here is smooth. While Dynadot offers a free website, email host, SSL, and other things they do not appear to pre-select these for customers or intrusively force them in your way. Every domain also appears to come with Free privacy instead of charging $$ for it like most registrars do.

Their most unique feature though is “Grace Deletion” which allows buyers to purchase a domain, then return it before the registration period is up for a partial refund. As far as I know they are the only registrar to offer this or at the very least to prominently advertise it.

• Current .com price: $10.99 (up from $9.99)
• Current .com renewal price: $10.99 (up from $9.99)

5. GoDaddy

GoDaddy has been the undisputed champion of domain registrations for two decades and is a brand known by nearly every small business owner and even normal consumers. Over the time that GoDaddy has been one of the most recognized brands in the space they’ve also helped innovate it by making it a standard for domain registrars to also sell things like web hosting, email hosting, and SSL certificates.

GoDaddy has also amassed probably the largest collection of ‘extras’ you can buy from any domain registrar including other web hosting providers like Media Temple, the industry’s main domain aftermarket auction system, Site Builder tools, A payment processor, WordPress management services, Social Media Mangement services, and they even sell SEO services. It seems that GoDaddy’s approach is to try and offer everything a business might need to build, manage, and promote their online pressence The quality of all of these services though is often suspect and most professionals tend to agree that beyond domain registration services, most of GoDaddy’s offerings are not a good fit for anything beyond a simple beginner website. I absolutely agree with this as a GoDaddy customer since 1999 I find their offerings beyond domains often lacking, overpriced, poorly managed/updated, or absolutely useless – especially their website hosting and so called “SEO” service.

As you might expect GoDaddy is also one of the single most expensive domain registrars for a .COM domain registration. Though they frequently have deals, sales, and specials to help you purchase your .COM domain at a price sometimes lower than other providers like Porkbun and Namecheap, the ensuing years of .COM renewals are exorbidnantly high and honestly for no good reason at all. GoDaddy does not do a better job of protecting users from things like domain hijacking nor do they appear to have any other superior service with their high priced domains.

While I own dozens, possibly hundreds, of domains at GoDaddy I stopped buying new ones from them years ago and always encourage my friends, family, colleagues, and clients to do the same.

If they are the most expensive and I feel so strongly about GoDaddy’s overall services not being the value-add they are marketed as, the why are they listed at #5 on this list? Well to be quite frank GoDaddy is not going anywhere any time soon. If you are looking for a domain registrar with definite longevity then you want to use GoDaddy. Even if you end up using their other services which may be lacking or paltry in comparison, you can guarantee that when you try to move from GoDaddy to something better there is most likely going to be online guides or knowledgable experts to help you with that transition. There’s even the slight chance that GoDaddy actually improves over time or that some of their extra services become better than the competition. For example I highly recommend VPS servers from GoDaddy owned Media Temple for hosting when they fit a client’s needs and I am an avid user of GoDaddy’s Domain Auction service. So, while I am not a big fan of GoDaddy and their prices are incredibly high, they may offer value far beyond what other domain registrars can and for some of you reading this that is probably worth it.

• Current .com price: $21.99 (up from $20.17)
• Current .com renewal price: $21.99 (up from $20.17)

6. NameSilo

A domain registrar that appears to put domains first. The site is pleasing and easy to use, but if you are not logged in to the service when you try to purchase a domain and then go to your shopping cart it instead shows the login screen. This is a small UX issue but adds friction to the domain purchase experience for me, most registrars show the login screen between viewing the cart and paying.

The service offers the standards of web hosting, SSL certificates, and email hosting options along with a logo maker. The most important for domain investors though is probably the NameSilo Marketplace which often has great domains for sale that you can add to your portfolio. NameSilo customers can also list on the service.

• Current .com price: $10.95 (up from $9.95)
• Current .com renewal price: $10.95 (up from $9.95)

7. Ionos

Another European entry to our list, Ionos is headquartered in Germany. The company used to be known as 1&1 and focuses more on web hosting than domain sales, though their homepage looks more like a standard domain registrar.

Unfortunately for domain buyers Ionos utilizes a few tactics that drove them lower on our list. When you go to purchase a domain you are first shown a list of addons you should consider purchasing, many of which are discoutned for the first year but will cost a lot more for every year after that. Ionos also uses the tactic of deeply discounting a domain registration for the first year and then charging a much higher fee for yearly renewals.

One thing I both liked is that in their list of addons Ionos often includes other TLDs matching your domain name to purchase at a discount. This could be helpful to snag a brand across TLDs for cheap in the first year.

Ionos is the only entrant on our list that also claims to be a Climate-Neutral hosting solution. According to their website the service works to generate and purchase green energy for their Germany and UK operations, works to reduce their overall power usage, and also buys green certificates / carbon credits in other parts of the world.

• Current .com price: $17.00 (up from $15.00)
• Current .com renewal price: $17.00 (up from $15.00)

8. Domain.com

Domain.com is a quality domain registrar that offers a good domain search and purchasing experience. Their largest draw back is that like a few other registrars they automatically add an extra charge to each domain you order for “privacy” and theirs is a little more expensive than others at $8.99 / year. You can of course remove this charge, but it is a little annoying to have it added.

They also offer a site builder, web hosting, SSL certificates, and Google GSuite integration.

• Current .com price: $11.99 (up from $9.99)
• Current .com renewal price: $11.99 (up from $9.99)

9. Domains.com

Like they say in the domain name, they sell domains. Pretty simple stuff. Domains.com also offers a few other things like web hosting, domain protection, SSL, website backups, and email hosting.

The services buying experience feels drab and when you try to visit the cart they do show you several addon products to consider including auto-selecting their “full domain protection” service which nearly doubles the cost of a .COM domain registration. Domain purchases also default to a 2-year registration instead of the more standard one year.

• Current .com price: $10.99 (up from $9.99)
• Current .com renewal price: $10.99 (up from $9.99)

10. Hover

Hover claims to do “one thing” only, sell domains. That’s not entirely true, they also have email hosting and run a fairly nice blog.

You will pay a little extra for that one thing with domain prices nearly 50% higher than lower cost domain registrars but coming in just under the prices of big names like GoDaddy and Network Solutions.

• Current .com price: $16.99 (up from $15.99)
• Current .com renewal price: $16.99 (up from $16.17)

11. Google Domains

***GOOGLE DOMAINS IS SHUTTING DOWN***
Yeah Google sells domains because why not. The service is pretty standard and seems focused solely on domains. They even have a neat feature that gives you insights into the name you’ve selected like if there might be problems with people remembering or pronouncing the name. Every domain also comes with free privacy protection, which is nice of Google to do considering ya know, they scrape and store tons of data on people all the time.

There are probably only two downsides to their service. Domains are on average more expensive than most other options, and of course you are giving Google more money.

• Current .com price: $12.00
• Current .com renewal price: $12.00

12. 123 Reg

The only UK based domain registrar on our list, 123 Reg is almost the GoDaddy of the UK. Beyond domains they offer website hosting, a website builder, email hosting, SSL certificates, and marketing tools. If this sounds a lot like GoDaddy, well it should, because they are owned by GoDaddy.

123 Reg also frequently uses their parent company’s sales tactic of offering a super low price for the first year of a domain TLD as a one time special and then charging a much higher fee for yearly renewal. While they are in the UK we’ve used USD equivalent pricing below accurate at the time of publishing for easy comparisson to others on our list.

• Current .com price: $22.24 (up from $15.62)
• Current .com renewal price: $22.24 (up from $15.62)

13. Network Solutions

The OG of domain registrars Network Solutions is now owned by Web.com. The company once gave out free domains in the .COM, .NET, ORG, .EDU, .GOV, and .MIL TLDs before the internet really took off. Network Solutions was the sole bidder on a handful of contracts from the National Science Foundation to administer the Domain Name System in 1992 and 93 and as such ended up gaining a monopoloy over the domain registration market. Under Network Solutions domain names used to cost $50 / year but were sold in 2-year increments. After a series of lawsuits alleging antitrust violations, censorship, and other things Network Solution’s monopoly over online domain registrations came to an end and ICANN was created. This caused the storied company to separate into two divisions, a registry (i.e. administrator and wholesaler) for .com, .net, and .org domains and a general registrar (i.e. a retail provider) of domains. Network Solutions was ultimately sold off to VeriSign who then sold Network Solutions but kept the domain registry portion of the company.

Today Network Solutions lives on as a domain registrar owned by Web.com. The domain purchase experience at Network Solutions is riddled with problems. For example when you search for a domain on Network Solutions it is automatically added to your cart and no price is displayed for you to see. Then if you click or tap the cart icon that appears at the bottom of the page you are still not shown a price but are encouraged to login or create an account to continue through a process of buying your domain and building a website. If you click the cart icon in the header of the site though it does show the price, which is true to Network Solutions history as being insanely high.

Price and horrific UX aside, some prefer to use Network Solutions because they can purchase domains for up to 100 years at a time. While it is more expensive now, the retail price of domains is always fluctuating and locking in a long-term registration like this could provide value for a domain investor or corporation.

For a casual buyer though I would highly recommend checking alternatives first before paying 178% higher price than the lowest .COM price available today.

• Current .com price: $25.00
• Current .com renewal price: $25.00

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Do you have a favorite domain registrar that is not listed above? Is there a domain feature you like more than others? Let us know in the comments below.