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Last updated: 2026-11-13
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# Choose a registrar you can leave without trouble

Registrars can change their prices, their owners and their rules while you hold a name. Choose one for its renewal price and for how easily you can leave, not for its first year.

Course: Name your company
Chapter 8 of 12, 13 min read
Published 2026-11-09, reviewed 2026-11-13.

You have the name, and the checkout is open. One registrar, the company that sells you the name, offers the first year for a few dollars. Another asks twice that and prints its renewal price beside it. You will hold this name as long as the company lives: through a card change, a founder leaving, a registrar sold or shut down. Any of these can mean moving the name.

By the end of this chapter you can choose a registrar on the two things that matter once the first year is paid: what the renewal costs, and how easily the name leaves. You can read the sixty-day lock and the five-day release in ICANN's own rules, and work out what a move costs in money and in days. You also know what to ask, in writing, before you pay.

## What you will be able to do

- You can choose a registrar for its renewal price and for how easily a name leaves it, not for its first year.
- You can say what the sixty-day lock covers and when a transfer adds a year.
- You can set up two-factor login and the transfer lock, make sure you can lift it yourself, and keep the DNS at another provider.
- You can read renewal prices, renewal trap flags and confirmed price changes on the registrar pages.

## A registrar can be sold, merged or switched off

Your registrar sets its own prices and answers to ICANN, the body whose rules registrars follow. The registry, the company that runs the ending, keeps the name's record. A registrar can change owner, raise its prices or close. None of that costs you the name as long as you can still move it.

ICANN had shut down a registrar believed to hold close to 700,000 names, effective immediately, Kevin Murphy reported on Domain Incite on 15 March 2019. The registrar's website had been down for most of a week. ICANN then started the procedure that moves every name to a registrar the holders did not choose. The registrar's former chief executive later disputed Murphy's report.

Murphy wrote that most customers should suffer only minor inconvenience. The lesson Andrew Allemann drew on Domain Name Wire on 14 March 2019 was to choose a registrar you trust to stay in business.

A brand retirement is the quiet version. A registrar group that was retiring a brand of about 818,000 names said the brand's customers would move to a sister registrar, with prices and logins unchanged (Murphy, Domain Incite, 30 April 2025).

The worst version is a registrar that disappears with its records. One small registrar, in Murphy's Domain Incite report of 28 July 2021, had stopped answering ICANN in May 2020 and lost its accreditation a year later. Its successor took over up to 6,000 names and found, for many of them, little ownership data in escrow, the backup copy ICANN requires. It asked holders for receipts or bank statements.

## The first year is the advertisement

A registrar can sell the first year for less than it pays the registry. Allemann explained why on Domain Name Wire on 26 March 2025, when the .com wholesale price was $10.26: registrars were offering new names at $5.00, $5.75 and $6.99, to win customers and to earn the registry's growth rebates.

The money comes back at renewal. One large registrar's .com list price, which Allemann traced on Domain Name Wire on 20 August 2024, went from $14.99 in 2014 to $21.99 in 2024, a 47% rise in ten years. The same article noted that .com renewal rates after the first year can be below 50%. The first-year discount is a bet that you stay.

Allemann had put it plainly on Domain Name Wire on 18 August 2020: never choose a registrar on price alone, and check what the name renews for.

Across the registrars we price, the median first year of .com is $11.62, and its median renewal is $13.40. Our renewal trap flag marks a registrar's price when the renewal costs at least twice the first-year price and at least ten dollars above it.

On 9 November 2026, none of the 9 registrars we price carried that flag on .com, 4 of the 9 did on .co, and 3 of the 8 that price .me did.

## Case: Ten million names changed registrar in one announcement

- Paid for Google Domains: $180 million
- Names held: about 10 million
- Renewal, before and after: $12, then $20 a year
- Five years for one .com: $92 against $60

On 16 June 2023, Andrew Allemann wrote on Domain Name Wire about a deal announced the day before. Squarespace was buying Google Domains, about 10 million names, for $180 million. Over half of those names were .com, which made Google the fifth registrar by .com names held.

The two registrars priced differently. Squarespace charged $20 a year at minimum, .com included, while Google charged $12 for most names. Squarespace said it would honor Google's renewal prices for the next year, and its chief executive acknowledged that some customers would move elsewhere.

Here is the arithmetic for a founder with one .com, if the renewal rose to Squarespace's $20, a case Allemann raised. Five years from the sale cost $12 once and then $20 four times, which comes to $92, against $60 at the old price. That is $8 more a year, two thirds more, on a name whose holder chose neither the buyer nor the price.

The lesson: when a registrar is sold, every name it holds gets a new price list, and the holder's defence is to be able to move the name elsewhere.

Source: Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "My thoughts on Squarespace’s acquisition of Google Domains", 2023-06-16, https://domainnamewire.com/2023/06/16/my-thoughts-on-squarespaces-acquisition-of-google-domains/

## Sixty days locked, then five days to release

A move from one registrar to another is called a transfer, and ICANN's transfer policy of 2016 sets its rules. Your registrar may refuse a transfer in the first 60 days after the name was created. It may also refuse one in the 60 days after a previous transfer.

Your registrar must refuse a transfer for 60 days after a change of the holder's name or organization that goes beyond fixing a typo, or any change of the holder's email, unless you took an opt-out the registrar offered beforehand. Outside those windows, the registrar cannot hold back a paid-up name over a future bill or a disputed payment.

If your account gives you no way to unlock the name and read the transfer code yourself, your registrar must do both within five calendar days of your request.

Once the new registrar sends its request, your old registrar has five calendar days to object, and its silence counts as approval. Cloudflare's registrar documentation of 29 October 2026 puts a move to Cloudflare at about 30 minutes of your work and up to ten days in all.

A transfer is not money lost. Under the same policy it adds one year to the name's term, up to ten years in all, so the transfer fee is a renewal paid at the new registrar. Cloudflare lists exceptions: a .uk transfer adds no year, and a name that was renewed after it expired, then moved within 45 days of the old expiry date, may get no added year.

These locks are changing. ICANN's policy council voted, pending the board's approval, to drop the lock after a change of holder and to require a 30-day lock after a registration or a transfer in. Kevin Murphy, who reported the vote on Domain Incite on 13 March 2025, reckoned on at least 18 months before the change went live.

## Four settings that keep the door open

Two-factor login asks for a second step after your password. Andrew Allemann called it a must on Domain Name Wire on 25 March 2022, and called a registrar without it a reason to move your names. The same article asked for it on the email account behind the login too, since thieves often get in there, and preferred a physical key to a text message or an app.

The transfer lock, the setting that refuses any move, stays on. What matters is that you can lift it yourself. If a registrar needs a ticket or a call before it lifts the lock or gives you the code, you will leave it slowly.

Keep the name's DNS, the records that point the name at your site and your mail, at a provider that is not your registrar. A transfer changes the registrar that manages the name, not those records, so your site and your mail keep running through the move.

Bundles make a move hard. Some commerce and site-building platforms that register a name do not let you change its nameservers, where its DNS lives (Cloudflare's documentation, 29 October 2026). Because Cloudflare needs the name on its nameservers first, moving there from such a platform takes two transfers 60 days apart. One large registrar may reject the transfer, the documentation warns, until its privacy and protection add-ons are off.

## Case: A month to leave before the names moved

- New .com renewal: $16.29 a year
- Four renewals: $65.16
- Notice to Allemann's migration: 32 days
- Locked on migration day: about 17 hours

As a Hexonet customer, Andrew Allemann received a notice and published it on Domain Name Wire on 16 May 2025. The notice said that Hexonet, which had announced its closure in January, would transfer the account's names to Moniker, a registrar in the same group, between 17 and 23 June. On migration day the names would be locked for about 17 hours.

After the move, Moniker's standard prices would apply: .com renewals from $16.29 a year, or $13.69 for accounts with more than 500 names. Anyone who preferred another registrar could transfer out before their migration date.

Here is the arithmetic for a founder with one .com: four renewals at $16.29 come to $65.16. Compare that $16.29 with the median renewal across the registrars we price, $13.40. Allemann's window to transfer out was 32 days, from the notice on 16 May to the first migration day. Other customers' dates could differ by batch.

The lesson: a closure is announced once, and the price list arrives with the move. If you can lift the lock, get the code and leave within a month, the notice is an errand. If you cannot, the notice becomes your new renewal price.

Source: Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "Have a Hexonet account? Act now if you don’t want your domains at Moniker", 2025-05-16, https://domainnamewire.com/2025/05/16/have-a-hexonet-account-act-now-if-you-dont-want-your-domains-at-moniker/

## One account for every name

Put every name the company holds in one account at one registrar. The Better Business Bureau's advice, which OnlineDomain relayed on 27 February 2014, was to use one provider and one account, so that a fake invoice for a name you never bought stands out, and to put more than one contact person on the registration.

Scattered names renew on different cards, and their warnings go to different mailboxes. A message about your name may not come from your registrar at all, Allemann added on Domain Name Wire on 1 June 2022. With one account, the real mails are easier to spot.

## What the registrar pages show and leave out

Registrars, on the website, compares the registrars we price, ending by ending: the first year, the renewal, the transfer-in price and the renewal trap flag. Each day it shows 40 endings, drawn afresh and listed alphabetically. It also shows the 10 newest confirmed price changes and 8 rows that carry the trap flag, with the trap count, and it answers one ending lookup a day.

A registrar's profile shows its own rows among those 40. We count a price change as confirmed when the new price reads the same twice, at least 20 hours apart, and has moved by at least 10% and at least a dollar. This rule of ours keeps a one-day coupon out of a table of the renewals you will pay. Registrars sit in catalog order and are never ranked.

We have no opinion on a registrar's support, and we hold no registrar reviews. The pages read what a registrar publishes, not how long a ticket waits. Test the registrar yourself with one cheap name before the company's name follows: register it, turn on two-factor login, lift the lock, read the transfer code, and time each step.

## The rule

Choose a registrar for the renewal price of your ending and for how easily the name leaves: two-factor login, a lock you lift yourself, the DNS kept elsewhere and no bundle. The first year is paid once and priced to win the sale. A registrar can be sold or closed under you, and being able to leave is your protection.

## Before you open the account

- Read the renewal price for your ending before you read the first-year price.
- First, find the unlock switch and the transfer code in the registrar's help pages.
- Turn on two-factor login, with a physical key if one is offered, at the registrar and on the email account behind it.
- Keep the DNS at a provider that is not the registrar.
- Register the name on its own, apart from any site builder, hosting plan or protection add-on.
- Put every name in one account at one registrar, with two contact people.
- Keep the invoices where a second person can find them.
- Register where you mean to stay for at least sixty days, and renew before a move, never after the name has expired.

## Ask before you open the account

You send this to the registrar's support before you register the company's name there.

> Hello,
>
> Before I register [name] with you, could you please confirm the following in writing?
>
> 1. The renewal price of [ending] for each of the next three years, in [currency].
>
> 2. Whether I can lift the transfer lock and read the transfer code from my account, without a ticket or a call.
>
> 3. Which forms of two-factor login you offer, whether a physical key is one of them, and whether any add-on or bundle blocks a transfer out.
>
> 4. Whether I can keep my nameservers at another provider.
>
> Thank you,
>
> [your name]

Keep the reply with the order confirmation. If you wait a week for it, that tells you something too.

## Ask for the code when a move stalls

You send this to your current registrar's support when you have unlocked the name and its transfer code has not arrived.

> Hello,
>
> On [date] I lifted the transfer lock on [name] from my account and requested its transfer code. The code has not reached [account email].
>
> Could you send it to that address and confirm that the lock is off? If anything still blocks the move, please tell me what it is and how I can remove it.
>
> The name is paid up to [expiry date], and I am not disputing any charge.
>
> Thank you,
>
> [your name]

ICANN's transfer policy of 2016 gives a registrar five calendar days to hand over the code when your account does not give it to you.

## Try it in Registrars

1. Open Registrars on the website. Find your ending among the day's 40 endings, or type it in the lookup, which answers for one ending a day. Write down your registrar's renewal and the lowest renewal in the row.
2. Read the trap rows and the week's confirmed price changes. Note whether a price moved this week for your ending or at your registrar.
3. Open your registrar's profile. Among the day's endings it sells, note where its renewal is the lowest and where it is not.
4. On the Founder plan, type the full name in Browse: its drawer opens free if we track the name, and Analyse opens it with one counted analysis if not. In the drawer, the section The ending lists each registrar's first year beside its renewal. Watch the name there: a mail reaches you when its record changes.

Do this in Unique Domains: Open Registrars. The public page: https://unique.domains/registrars

## Sources

- Kevin Murphy, Domain Incite, "AlpNames could get PAID for abandoning its customers", 2019-03-15, https://domainincite.com/24044-alpnames-could-get-paid-for-abandoning-its-customers
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "ICANN shuts down Alpnames domain name registrar", 2019-03-14, https://domainnamewire.com/2019/03/14/icann-shuts-down-alpnames-domain-name-registrar/
- Kevin Murphy, Domain Incite, "Web.com getting dumped", 2025-04-30, https://domainincite.com/31014-web-com-getting-dumped
- Kevin Murphy, Domain Incite, "Domainers at risk as EnCirca takes over deadbeat registrar’s customer base", 2021-07-28, https://domainincite.com/26891-domainers-at-risk-as-encirca-takes-over-deadbeat-registrars-customer-base
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "Why do registrars sell .com domains for less than the wholesale price?", 2025-03-26, https://domainnamewire.com/2025/03/26/why-do-registrars-sell-com-domains-for-less-than-the-wholesale-price/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "How domain registrars have increased .com prices", 2024-08-20, https://domainnamewire.com/2024/08/20/how-domain-registrars-have-increased-com-prices/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "How to find the lowest prices for domain registrations", 2020-08-18, https://domainnamewire.com/2020/08/18/how-to-find-the-lowest-prices-for-domain-registrations/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "My thoughts on Squarespace’s acquisition of Google Domains", 2023-06-16, https://domainnamewire.com/2023/06/16/my-thoughts-on-squarespaces-acquisition-of-google-domains/
- ICANN, "Transfer Policy", 2016-06-01, https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/transfer-policy-2016-06-01-en
- Cloudflare, "Transfer your domain to Cloudflare · Cloudflare Registrar docs", 2026-10-29, https://developers.cloudflare.com/registrar/get-started/transfer-domain-to-cloudflare/
- Cloudflare, "Troubleshoot failed domain transfers · Cloudflare Registrar docs", 2026-10-29, https://developers.cloudflare.com/registrar/troubleshooting/
- Kevin Murphy, Domain Incite, "ICANN to kill off 60-day domain transfer lock", 2025-03-13, https://domainincite.com/30891-icann-to-kill-off-60-day-domain-transfer-lock
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "How to secure your domain names", 2022-03-25, https://domainnamewire.com/2022/03/25/how-to-secure-your-domain-names/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "15 things to know before you register a domain", 2022-06-01, https://domainnamewire.com/2022/06/01/15-things-to-know-before-you-register-a-domain/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "Have a Hexonet account? Act now if you don’t want your domains at Moniker", 2025-05-16, https://domainnamewire.com/2025/05/16/have-a-hexonet-account-act-now-if-you-dont-want-your-domains-at-moniker/
- Konstantinos Zournas, OnlineDomain, "Domain Name Scam Alert from BBB (about an Asian domain registration service)", 2014-02-27, https://onlinedomain.com/2014/02/27/domain-name-news/domain-name-scam-alert-from-bbb-about-an-asian-domain-registration-service/

This course explains how the trade works. It is not legal or financial advice.

## Related pages

- Compare year 1 and renewal prices at nine registrars: https://unique.domains/registrars
- See how founders go from a search to a shortlist: https://unique.domains/solutions/founders
- Read every domain word in plain English: https://unique.domains/glossary