Ask “how much is a domain?” and most answers stop at “around $10 a year.” That’s true for a .com on day one — and it leaves out almost everything that decides what you actually pay. Start with the number underneath every price tag.
What a .com actually costs at the floor
Every registrar pays the same wholesale price for a .com: $10.26 to Verisign (which runs .com) plus a $0.20 ICANN fee. That’s a hard floor of $10.46 nobody sells below for long. So an honest .com runs roughly $10–12 a year; anything much higher is the registrar’s markup, and anything advertised far lower is a first-year promo that won’t last.
Keep that floor in mind as a yardstick: it tells you instantly whether a $9 deal is a loss-leader (it is) or a $22 renewal is mostly margin (it is). For who charges what over the floor, see our guide to the best domain registrar.
Registration vs renewal — the cliff
A domain costs whatever price is on the sticker — I’ll just pick the cheapest one.
The sticker is almost always a first-year promo. The renewal is what you re-pay every year, and it can be 3–20× the promo. Judge a domain on its renewal price, never its first-year deal.
First year
Every year after
the real priceThe gap is bigger than most people expect. Here’s the arithmetic that the “from $0.99!” banners leave out:
What each ending costs, per year
The default choice for most sites.
Startup-popular; renews well above its cheap first-year sticker.
.io ≈ $50, .ai ≈ $80 — .ai is often billed two years at a time.
The ending (the TLD) is the other big lever, because each registry sets its own wholesale price — and on the pricey endings, even an at-cost registrar can’t make it cheap. Typical 2026 prices:
| Ending | First year | Renewal / year | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| .com | ~$10–12 | ~$10.46–11 | The baseline — near the floor at honest registrars |
| .net | ~$11–13 | ~$12 | Close to .com |
| .org | ~$8–10 | ~$11–12 | Often a first-year discount |
| .io | ~$28–52 | ~$50–54 | Tech-popular and pricey — every year |
| .ai | ~$80–83 | ~$80–83 | Very high; usually billed two years at a time |
| .co | ~$10 | ~$26–27 | Big jump after year one |
| .xyz | ~$1–2 | ~$12–13 | Cheap sticker, standard renewal |
| .dev | ~$11–13 | ~$12–13 | Flat; requires HTTPS to load |
| .app | ~$11–15 | ~$14–15 | Flat; requires HTTPS to load |
| .shop | ~$1–2 | ~$30–34 | One of the biggest promo-to-renewal jumps |
Typical 2026 prices at mid-market registrars — confirm the current figure at checkout. The renewal column is what you pay every year after the first.
Two patterns to take away: the high-renewal endings (.ai ~$80, .io ~$50, .shop ~$30, .co ~$26) cost that every year, so they’re a real ongoing commitment; and the biggest promo gaps (.shop and .xyz from ~$1) are where the first-year sticker misleads the most. The stable, cheap endings — .com, .net, .dev, .app — stay in the $10–15 band year after year.
The costs nobody advertises
| Cost | What it really is |
|---|---|
| WHOIS privacy | Should be free. Reputable registrars (Cloudflare, Porkbun, Namecheap, Dynadot, NameSilo) include it for life; only legacy or budget registrars still charge $5–15/yr. |
| The ICANN fee | $0.20 per domain per year, baked into the price — not a markup, just a line item every registrar passes on. |
| Transferring out | Costs one year’s registration and adds a year to your expiry, so it isn’t a pure surcharge. A 60-day lock applies after you first register. |
| Letting it expire | Recovering it in the redemption window adds an $80–$150 restore fee on top of the renewal. After that, it can’t be recovered. |
| “Premium” renewals | Some new-TLD names carry a premium price at every renewal, forever — sometimes hundreds or thousands a year, and the registry can raise it. |
Most of these are avoidable or one-off — except the last one, which is the single most expensive surprise in domain pricing.
The renewal that never ends
This is the trap that turns a “cheap” name into a lifelong subscription. A $238 premium that renews at $99 a year costs more over a decade than a one-time $1,500 standard .com. Always read the renewal line at checkout, and before you pay for a name on the resale market, check what it’s really worth with our free Domain Value Check, or read our guide to premium domain names. (And if the name you want is an expired domain, the redemption fee above is part of that math too.)
What you’re actually paying for
A common shock comes from assuming the domain is the whole website. It isn’t — the domain is only the name. Three other things are separate purchases:
- Web hosting — the server that stores your site’s files (from a few dollars a month).
- Email hosting — a mailbox at your domain (often a few dollars per user a month; some registrars include basic forwarding free).
- An SSL certificate — the padlock that makes your site load over HTTPS. It’s genuinely free from Let’s Encrypt, and most hosts set it up automatically — never pay a registrar an annual “SSL” fee you don’t need.
A “free domain with hosting” bundle is real, but it’s a one-year loss-leader: the domain reverts to full renewal price after the first year, and you’re tied to that host. Keeping the domain and the hosting separate costs little more and keeps you free to move.
The bottom line
A domain is cheap, but “cheap” has fine print. Budget about $10–12 a year for a .com at an honest registrar, judge every price against the $10.46 floor and the renewal (never the first-year promo), and check the ending — .io, .ai, .co and .shop cost far more, every year. Keep WHOIS privacy free, don’t pay for SSL, avoid registry-premium renewal traps, and remember the domain is just the name. Get those right and a domain is one of the cheapest, longest-lasting things you’ll buy online.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does a domain cost per year?
- A .com is about $10–12 a year at an honest registrar — the at-cost floor is $10.46. Other endings vary widely: .co around $26, .io around $50, .ai around $80. The price you actually pay every year is the renewal, not the first-year promo.
- Why is the renewal more expensive than the first year?
- The low first-year price is a promotion to win your signup. The renewal is the registrar’s standard price, which you pay every year after. A $1 first year can renew at $20+, so always check the renewal before you buy.
- Why are .ai and .io domains so expensive?
- Their registries set a high wholesale price, so every registrar’s price is high — there’s no cheap option, even at-cost. Budget around $50/year for .io and $80/year for .ai (which is usually billed two years at a time), every year you keep it.
- Is WHOIS privacy an extra cost?
- It shouldn’t be. Reputable registrars — Cloudflare, Porkbun, Namecheap, Dynadot, NameSilo — include it free for life. Only some legacy or budget registrars still charge for it, so don’t pay a “privacy” upsell.
- What does it cost if I let a domain expire?
- Recovering it during the roughly 30-day redemption period adds an $80–$150 restore fee on top of the normal renewal. After that window the name can’t be recovered at any price — it drops and becomes available to the public.