Read the renewal price before the first-year price

One first year, four renewals

You do not buy a domain name once. You pay for it by the year. You pay the first year to the registrar, the company that sells you the name, and then a renewal for every year you keep the name.

Part of what you pay goes to the registryRegistryThe organisation that runs an ending, like the company behind .com. It sets the rules and the price registrars pay.Read the definition, the company that runs the ending, as a wholesale price for each name and each year. Over five years, you pay the first year once and the renewal four times. That sum is the five-year cost Unique Domains shows on every name.

On .com, across the registrars we price, the catalog's median first year is $11.62 and its median renewal is $13.40. On .tech, the same two figures are $8.23 and $56.07. The first figure of each pair is the advertisement. The second is what you live with.

Renewals are where the money is, so a first year can be given away. In 2019, renewals brought in 58% of Radix's $2 million of revenue from premium names, as Elliot Silver reported on DomainInvesting on 4 March 2020.

ICANNICANNThe body that sets the rules for domain names and approves new endings.Read the definition is the body whose rules registrars follow. Its expired-names policy of 2013 requires a registrar to show the renewal fee at registration, and it encourages a prominent display when that fee is higher than the registration price.

The teaser first year

The oldest mechanism is the teaser. The first year is sold at a dollar or two, and after that the name costs the ending's regular price. The first-year price is often a teaser that can rise ten times or more in year two, as Andrew Allemann wrote on Domain Name Wire on 1 June 2022.

In 2025, Kevin Murphy counted at least ten registrars that were selling the first year of a .shop name for under a dollar, one of them at $0.27, against renewals that started at about $25. Over five years, that 2025 .shop name comes to about $100, and the $0.27 that won the sale is a quarter of one percent of that sum.

The teaser is not hidden, only unread. Namecheap's help pages said in 2026 that a promotional code applies to a registration and never to an automatic renewal. At Namecheap, the first year of .com is $12.08, and the renewal is $19.98. On .xyz, the catalog's median first year is $2.05 and its median renewal is $15.72. On .store, the same two figures are $2.50 and $44.13.

On 9 November 2026, 8 of the 9 registrars we price carried a renewal trap on each of .store, .tech and .online. Seven carried one on .xyz, two carried one on .io, and none did on .ai.

Registry premiums renew at the premium

The second mechanism costs more and is harder to see. On the endings launched since 2013, the registry sets the price of some names itself, far above the standard price. These names are registry premiums, and on most of those endings the premium applies to every renewal.

On Domain Incite, Kevin Murphy explained on 10 November 2013 why this is legal. ICANN's contract with the registry allows a renewal above the standard price when the buyer was told about it and agreed to it at the first registration. The precedent that the 2013 article cited was .tv, where names were renewing at $10,000 a year.

Some registries keep the renewal of a premium name at or under the standard renewal. That is the case on .club, and it was the case in a 2016 promotion by Rightside.

Two registrars disagree. GoDaddy's buying guide said in 2026 that the buyer of a premium name usually pays extra only the first time, and sometimes every year. Dynadot's help page said in 2024 that the premiums of two large registries renew at the registration price. The rule belongs to the registry, so read it on the name, and never guess it from the ending.

A premium shows in one line of the checkout at the first registration. Our renewal trap flag cannot see it, because a premium is a price on one name. In the drawer, a premium quote shows under Price and cost as the name's own price. On the Investor plan, Check every registrar in the availability checker asks each compatible registrar for its quote.

A rise after you bought

The third mechanism reaches names you already hold. The registry can raise its wholesale price for every name on the ending, and the registrar passes the rise on. Domain Name Wire reported three such rises.

The first report, on 23 April 2026, carried a notice from Verisign, the company that runs .com: the wholesale price goes from $10.26 to $10.97 on 1 November 2026. Three more steps of 7% are allowed, one in each of the three contract years that follow.

The second report, on 21 July 2026, said that Identity Digital, which runs .io, told registrars of a rise from $50 to $56 on 19 January 2027. The third, on 2 February 2026, said that the .ai wholesale price goes to $80 a year from 5 March 2026, with a two-year minimum on every registration and renewal.

Nothing obliges your registrar to warn you. Andrew Allemann wrote in 2024 that most registrantsRegistrantThe person or company the official record names as the holder of a domain. Changing the registrant can block a move to another registrar for a while.Read the definition, the people who hold a name, never hear of a price increase, and that a registrar who does tell them usually does so close to the renewal date.

The renewal shown at checkout rarely includes an announced increase, Allemann added on 4 June 2025. So until a rise takes effect, the renewal at checkout may still show the old price.

A variant of this mechanism catches names at the drop, the moment when an expired name is released for anyone to register. The name can come back tagged premium for its next registrant, as Allemann documented on .co and .xyz on 24 June 2022.

Against an announced rise, you have one move, and it is to lock the price. Where the registrar allows it, renewing several years ahead pays for those years at today's price.

A renewal of up to ten years, paid before an announced increase takes effect, locks the current price, as Allemann wrote in 2022, 2024 and 2026. The .com rise of 1 November 2026 kept the old price for every term paid before the change.

What our flag catches and misses

Unique Domains reads the price of every ending at each registrar we track, both the first year and the renewal. It flags a renewal trap on a registrar's price when two things are true: the renewal is at least double the first year, and it is at least ten dollars above the first year.

A two-dollar first year that renews at seven dollars is three and a half times more, yet the gap is only five dollars, which is not worth a warning. A forty-dollar first year that renews at fifty is ten dollars more, and it is no teaser. A three-dollar first year that renews at sixteen carries the flag.

The flag shows in Registrars, in the price matrix and in the Renewal traps block. It also shows in the drawer's section The ending, beside each registrar's renewal, and in the availability checker, which prints the multiple as well, such as renews 8x.

The flag reads published prices for an ending, so it sees a teaser and nothing else. It cannot see a registry premium. It cannot see a rise announced for next year, which is in no price list yet. And it cannot see a name that comes back tagged premium at the drop. Those three you read on the name itself.

Read the renewal on the name

Four places give you the renewal of one name, from the quickest to the surest.

1. 1In Browse, open the name. Price and cost shows the price today and the five-year cost. The section The ending lists each registrar's first year beside its renewal, with the trap tag and the cheapest renewalCheapest renewalThe lowest yearly fee among the registrars we compare for an ending. Over several years it matters more than the first year.Read the definition marked.
2. 2In the availability checker, type the name. On the website, one live check a day gives a free name's first year and five-year cost. On the Investor plan, each quote comes with its five-year cost, the registrar where holding the name costs least is tagged, and the renewal multiple is printed. On a premium name, Check every registrar shows that the cheapest first year is not always the cheapest renewal.
3. 3At the registrar, read the renewal line of the checkout before you pay. ICANN's policy of 2013 requires the registrar to publish it. If the checkout hides it, send the message below first.
4. 4For a name you already hold, start a transfer to a second registrar, read the price that registrar quotes, and then stop before you pay. Andrew Allemann called this perhaps the surest method (Domain Name Wire, 30 March 2017).

Before you pay

• Write down the first year and the renewal from the checkout, not from the advertisement.
• Add the first year to four renewals. That sum is the name's price.
• Check whether the name is a registry premium, and whether the premium applies to every renewal.
• In Registrars, read the ending's row. The trap tag there covers a teaser and nothing more.
• Look in the trade press for an announced wholesale rise, because the checkout rarely shows it.
• Ask support, in writing, for the next three renewals, and ask whether an announced increase applies.
• Read what automatic renewal will charge before you turn it on.
• When a rise is announced on a name you will keep, renew ahead at today's price.