Namecheap

Namecheap's .com ran about $11.28 for the first year and ~$18.48/yr at renewal in our July 2026 pass, with free WHOIS privacy on all domains — a policy it pioneered among mainstream registrars. First-year promo codes are frequent and real; the renewal rate is the number that never has a coupon.

Beyond domains it's a full-stack shop — hosting, email, SSL — which is convenient and also where checkout upsells concentrate.

The delta is about 1.6× ($11.28 → ~$18.48) — mild by Gandi standards (3.5×), but real money across a portfolio: ten .coms cost ~$113 in year one and ~$185/yr thereafter. Porkbun ($11.08 flat) and Cloudflare ($10.46 at-cost) both renew below Namecheap's renewal rate, per our tracker. Namecheap earns the gap back with a better dashboard for bulk management and broader TLD coverage — decide if that's worth ~$7/domain/yr to you.

Renewal figures come from our Hosting Renewal Price Index — intro vs renewal pricing for every provider we cover, verified on vendor sites and dated.

Standard ICANN transfers both directions; transfers in include the year extension at the transfer price. Watch one pattern at checkout: multi-year registrations at the promo price aren't usually possible — year one is promo, years 2+ book at renewal rates, so 'locking in' by registering long only locks in the renewal price.

Namecheap blocks automated price checking, which is why our verification note for it cites a same-day tracker rather than the vendor page — treat our numbers as close, not exact, and confirm at checkout. Some TLDs renew cheaper elsewhere, and the hosting/email cross-sells at checkout are skippable but persistent.