The answer first
A .com domain name costs a small business roughly $11 to $23 a year in November 2026. Nobody can sell one for less than $11.17 a year for long, because that is what every registrar has to pay before it adds anything of its own. Where you land in that range depends almost entirely on which company you buy from and whether you are looking at its first-year price or its renewal price.
Other endings cost different amounts. A .net renewed for $11.86 at Cloudflare in fall 2026, while endings like .io and .ai renewed for $50 and $80 or more a year. For a local business, a .com in your business name is still the usual choice, so that is what this post prices out.
Where the money goes on a .com
Three companies touch every .com you buy. Verisign runs the .com registry, the master list of every .com in existence, and charges each registrar a wholesale fee per name per year. ICANN, the nonprofit that coordinates the domain system, adds $0.20 per name per year. Then the registrar, the company you actually pay, such as GoDaddy, Namecheap or Porkbun, sets its own retail price on top.
On November 1, 2026, Verisign's wholesale fee went from $10.26 to $10.97 a year, an increase of 71 cents. Add ICANN's 20 cents and the floor for one .com year is now $11.17. Registrars that sell at cost charge exactly that. Everyone else charges that plus a margin.
This was not a one-time bump. The wholesale price rose about 7% a year in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024, held flat in 2025, and rose again this month. Industry analysts note that Verisign's agreement leaves room for similar increases in 2027, 2028 and 2029. Plan on your renewal creeping up, not down.
What the main registrars charge for a .com
One .com, billed yearly, after the November 1 increase. Five-year cost is the first year plus four renewals.
| Registrar | First year | Renewal each year | Five-year cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | $11.17 | $11.17 | $55.85 |
| Porkbun | $11.81 | $11.81 | $59.05 |
| Namecheap | $12.28 | $20.18 | $93.00 |
| GoDaddy | $13.19 | $23.19 | $105.95 |
Same name, same .com, and nearly twice the cost over five years at the most expensive of the four. The difference is almost all renewal. Namecheap and GoDaddy also run first-year promotions and coupon codes that can make year one look nearly free, which is exactly why the renewal column is the one to read.
Prices as published on November 12, 2026 in Porkbun's .com cost comparison, which reads competitor prices from tldes.com. Registrars change prices and run sales often, so confirm on the registrar's own site before you buy.
The cheap first year, and what it costs later
A common domain mistake is not overpaying in year one. It is signing up for a teaser price and never looking at the bill again. GoDaddy has advertised a .com for one cent on a three-year term, renewing at about $23 a year. Name.com listed a .com at $13.99 for the first year and $21.99 to renew in November 2026. Neither is a scam. They are simply priced so the first year brings you in and the renewals pay for it.
The low-cost registrars work the other way. Cloudflare sells at cost and does not run sales at all, though it requires your domain to use Cloudflare's own name servers, which matters if your website host expects something different. Porkbun charges one flat price to register, renew or transfer. Both include privacy protection for your contact details at no extra charge, a line some registrars still bill separately.
A quick test before you buy anywhere: find the renewal price in writing, multiply it by five, and add the first year. That number, not the headline, is what the name will cost you.
Who owns your domain? Check the registrant
Buying a domain does not make you its permanent owner. It gives the registrant, the person or company named on the registration, the exclusive right to use it for as long as the registration is paid up, along with the right to renew it, move it to another registrar or sell it. ICANN's statement of registrant rights also makes the registrant responsible for keeping the contact details accurate.
That is why the name on the record matters more than who paid. If a nephew, a former employee or a web company registered your domain under their own account and details, they hold those rights, not you. Getting it moved can be quick if they cooperate and slow if they do not.
Two timing rules are worth knowing. A registrar may refuse to move a brand new domain to another registrar during its first 60 days. And changing the registrant's name, organization or email can lock the domain against transfers for 60 days, unless the registrar offers an opt-out before you make the change. If you are moving a domain and changing its owner, ask the registrar which order to do it in.
If the renewal slips: what happens and how long you have
Letting a domain lapse is the expensive way to learn where it is registered. Under ICANN's Expired Registration Recovery Policy, your registrar has to send at least two reminders, about a month and about a week before the expiration date, to the email address on the registration. If that address is an old one nobody reads, the reminders go nowhere.
Once a domain expires, the registrar can switch off its connection to your website and email. If the name is then deleted, .com and the other generic endings give you a 30-day redemption grace period to restore it. Restoring usually carries an extra fee on top of the renewal. After that window, the name can be registered by anyone, including people who watch for expiring business domains.
Three habits prevent nearly all of this: turn on auto-renew, keep a current email address and card on the registrar account, and renew for several years at a time if you plan to keep the name. With prices rising, a longer renewal also locks in today's price for the years you pay ahead.
What a domain costs alongside a Dominion website
The domain is its own line in your budget. It is a registrar bill, paid to whichever company you register with, and it should be registered to you. Our website prices do not change that: a Dominion site is a one-time $497 for Starter, $997 for Pro or $1,997 for Agency, and you own the finished site outright. After launch, hosting, maintenance and updates are $49 a month, or included while you keep an AI agent: the chat widget on Pro or the phone agent on Agency, each $297 a month after a 7-day free trial.
Put together, a five-page Starter site on a .com you register at cost runs $497 once, about $11 a year for the name and $49 a month to keep the site online and current. If you already own a domain, building the site does not change who it is registered to. For the rest of the running costs, read how much a website costs per month, and before you hire anyone, read our guide to hiring a web designer, which covers what the contract should say about the domain.
Already have the name? See what a site on it could look like. The free demo shows a site built for your business before anyone mentions an invoice.