Domain name prices can be baffling. While some cost less than a cup of coffee per year, others sell for millions. This vast range in prices often leaves new website owners wondering—what is a truly fair price for a domain? Understanding what you're paying for and what impacts the prices will help you guide this decision.
Standard New Domain Registrations
At its most basic, paying for a domain grants you the right to use a specific web address, for the time period of a year. The very baseline for standard, newly registered domains with common TLDs (Top-Level Domains) like .com or .net, is typically between £10 and £20 per year. However, several factors can influence the initial costs.
First of all, who you choose to register your domain with. For instance, IONOS offers popular TLDs like .com and .co.uk at just £1 for the first year, but this price will change depending on the provider. There are also other factors included in the price, such as free website protection or a website builder included in the price. Be mindful of other terms and conditions, like a minimum contract length requirement.
When do prices go premium?
You must be thinking—if I can get a domain for pennies, why do companies ever need to pay hundreds? Like many things in life, high demand drives prices up, and certain domains are more in demand than others. For instance, short and keyword-rich names (e.g., loans.online) can cost hundreds or thousands for the first year, due to their commercial value. They are amazing for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and very memorable. In fact, the most expensive domain ever recorded publicly was cars.com, sold at a whopping $872 million.
Similarly, certain TLDs may hold authority over different sectors, which can make them more expensive. Good examples are .ai and .io, which have recently become a lot more desirable in the fast-developing AI industry. Domain names also come at a premium when an already established company sells theirs, such as the co-founder of HubSpot selling Chat.com to the owner of ChatGPT for $15.5 million.
How much should you pay?
The real question is how much should you be willing to pay when creating a new website? The answer should be based on your needs and aspirations. If you are starting a small personal blog or a portfolio site as a new freelancer, you most likely don't have a big budget for this. Therefore, keeping it at a lower price point is smart.
On the other hand, if you are a larger company with aspirations to grow and enter new markets within the next few years, a really good domain name may be worth the investment. It can significantly impact your brandability and scalability, too, so it needs to be a strategic decision.
Finding the Right Price Point
In summary, standard new domain registrations can be highly affordable, but the moment you start looking into premium and desirable options, the prices hike up. The "right" price point will ultimately be subjective, based on your business goals and available resources.
