TLD-LIST is my go-to site for comparing registration, transfer and renewal prices at different registrars. While that is the main way TLD-LIST is used, the site can do much more.
Finding Lowest Prices
Before we look into what else TLD-LIST can do, let’s review the basics of using TLD-LIST for domain extension price comparisons. TLD-LIST currently covers pricing for almost 3500 different extensions at about 55 registrars. The price information is normally updated multiple times per hour.
I put together an annotated diagram of the steps.
Searching for a Specific Term
Another way to use TLD-LIST is to look for available TLDs for a given exact term, along with the registrars offering the best pricing. As an example, let’s say I want to find the exact term infrastructure. I enter that word, without any extension, in the box at the top left. Then scroll through different pages to see which extensions are available. Below is a small segment of the results I obtained.
A green box with checkmark indicates the domain name is available to register (e.g. .pw in the example shown), while an X in a red box indicates it is already registered. A yellow star in a green box indicates availability, but at a registry premium price. Note that the pricing shown is not the actual pricing in the case of premium names – you will need to check that at the registrar. Below is the full legend.
Finding A Promotional Code
If you are looking for a discount code to make a registration, try the Promo Codes at the top splash bar. It will show you codes for many different extensions at certain registrars. Note the restrictions – most can only be used once. This link takes you directly to the Promo Codes section.
Price History
One of my favourite features of TLD-LIST is the history of the lowest registration, renewal and transfer pricing for the extension. Since .io pricing has been increasing lately, I decided to take a look at that extension as an example.
The lowest registration pricing is in blue, the transfer pricing in red, and the best renewal price in green. Keep in mind that these are not the average or typical prices, but the lowest prices. We see that pricing for .io has been increasing since 2019.
The history is useful to see if there are periodically deep discounts. In the case of ,io, for many years there were not, but a few times since mid-2023 one or more registrars has offered very low prices. While there is no guarantee that such discounts will be repeated, it is possible.
Wholesale Pricing
Except for .com, it is surprisingly difficult to learn wholesale pricing information for most extensions. The agreements are between the registry and the registrar, and registrars apply markups, or sometimes discounts, on wholesale pricing. Generally wholesale prices are not announced.
For some, not all, extensions TLD-LIST shows the wholesale prices, as well as average registrar prices. This will give you an idea on whether you are being offered a reasonable rate.
What Features Does This Registrar Offer?
While you should confirm with the registrar, TLD-LIST has a helpful summary of free features included with domain registration. For example, I show the entry for Porkbun below. We see that the user can set DNS, use Email forwarding, obtain an SSL certificate for each domain name, and privacy services. The SSL certificate is particularly important if you are using a Google extension like .app, .dev and .page that are part of their secure space requirement.
What Payment Methods Possible?
The summary (see above) also shows the payment methods supported by the registrar.
Registrar Rating
TLD-LIST collect ratings of user experiences with registrars, and this can be helpful if you are considering a new registrar. As you can see above, Porkbun is rated very highly, based on 232 reviews. You can click on the hyperlink at TLD-LIST to read the actual reviews for any registrar.
Three Year Value
TLD-LIST computes a three year value score for each registrar and extension combination. That is based on the registration price and two years of renewals, but also takes into account the value of add-ons such as email accounts. You can read the 3-year rating methodology here.
DNSSEC Supported?
The majority of extensions now support DNSSEC. This is an important consideration for added security. Also, if the name is to be linked to ENS, for example for a wallet or smart contract, it must be DNSSEC enabled. The box marked Policy at TLD-LIST it will show you if that extension can have DNSSEC enabled.
Renewal Information
While most TLDs allow single year registrations and renewals, and a maximum of 10 years total registration period, there are exceptions. As shown above, the .ai extension requires 2 year registrations, but also requires renewals in 2 year increments.
Assuming that the information on TLD-LIST is correct, I discovered that .co only allow a maximum of 5 years of registration, and .xyz 9 years, rather than the more common 10.
Domain Syntax
Many extensions set the maximum possible number characters at 63, but there are exceptions. The minimum number is usually between 1 and 4 characters. You can find minimum length information for any extension at TLD-LIST by scrolling down to the Domain Syntax section. For example, I show below the entry for the .gg extension.
Registrar Coverage and Standings
From the initial splash page, click the Registrars tab to learn such things as how many TLDs each registrar currently offer (at least for those tracked by TLD-LIST).
Here are a few things I found interesting when I checked this week:
TLD-LIST has an occasional blog that you can access from the Blog tab on the initial splash page, or directly at this link. The TLD-LIST blog includes feature updates. Last summer there was a really helpful article in their blog on upcoming extension price increases.
Subscription Plans
While many use the free version of TLD-LIST, paid plans are also available. The paid plans remove advertising, allow you to set custom filters, and, on some plans, download data in JSON and other formats, as well as use an API. See pricing and details at TLD-LIST.
By the way, the developer of TLD-LIST also created wee.domains, a site to help find available very short domain names. I covered that some time ago in a NamePros Blog article on Single Character Domain Names.
Alternatives
This article is about TLD-LIST, but I did want to mention that there are other sites for comparative domain name pricing. Domcomp provides a beautiful and efficient visual display of the best rates for registration, renewal and transfer for a large set of TLDs and registrars.
TLDES compares prices at 142 registrars for more than 2500 different TLDs. The site is easy and fast to use, and their blog section mentions some promotions as they become available.
Update: (Feb. 18, 2024)
I had meant to include that TLD-LIST also includes a section so you can watch upcoming new gTLD releases. The direct link to TLD releases is here.
Sincere thanks to TLD-LIST for making such an awesome product, and for use of the screen captures I created for this article.
Finding Lowest Prices
Before we look into what else TLD-LIST can do, let’s review the basics of using TLD-LIST for domain extension price comparisons. TLD-LIST currently covers pricing for almost 3500 different extensions at about 55 registrars. The price information is normally updated multiple times per hour.
I put together an annotated diagram of the steps.
- Let’s say you want to find the best rates rates for the .app extension. In the search box at the top left enter
.appincluding the dot at the start. - That will bring up any TLDs that include
.app. For some terms there will be many, but for .app there are three. Click on the blue button labelled.app. - The content of TLD-List has changed recently, with an expanded text section at the start. That provides a summary of the extension, benefits, facts and uses. Scroll past that to get to pricing information. By default, the lowest prices for registration will be shown first.
- If you want to see the lowest prices for Transfer, simply click on that, and results will be ordered based on best rates for transfer. The same holds for Renew pricing.
- The lowest prices will often be for a registrar offering a promotion that might just apply a single time. If you wish to turn off these promotional prices, simply check Hide per customer pricing located on the top right.
- To do another search for a different extension, click the text TLD-LIST in the top left (see image) to return to start, and then repeat the steps.
Searching for a Specific Term
Another way to use TLD-LIST is to look for available TLDs for a given exact term, along with the registrars offering the best pricing. As an example, let’s say I want to find the exact term infrastructure. I enter that word, without any extension, in the box at the top left. Then scroll through different pages to see which extensions are available. Below is a small segment of the results I obtained.
Using TLD-LIST to find available extensions for a specific term, ‘infrastructure’ in this example.
A green box with checkmark indicates the domain name is available to register (e.g. .pw in the example shown), while an X in a red box indicates it is already registered. A yellow star in a green box indicates availability, but at a registry premium price. Note that the pricing shown is not the actual pricing in the case of premium names – you will need to check that at the registrar. Below is the full legend.
TLD-LIST symbols for extension availability.
Finding A Promotional Code
If you are looking for a discount code to make a registration, try the Promo Codes at the top splash bar. It will show you codes for many different extensions at certain registrars. Note the restrictions – most can only be used once. This link takes you directly to the Promo Codes section.
Price History
One of my favourite features of TLD-LIST is the history of the lowest registration, renewal and transfer pricing for the extension. Since .io pricing has been increasing lately, I decided to take a look at that extension as an example.
TLD-LIST shows historical lowest registration, transfer and renewal pricing for each extension.
The lowest registration pricing is in blue, the transfer pricing in red, and the best renewal price in green. Keep in mind that these are not the average or typical prices, but the lowest prices. We see that pricing for .io has been increasing since 2019.
The history is useful to see if there are periodically deep discounts. In the case of ,io, for many years there were not, but a few times since mid-2023 one or more registrars has offered very low prices. While there is no guarantee that such discounts will be repeated, it is possible.
Wholesale Pricing
Except for .com, it is surprisingly difficult to learn wholesale pricing information for most extensions. The agreements are between the registry and the registrar, and registrars apply markups, or sometimes discounts, on wholesale pricing. Generally wholesale prices are not announced.
For some, not all, extensions TLD-LIST shows the wholesale prices, as well as average registrar prices. This will give you an idea on whether you are being offered a reasonable rate.
What Features Does This Registrar Offer?
While you should confirm with the registrar, TLD-LIST has a helpful summary of free features included with domain registration. For example, I show the entry for Porkbun below. We see that the user can set DNS, use Email forwarding, obtain an SSL certificate for each domain name, and privacy services. The SSL certificate is particularly important if you are using a Google extension like .app, .dev and .page that are part of their secure space requirement.
Free Features, Rating and Payment Methods summary from TLD-LIST for the registrar Porkbun.
What Payment Methods Possible?
The summary (see above) also shows the payment methods supported by the registrar.
Registrar Rating
TLD-LIST collect ratings of user experiences with registrars, and this can be helpful if you are considering a new registrar. As you can see above, Porkbun is rated very highly, based on 232 reviews. You can click on the hyperlink at TLD-LIST to read the actual reviews for any registrar.
Three Year Value
TLD-LIST computes a three year value score for each registrar and extension combination. That is based on the registration price and two years of renewals, but also takes into account the value of add-ons such as email accounts. You can read the 3-year rating methodology here.
DNSSEC Supported?
The majority of extensions now support DNSSEC. This is an important consideration for added security. Also, if the name is to be linked to ENS, for example for a wallet or smart contract, it must be DNSSEC enabled. The box marked Policy at TLD-LIST it will show you if that extension can have DNSSEC enabled.
TLD-LIST About and Policy information, in this case for the .ai domain extension. Note that both the initial registration and renewals need to be in 2 year increments, and that DNSSEC is not supported.
Renewal Information
While most TLDs allow single year registrations and renewals, and a maximum of 10 years total registration period, there are exceptions. As shown above, the .ai extension requires 2 year registrations, but also requires renewals in 2 year increments.
Assuming that the information on TLD-LIST is correct, I discovered that .co only allow a maximum of 5 years of registration, and .xyz 9 years, rather than the more common 10.
Domain Syntax
Many extensions set the maximum possible number characters at 63, but there are exceptions. The minimum number is usually between 1 and 4 characters. You can find minimum length information for any extension at TLD-LIST by scrolling down to the Domain Syntax section. For example, I show below the entry for the .gg extension.
TLD-LIST provides syntax restrictions and registry information for any extension – here is the entry for the .gg extension.
Registrar Coverage and Standings
From the initial splash page, click the Registrars tab to learn such things as how many TLDs each registrar currently offer (at least for those tracked by TLD-LIST).
Here are a few things I found interesting when I checked this week:
- Spaceship has the cheapest registration in 278 extensions of the 433 they currently handle, or 64%.
- Porkbun has the best registration prices for 155 TLDs, or 29%. They have best renewal for 12%.
- Sav has the best registration pricing for 7%, and best renewal pricing for 14% of the 483 TLDs they handle
- Spaceship also has great transfer pricing, being the lowest in 50% of the extensions, and lowest renewal in 28%.
- Wonder who handle more TLDs between GoDaddy and Dynadot? Turns out, that of those tracked by TLD-LIST, each handle exactly the same number: 540. They do not handle the same extensions, though.
- I wondered which registrar handled the largest number of extensions, and that is Regery, at an astounding 2392.
- While GoDaddy pricing is usually not the lowest, they are the lowest the day I checked in 15 extensions. When in TLD-LIST you click on the number it shows which extensions, in this case .app, .live, .digital, .solutions, .social and some others.
TLD-LIST has an occasional blog that you can access from the Blog tab on the initial splash page, or directly at this link. The TLD-LIST blog includes feature updates. Last summer there was a really helpful article in their blog on upcoming extension price increases.
Subscription Plans
While many use the free version of TLD-LIST, paid plans are also available. The paid plans remove advertising, allow you to set custom filters, and, on some plans, download data in JSON and other formats, as well as use an API. See pricing and details at TLD-LIST.
By the way, the developer of TLD-LIST also created wee.domains, a site to help find available very short domain names. I covered that some time ago in a NamePros Blog article on Single Character Domain Names.
Alternatives
This article is about TLD-LIST, but I did want to mention that there are other sites for comparative domain name pricing. Domcomp provides a beautiful and efficient visual display of the best rates for registration, renewal and transfer for a large set of TLDs and registrars.
TLDES compares prices at 142 registrars for more than 2500 different TLDs. The site is easy and fast to use, and their blog section mentions some promotions as they become available.
Update: (Feb. 18, 2024)
I had meant to include that TLD-LIST also includes a section so you can watch upcoming new gTLD releases. The direct link to TLD releases is here.
Sincere thanks to TLD-LIST for making such an awesome product, and for use of the screen captures I created for this article.
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