The best places to buy a domain in 2026

Namecheap's $15.98 price also applies to transfers from November 1, 2026. Dynadot's $11.62 applies to registering, renewing or transferring a .com.

Buying your first domain? Read across the row rather than stopping at the first price.

Check the renewal and privacy terms

Spaceship lists its regular .com registration price at $10.38, with a sale price of $9.48, and the renewal is $10.68. Treat the sale as the registration offer, not the price you're being quoted for renewal.

Porkbun lists .com from $11.81 a year, including the ICANN fee, and includes free WHOIS privacy. Dynadot lists $11.62 for both registration and renewal. If you're comparing those with Namecheap, use the prices that apply from November 1, 2026: $15.98 to register and $19.98 to renew, before the ICANN fee.

Then there's Cloudflare Registrar. It sells domains at cost without a markup and includes free WHOIS redaction; compare that pricing approach with the listed prices from the other registrars.

Check privacy separately. Porkbun's WHOIS privacy is free, while Spaceship's free WHOIS privacy applies to eligible domains. Keep that eligibility wording in mind when choosing an extension (not just when comparing the company names).

Choose your domain name

Verisign's Q3 2026 report counted 411.6 million domain registrations across all extensions, with 182.5 million of them in .com and .net. Those are combined .com and .net registrations, not a .com-only count.

For your own name, start with what you want to type into the address bar, then check it against the domain rules before getting attached to a spelling that won't work.

Each part of a domain name can be up to 63 characters, and the whole name can be up to 253 characters. You can use letters, numbers and hyphens, but the name can't start or end with a hyphen.

That's the rule check. Choosing the wording is yours.

Read the offer before paying

GoDaddy's domain page advertises a .com for $4.99 with code GDWELCOME. That offer is for a 1-year term and new customers only.

Its .net offer has different terms: $0.01 for the first year, with a 3-year purchase required, then $24.99 for each additional year. Don't read the .net headline as a standalone purchase at the first-year price.

And don't carry the terms of that .net offer over to the .com offer. Check the extension, the required purchase term and whether you're eligible for the promotion you're looking at.

Connect your domain to a website

The registrar doesn't have to be your website builder. Heya, the builder publishing this guide, doesn't sell domains; you can bring a domain from any registrar, with custom domains starting on Pro Standard.

Want to build before buying a domain? Heya Free costs $0, with no credit card and no time limit. You sign in with Google to publish, and the plan includes 3 sites, up to 5 pages per site, all 68 templates and a free yourname.heya.bio address with HTTPS. There's a small Made with Heya badge.

Pro Lite is $3 a month. It includes 3 sites with up to 20 pages per site, removes the badge, and links are no longer marked nofollow.

For your own domain, Pro Standard is $6 a month. It includes 5 sites and 1 custom domain per account with HTTPS. Pro Plus is $15 a month, with 25 sites, up to 10 custom domains and the option to download your site as a ZIP of HTML files.

Heya has no built-in store, checkout or form builder. Link a button to your checkout or store page, use a Google Form or a Tally form, or add the Calendly embed for bookings.

Related guides: Good domain name, Get a free domain, Domain vs hosting and Transfer a domain to Wix.

More from Heya: All guides, Templates and Pricing.