A domain registrar is the company you pay to register and renew a domain name. Registrars differ far more than their first-year prices suggest. Renewal prices, privacy, transfer rules and checkout upsells decide what a domain really costs you over time, and those are what our reviews focus on.
What We Compare
For every registrar we review, we check the same things:
- First-year and renewal prices for a .com, since a low first year often hides a high renewal
- Whether WHOIS privacy is included free
- Transfer-in and transfer-out terms, including any fees or delays
- DNS management and whether email forwarding is included
- Upsells and add-ons pushed during checkout
- Account security, such as two-factor sign-in and registrar lock
Reviews and Comparisons
We are writing our first registrar guides now. They will include a roundup of the best domain registrars, reviews of Namecheap, Porkbun, Cloudflare Registrar, GoDaddy, Spaceship and Dynadot, and head-to-head comparisons of Namecheap vs GoDaddy and Porkbun vs Namecheap.
How We Stay Independent
Some registrar pages will include affiliate links. If you buy through one, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Commissions never decide our rankings: a registrar with a better renewal price and fewer upsells ranks higher whether or not it pays us.