A domain name costs about $10 to $25 a year for a .com in September 2026. Year-one vs renewal prices by extension, premium and aftermarket domains, hidden fees, and how to avoid paying too much.
Short answer (updated September 19, 2026): a domain name costs about $10 to $25 a year for a standard .com. Country extensions like .co.uk and .ca sit in a similar range. Newer or trendy extensions such as .io and .ai commonly cost $30 to $100 a year, and premium domains can cost hundreds or thousands up front.
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The price that matters is the renewal, not the first year. Many registrars sell year one cheaply and renew at their standard rate.
| Extension | Typical first year | Typical renewal | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| .com | $5 to $15 | $10 to $25 | The default for most businesses |
| .net / .org | $5 to $15 | $12 to $25 | Similar to .com |
| .co.uk | $3 to $10 | $8 to $18 | UK businesses |
| .ca | $5 to $15 | $12 to $25 | Canadian presence requirements apply |
| .co | $5 to $15 | $25 to $40 | Often discounted in year one |
| .io | $30 to $60 | $40 to $70 | Popular with tech startups |
| .ai | $60 to $100 | $70 to $100 | Often requires a multi-year first registration |
| .app / .dev | $10 to $20 | $15 to $25 | HTTPS required by the registry |
Ranges come from published 2026 price lists at mainstream registrars. They move over time: registries set a wholesale price, registrars add their margin, and ICANN adds a small per-year fee (currently $0.20 for most generic domains). For .com, Verisign's agreement with ICANN allows limited wholesale increases in some years, which is why .com retail prices tend to creep upward rather than fall.
Year one tells you little. Here is what a single .com typically costs over five years at three kinds of seller. Illustrative numbers based on common pricing patterns.
| Seller type | Year 1 | Years 2 to 5 | 5-year total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registrar with at-cost pricing | $11 | $11 a year | About $55 |
| Registrar with a year-one promo | $2 | $22 a year | About $90 |
| "Free" with a builder or host plan | $0 | $20 to $25 a year | About $80 to $100 |
The cheapest-looking option is often the most expensive. Registrars that price close to wholesale cost less over time, even without a promotion.
If the name you want is taken, you have two routes.
For most small businesses, adding a word (yourbrandplumbing.com), a location (yourbrandleeds.co.uk) or picking a clear country extension is far cheaper than buying a premium name. The business name generator can help you find names that are still available.
A few rules keep both the price and the future headaches down:
When comparing registrars, look at three numbers side by side: the first-year price, the renewal price and the transfer-out policy. A registrar that is a dollar more in year one but $8 cheaper at every renewal wins within two years.
Buying the domain is step one. Connecting it means pointing its DNS records at your website. On a hosted builder that usually takes a few minutes: you add the records the builder shows you, or change nameservers, and SSL is issued automatically.
On We.Inc, the free plan publishes on a we.inc address, and the Starter plan at $20 a month lets you connect a domain you already own. You can also search for and buy a domain from inside the builder. If you have not built the site yet, you can start free and add the domain when you are ready.
Register the domain in your own name and your own account. The most expensive domain problems we see are not about price. They are domains registered by a former designer, an ex-employee or a hosting company, where the business cannot get control back. If someone builds your site, give them access to DNS settings, not ownership.
If you run sites for clients, keep each domain in the client's own registrar account, and connect it to the site you host. With a white-label website builder, those client sites run under your brand: We.Inc's white-label Lite plan is $99 a month for 25 sites with your own domain, and Launch ($499, 250 sites) and Scale ($999, 1,000 sites) cover larger books.
Budget $10 to $25 a year for a .com, compare renewal prices rather than first-year deals, and keep the domain in an account you control. The domain is the smallest line in your website budget. For the rest, see how much it costs to build a website and website hosting costs.
Build your own-domain website today. Sign up free, start from a template site and publish it free on a we.inc address. AI builds from one prompt on paid plans from $20/mo. Prefer a head start? Start from the design for lawyers, roofing companies or spas.
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