The best domain registrars

Spaceship is the best domain registrar for most people in 2026. A .com costs $107.60 there over 10 years, the lowest of the 16 registrars we scored, and it includes free privacy, DNSSEC, email forwarding and redirects, passkey and security key sign-in, and an API any customer can use. Porkbun is 0.2 points behind out of 10 and the pick if you want prices you can check for yourself: one flat $11.81 for every year of a .com, a price API anyone can query without a key, and a dated list of the price changes it expects. If your DNS already runs on Cloudflare, use Cloudflare Registrar, which sells at cost and says it will change prices only when its own cost changes, but only to domains that use its nameservers.

The gap after the top five is large. Spaceship, Sav, Cloudflare Registrar, Dynadot and Porkbun all sell a .com within 6% of cost over 10 years; every other registrar here charges at least 43% more, Squarespace, DreamHost, GoDaddy and Name.com charge 86% to 90% more, and Gandi more than three times as much. Most of that difference is in renewals, not the first year.

These are prices after November 1, 2026, when the .com registry raised its price and most registrars followed. The price change section shows what each one charged before and after.

The best domain registrars, ranked

Spaceship

Spaceship ranks first and suits most people buying or moving a .com, because it has the lowest long-run price of any registrar scored and loses no points outside price. Its total is 10.0 out of 10 (9.985 before rounding). A .com is $9.68 the first year and $10.88 a year after that, both including the $0.20 ICANN fee that Spaceship lists separately ($9.48 and $10.68 before the fee), so 10 years cost $107.60, about $4 less than selling at cost would. Between our October 22 and November 2 readings Spaceship raised both prices by $0.60 to $0.70, about as much as the registry's own $0.71 rise. Other extensions are close to cost too: .net renews at $11.40, .io at $51.75 and .ai at $79.98. Spaceship's site refused our automated price checks, so these are the regular prices with no promo code from the domainoffer.net tracker, read the same day; check them at checkout.

The extras are all free. Spaceship lists free WHOIS privacy and DNSSEC on its security page, lets you create up to 100 email forwarding aliases (Spaceship's forwarding guide), and offers URL redirects at no charge, though since December 2025 new redirects need Spaceship's own DNS (Spaceship's domain updates post). You can sign in with an authenticator app, a U2F security key or a passkey (Spaceship's passkeys post), and any account can create an API key (Spaceship API documentation). Spaceship's knowledge base blocked our visits, so we read its guides through search results.

The catch is the price itself. A $10.88 renewal is $0.29 below the $11.17 Spaceship has to pay the registry and ICANN for each .com. A price below cost is a choice Spaceship can reverse, so treat the renewal as today's price, not a promise. Above about $12.25 a year, Spaceship would fall behind Porkbun.

Porkbun

Porkbun ranks second, 0.2 points behind Spaceship out of 10, and suits people who want to know what they'll pay in future years. It is level with Spaceship on everything except price. A .com is $11.81 for the first year and every renewal, ICANN fee included, read from Porkbun's own pricing API: $118.10 over 10 years, 6% above cost. It takes "Best for price transparency" because it is the only registrar here with a public price API anyone can query without a key, plus a dated list of the price increases it expects. Porkbun calls those figures estimates. Its .com rise to $11.81 on November 1, 2026 happened as listed; next on the list are .io to $60 in January 2027 and .net to $13.65 in March 2027.

Every domain comes with free WHOIS privacy, DNS management, URL forwarding and up to 20 email forwards (Porkbun's domain page), and DNSSEC is a toggle on Porkbun's DNS (Porkbun's DNSSEC guide). Sign-in supports an authenticator app, WebAuthn security keys and passkeys. The API manages domains and DNS for any account at no charge (Porkbun's API documentation).

Dynadot

Dynadot ranks third and suits people with several domains who want near-cost prices and a security key. A .com is $11.62 the first year and every year after (Dynadot's price list), so 10 years cost $116.20, 4% above cost and $1.90 less than Porkbun. Sign-in offers text codes, an authenticator app or a physical security key, with backup codes (Dynadot's security key help). Privacy, DNS, email forwarding to up to 50 addresses and URL forwarding are free, and any account can create API keys under Tools (Dynadot's API help).

Dynadot drops a point on DNSSEC. Its own nameservers don't support it, so you need another DNS provider's nameservers to sign the domain (Dynadot's DNSSEC help). If you host DNS elsewhere anyway, that costs you nothing.

Cloudflare Registrar

Cloudflare Registrar ranks fourth and suits people who run, or will run, their DNS on Cloudflare. It charges the registry's price plus the ICANN fee, $11.17 for a .com since November 1, 2026, and says it changes prices only "to reflect our new cost" (Cloudflare's price changes page). That policy is why it takes "Best at-cost pricing", and why it is the reference every price score here is measured against. The free essentials are all there: WHOIS redaction, DNS, one-click DNSSEC, Email Routing and redirects on every plan (Cloudflare's Email Service docs, which list Email Routing on free plans), plus security key or authenticator-app sign-in.

What costs Cloudflare its place is control. "All domains on Cloudflare Registrar use Cloudflare nameservers" (Cloudflare's Registrar FAQ), and to point a domain at another DNS provider you must transfer it to another registrar. No paid Cloudflare plan lifts that rule; Business and Enterprise plans only rename Cloudflare's own nameservers. If your web host or email provider needs you to change nameservers, pick Spaceship, Porkbun or Dynadot instead. The Registrar API works with an ordinary API token, but it is still in beta. If you weighted price more and control less (15 points moved from control to the .com cost), Cloudflare would rank second.

Sav

Sav ranks fifth and suits people who want near-cost renewals and free forwarding, and will check the sign-in options themselves. Its prices come from its own price table (Sav's domain prices): a .com is $11.29 the first year and $10.99 a year after that, so 10 years cost $110.20, 1% below cost. Like Spaceship's, that renewal is below what Sav pays the registry and ICANN, so expect it to rise. Other renewals are close to cost too, with .net at $12.12 and .io at $51.99.

The extras are free: WHOIS privacy for eligible domains (Sav's privacy page), DNS with DNSSEC on Sav's own nameservers (Sav's DNS page), and email and domain forwarding, which Sav lists under its free DNS features. What keeps Sav out of the top four is sign-in. Sav says it offers two-factor sign-in, but its help center refused every visit, and the only descriptions we found, in a 2022 forum thread and in reviews, mention codes by text message or email. We found no authenticator-app or security key option, so it scores 0 there. API access also comes with a condition: you open a support ticket to whitelist the IP addresses you'll call from (Sav's API help article, read through search results).

Amazon Route 53

Amazon Route 53 ranks sixth and suits people who already run their infrastructure on AWS. A .com is $16 a year to register and renew, a price AWS raised from $15 on July 1, 2026 (Route 53's domain price list), so 10 years cost $160, 43% above cost. That is the registration alone: Route 53 creates a DNS hosted zone for each new domain and bills a monthly fee for it (Route 53's registration guide), and DNSSEC signing on Route 53's DNS needs a customer managed key in AWS's key service, which is also billed. There is no built-in email forwarding or URL forwarding.

Where Route 53 scores full marks is sign-in and control. An AWS account can use passkeys, security keys or an authenticator app (AWS's MFA guide), you can point a domain at any nameservers, and every domain task is in the AWS API at no extra charge. Privacy protection is on by default (Route 53's privacy guide).

Namecheap

Namecheap ranks seventh and suits people who want every free extra and a wide choice of extensions, and accept higher renewals. It is the third-most-named registrar in the AI answers we sampled, and on features it deserves to be: free privacy, free BasicDNS with a DNSSEC toggle, free email and URL forwarding, and TOTP or U2F security key sign-in (Namecheap's two-factor page). The score is all price. A .com is $12.08 the first year, then $19.98 a year, plus a $0.20 ICANN fee at checkout (Namecheap's domain page), which comes to $193.90 over 10 years, 74% above cost. Both prices rose on November 1, 2026, from $11.28 and $18.48 (Namecheap's price change notice).

API access is also conditional: you need at least 20 domains in the account, at least $50 in your balance, or at least $50 spent in the last two years (Namecheap's API FAQ).

NameSilo

NameSilo ranks eighth and suits people with many domains who will use its prepaid discount program. A .com costs $19.99 a year: $199.90 over 10 years, 79% above cost. Its site refused our automated checks, so that price is from the domainoffer.net tracker. It was $17.29 on October 22; a NameSilo notice reposted on a forum had announced the $19.99 price from November 1, 2026. That rise of $2.70 is almost four times the registry's $0.71. The discount program, for accounts that top up at least $50 in advance, lowers prices; we scored the price everyone pays.

The extras are good. Email forwarding is free for up to 100 addresses (NameSilo's forwarding help), privacy and DNS are free, and API keys come free from the API Manager. Sign-in is authenticator app only; we found no security key or passkey option.

Hostinger

Hostinger ranks ninth and makes sense only if your site is already hosted there. Its price table lists the .com at $0.01 for the first year with a three-year term, then $19.99 a year plus the ICANN fee (Hostinger's price table), so a decade costs $181.92. The first-year offer changes often (Hostinger's own October 2026 roundup quotes $2.49), but it barely moves the ten-year cost. Privacy is free for supported extensions and redirects work without a hosting plan, but email forwarders come with Hostinger's email plans and we found no free one for a domain alone, and DNSSEC isn't supported on Hostinger's own nameservers (Hostinger's DNSSEC help). Sign-in takes an authenticator app or email codes, with no security key option. Its API is a real strength: any customer can create a token and manage domains, DNS and forwarding (Hostinger's API documentation).

Squarespace Domains

Squarespace Domains ranks 10th and suits former Google Domains customers and Squarespace site owners who want one simple bill. It is where Google Domains customers ended up, and it keeps much of what they liked: prices that include every fee, and free privacy, DNSSEC, email forwarding and domain forwarding (Squarespace Domains). Sign-in supports a passkey, including a hardware security key, or an authenticator app (Squarespace's two-factor help). The problem is the renewal: $22 a year for a .com (it was $20 when we read it on October 22), so $208 over 10 years. Squarespace's public APIs cover commerce data and approved resellers, not your own domains, so it scores 0 for an API.

IONOS

IONOS ranks 11th and suits people already hosting with IONOS. Its domain page reads "$1 /year for 1 year" for a .com, then $20 a year (IONOS's domain page), and .io renews at $90. Private registration has been free for eligible domains (IONOS took its page about it down between October 22 and November 2, 2026, so check at checkout), DNS is free, and the DNS API is "available to all IONOS customers for free" (IONOS free DNS). But DNSSEC "is not included" in free DNS: it comes with Domain Guard or DNS Pro, which cost extra (IONOS Domain Guard), and we found no free email forwarding for a domain alone.

DreamHost

DreamHost ranks 12th and suits people whose sites are hosted at DreamHost. A .com is $10.99 the first year and $21.99 a year after (DreamHost's price list): $208.90 over 10 years, 87% above cost. DreamHost kept its prices when the registry's rose, so its price score rose from 0 to 1.3. Private registration comes free with every domain (DreamHost's domains page) and redirects are free for domains registered there (DreamHost's redirect guide), but "domain registration-only accounts do not include email", so there is no email forwarding without a paid plan (DreamHost's forwarding guide). DreamHost's nameservers don't support DNSSEC (DreamHost's DNSSEC overview), and its DNS API doesn't list records for registration-only domains (DreamHost's DNS API guide). Sign-in takes an authenticator app or a YubiKey, though only YubiKeys that use Yubico's one-time codes, not FIDO security keys (DreamHost's YubiKey guide).

Gandi

Gandi ranks 13th and suits people who want its features and accept paying the most here to renew. On features it matches the top three: free WHOIS privacy (Gandi's privacy docs), LiveDNS with DNSSEC (Gandi's DNSSEC docs), free web forwarding, as many email forwarding addresses as you want at no charge (Gandi's email page), security key or authenticator-app sign-in (Gandi's security key docs) and API tokens for any account. But a .com is $11.71 the first year and then $38.38 a year (Gandi's .com prices), so 10 years cost $357.13, more than three times the at-cost total. Other extensions follow: .co renews at $71.98 and .ai at $179.76.

Name.com

Name.com ranks 14th and suits developers who want a mainstream registrar with a well-documented API. Any account can create production and sandbox API tokens after accepting the API terms (Name.com's API sign-up guide), and WHOIS privacy and HTTP redirects come free with every eligible domain (Name.com's Domain Safe page), as does email forwarding on Name.com's nameservers (Name.com's forwarding guide). Price is the problem. A .com is on sale at $13.99 for the first year, then renews at $21.99, up from $19.99 on October 31, 2026 (Name.com's price list): $211.90 over 10 years, the second-highest here. Name.com's nameservers don't support DNSSEC (Name.com's DNSSEC FAQ), and sign-in is an authenticator app only (Name.com's two-step page).

GoDaddy

GoDaddy ranks 15th and suits existing customers who don't mind the price. Its $0.01 first year needs a three-year purchase, and the renewal after that is $22.99 a year plus the ICANN fee (GoDaddy's .com page): $208.92 over 10 years, 87% above cost. Other extensions follow the same pattern, with .ai renewing at $159.99. GoDaddy retired the email forwarding credits it used to bundle with domains (GoDaddy's email forwarding help) and gives each account five free DNSSEC credits. It does well on sign-in, with an authenticator app, a security key (GoDaddy's verification help) or a passkey, and any customer with at least one active domain gets the Domains API (GoDaddy's API access help); developers reported tighter limits in 2024, since relaxed. If you have domains there, moving them to a near-cost registrar saves about $11 to $12 a year per .com.

Hover

Hover ranks last and suits people who want a registrar that sells only domains and email, with no hosting or website plans. A .co renews at $25.99, the cheapest .co renewal here, but everything else costs more than it should. A .com is $19.99 a year plus the ICANN fee, up $1 between our October 22 and November 2 readings (Hover's price list), email forwarding is $5 a year per address (Hover's email options), forwards use a 302 redirect and don't work over HTTPS (Hover's forwarding help), and there is no API. Two-step sign-in is mandatory, which is good, but only with an authenticator app.

Renewals on other extensions, and transfers

Renewal prices per year on November 2, 2026, in rank order. Namecheap, GoDaddy, Hover and Hostinger add a $0.20 ICANN fee on .net and .org at checkout. The last column is the price to transfer a .com in, which adds a year to the domain.

Registrar	.net	.org	.io	.co	.ai	.com transfer
Spaceship	$11.40	$11.59	$51.75	$31.05	$79.98	$10.38
Porkbun	$12.52	$11.84	$51.80	$31.20	$82.70	$11.81
Dynadot	$12.52	$11.64	$53.50	$31.20	$85.60	$11.62
Cloudflare Registrar	$11.86	$11.20	$50	$30	$80	$11.17
Sav	$12.12	$11.64	$51.99	$31.19	$83.19	$10.49
Amazon Route 53	$17	$16	$71	$38	$137	$16
Namecheap	$18.58	$18.98	$75.98	$45.48	$114.98	$12.28
NameSilo	$15.95	$14.99	$69.99	$38.99	$99.99	$11.50
Hostinger	$17.99	$17.99	$74.99	$34.99	$109.99	$9.99
Squarespace Domains	$20	$20	$70	$40	$85	Not listed
IONOS	$20	$20	$90	$48	$120	Not listed
DreamHost	$19.99	$21.99	$59.99	$34.99	$89.99	$10.99
Gandi	$39.98	$39.98	$74.99	$71.98	$179.76	$11.71
Name.com	$23.99	$19.99	$79.99	$44.99	$99.99	$21.99
GoDaddy	$24.99	$23.99	$89.99	$59.99	$159.99	Not listed
Hover	$19.99	$17.99	$74.99	$25.99	$114.99	$19.99

Spaceship and NameSilo prices come from the domainoffer.net tracker; Dynadot's .ai, IONOS's .co and Hostinger's .net, missing from the pages we read, come from the same tracker. Squarespace, IONOS and GoDaddy didn't show a transfer price on the pages we read.

What changed on November 1, 2026

Verisign, which runs the .com registry, raised its price from $10.26 to $10.97 at 04:00 UTC on November 1, 2026 (Domain Name Wire's report). With the $0.20 ICANN fee, the cost of a .com to every registrar rose from $10.46 to $11.17, or $0.71. Only three of the 20 AI answers we sampled in October mentioned it. We read every registrar's .com prices on October 22 and again on November 2. The 11 whose .com prices changed:

Registrar	First year before	First year after	Renewal before	Renewal after
Spaceship	$9.08	$9.68	$10.18	$10.88
Porkbun	$11.08	$11.81	$11.08	$11.81
Dynadot	$10.88	$11.62	$10.88	$11.62
Cloudflare Registrar	$10.46	$11.17	$10.46	$11.17
Sav	$10.87	$11.29	$10.15	$10.99
NameSilo	$17.29	$19.99	$17.29	$19.99
Namecheap	$11.28	$12.08	$18.48	$19.98
Squarespace Domains	$10	$10	$20	$22
Name.com	$12.99	$13.99	$19.99	$21.99
Gandi	$11	$11.71	$38.38	$38.38
Hover	$18.99	$19.99	$18.99	$19.99

Namecheap and Hover add the $0.20 ICANN fee on top of the prices shown. Amazon Route 53, Hostinger, IONOS, DreamHost and GoDaddy didn't change their .com prices. Most near-cost registrars passed on about the registry's $0.71; NameSilo ($2.70), Name.com ($2 on renewals), Squarespace ($2 on renewals) and Namecheap ($1.50 on renewals) raised theirs by two to four times as much. Spaceship's and NameSilo's figures are from the domainoffer.net tracker.

The rise moved no registrar in or out of the top five. It reshuffled the middle of the table: Amazon Route 53, IONOS, Hostinger, DreamHost and GoDaddy gained on the price score because the at-cost reference rose while their prices stayed put, and NameSilo, Name.com, Squarespace and Namecheap lost ground because their ten-year .com cost rose by more than the 7% the at-cost total did. Hover's $1 rise came to 5% over 10 years, so its score edged up.

What AI answers get wrong

We asked GPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity five versions of this question in October 2026, through their APIs with web search on. Most named Porkbun, Cloudflare and Namecheap, which is reasonable, but several details were wrong:

• Gemini: "You cannot change nameservers to an external provider unless you pay for Cloudflare's Enterprise tier ($2,000+/mo)." No plan allows it. Cloudflare Registrar domains always use Cloudflare's nameservers (Cloudflare's Registrar FAQ).
• Gemini, on Namecheap's email forwarding: "Paid add-on (limited free forwarding)." It is free (Namecheap's forwarding guide).
• Gemini, on Namecheap's .com renewal: "~$14.50 – $16.00/yr". Namecheap's own page listed $18.48 plus the ICANN fee in October 2026, and $19.98 plus the fee from November 1. Lower figures come from coupon codes: the tracker's Namecheap page showed a $15.98 renewal with a code against the $19.98 regular price on November 2, 2026.
• A comparison site several Claude answers cited says Cloudflare Registrar accepts "only inbound transfers, not new registrations" (best-domain-registrars.com). Cloudflare now registers new domains too, and documents it in its Registrar API docs.

One gap rather than an error: Spaceship appeared in only five of the 20 answers, though its ten-year .com cost is the lowest of any registrar we scored.

Which one should you choose?

• If you want one answer: Spaceship. Check the renewal price at checkout, and look again before each renewal.
• If you want a price you can verify and rely on: Porkbun, at $11.81 a year for a .com.
• If your DNS is on Cloudflare and will stay there: Cloudflare Registrar, which sells at cost and says it will only change prices when its cost changes.
• If your web host or email provider asks you to change nameservers: not Cloudflare Registrar. Spaceship, Porkbun and Dynadot all allow it.
• If you want a security key on your account: Spaceship, Porkbun, Dynadot, Cloudflare, Namecheap, Route 53, Squarespace, Gandi and GoDaddy support FIDO keys or passkeys; DreamHost supports only YubiKeys with one-time codes; Sav, NameSilo, Hostinger, Name.com, IONOS and Hover have none we could find.
• If privacy matters most: WHOIS privacy is free at all 16 for the extensions here (IONOS's as of October 22; check at checkout). If you need the registrar itself not to hold your name, Njalla does that, but then the domain is legally Njalla's, not yours.
• If your domains are at GoDaddy, Namecheap or another higher-priced registrar: transfer them when they come up for renewal. A transfer adds a year at the new registrar's price, and your current registrar must give you the transfer code within five days. Under ICANN's current Transfer Policy, a domain usually can't move for 60 days after it was registered or last transferred.

How we scored

We did not buy, renew or transfer a domain at any registrar. On November 2, 2026, the day after the registry's .com price rose, a script read first-year, renewal and transfer prices for .com, .net, .org, .io, .co and .ai from each registrar's own price list, price API, price PDF or domain search. Spaceship and NameSilo refused automated visits, so their prices come from the domainoffer.net tracker. The same script's October 22 run is the "before" column in the price change table. Features come from each registrar's help center, security pages and API documentation, read on October 21 and 22 and re-checked on November 2; where a help center blocked our visits (Spaceship's and Sav's), we read it through search results and say so in the scoring sheet. Support quality and ease of use are not scored, because we found no independent test with a published method and won't score them from impressions. How we scored the best domain registrars lists every price and score with its source.

Questions people ask

Which registrar has the cheapest .com renewal? Spaceship, at $10.88 a year in November 2026, then Sav at $10.99; both are below the $11.17 cost. Cloudflare Registrar charges exactly cost, $11.17, and Dynadot and Porkbun are within 6% of it.

Is Cloudflare Registrar really at cost? It charges the registry's price plus the ICANN fee, and says it raises prices only when its own cost rises. The catch is that your domain must use Cloudflare's nameservers.

Is GoDaddy worth it? Not on price. Its .com renews at $22.99 plus the ICANN fee, more than double Spaceship's renewal, and its free email forwarding is gone.

Do I need to pay for WHOIS privacy? No. Every registrar on this list includes it free for .com, .net and .org (IONOS's as of October 22; check at checkout).