What a one-dollar domain actually costs over three years

Promotional pricing is at its most aggressive in the newer generic extensions. In our current table, first-year prices under three dollars are common for .online and .store — and renewals above forty dollars are equally common for the same names at the same registrars.

Run that out over three years and the arithmetic is uncomfortable. A two-dollar first year followed by two sixty-dollar renewals costs more than three years of a .com bought at full list price from a mid-priced registrar.

Where the discount holds up

Flat-price registrars are the exception. A handful of the sellers we track quote the same figure for registration and renewal, which means the price you compare today is the price you pay in year five. Those registrars almost never win a first-year comparison and frequently win a three-year one.

The rule we apply

We label a first-year price as promotional whenever it sits below the renewal figure from the same registrar, and we publish the three-year total on the same row so the two numbers are never separated. A promotion is not dishonest — it is just a different product from a cheap domain, and the tables should say which one is on offer.