How we compare registrars
Every number on this site comes from a registrar's own pricing page or official API, dated and linked. We don't invent prices, features or reputation scores.
The 3-year cost
We show each registrar's current promotional price for the first year and the price it will actually renew at afterwards, then add them up: first year plus 2 renewals. A registry-required minimum term (for example, .ai's two-year minimum) is bought in whole terms, so its cost is labelled with however many years it actually covers. Any fee a registrar charges on top of its listed price — an ICANN fee, for instance — is added in every year, not just the first.
Best overall score
The default sort weighs three things:
- 50% — 3-year cost
- 25% — free features (below)
- 25% — reputation
Price gets the largest weight because it's the only fully objective, per-TLD number we have. Reputation scoring isn't live yet — until it is, every registrar's score is split between price and features instead, so the weights always add up to 100%. When reputation scoring launches, this page will describe exactly what feeds it.
Other sorts — cheapest, lowest renewal, most free features — are plain, single-number sorts with no weighting to explain.
Free features we check
Free DNS, Email forwarding, WHOIS privacy, Free mailbox. Each one is ✓ (confirmed included), ✗ (confirmed not included) or “Not verified” — we show the difference rather than guessing, and an unverified feature scores the same as a missing one until we confirm it.
Live prices for the name you search
When you search an exact name, we ask every registrar we have an official lookup API for — currently Porkbun and Spaceship — what that specific name costs, including premium pricing if it applies. A registrar we don't have a lookup for, or one that didn't answer, shows “Couldn't check” instead of a guessed price.
On a .tld page (not tied to one name), every price is that registrar's standard rate for the extension.
Keeping prices fresh
A standard price older than 30 days is dropped from ranking rather than shown as current; one older than 7 days is still ranked but its listing says how old it is.
What we don't do
- No affiliate links and no paid placement — ranking order is the same for every visitor
- No invented reputation scores, prices or features
- No treating a domain as available just because a registry lookup failed
Questions
- Why does a registrar show “Not ranked”?
- Its price is missing a renewal figure, is too old to trust, or — for a specific search — we couldn't look it up for that exact name.
- Are these the final prices I'll pay?
- They exclude tax and are confirmed at the registrar's own checkout. A price can also change between when we checked it and when you buy.
- Do you get paid when I click Visit?
- No. Every Visit link goes straight to the registrar, with nothing added.