Getting a domain is the first step to building a website or establishing a business email. It’s also an important part of establishing your brand and protecting your trademark. Working with clients in my own marketing business, I’ve found good domain names, especially those top-level domains (TLDs) such as .com, .biz, or .net. Getting an exact business name can be harder to come by these days. But parking your domain with a top domain registrar is always a prudent step to developing your online presence.
The best domain registrar makes getting and renewing domain names affordable, secures your data with WHOIS domain privacy and SSL, and provides technical support when you need it. But it’s also important to consider other value-added services for web hosting and business emails if you want a one-stop shop with your provider of choice.
We compared dozens of providers to find the best domain name registration services based on cost, support, and features. If you’re looking for affordability, we chose IONOS overall for its $1 domains, though providers like Porkbun had the lowest annual renewal rate. Review our guide to find the right one for you.
- IONOS: Best overall for small businesses
- GoDaddy: Best for multiple domains
- DreamHost: Best for bundles, emails, and WordPress
- Domain.com: Best for standalone or multiyear registration
- Hostinger: Best domain with AI website builder
- InMotion: Best for customer service
- Porkbun: Best for bulk and unusual domains
- SiteGround: Best for ecommerce site building
- ScalaHosting: Best for cloud hosting
- Bluehost: Best for bundled domain, SSL, and WooCommerce
Best Domain Registrars at a Glance
Starting Domain Cost (.com) | Renewal | Free WHOIS Privacy | Email Alias Forwarding | |
---|---|---|---|---|
$1/year*** | $17 | ✓ | ✓ | |
As low as $.01/year* | $21.99 | ✓ | ✓ | |
$8.99/year* | $19.99* | ✓ | ✓** | |
$11.99/year | $21.99 | X | X | |
$4.99/year* | $15.99 | ✓ | ✓ | |
$20.74/year | $20.74/year | X | ✓ | |
$6.99/year | $10.37/year | ✓ | ✓ | |
Domain free first year with $2.99/month web hosting* | $19.99/year | ✓ | X | |
$16.95/year | $16.95/year | X**** | ✓ | |
$12.99/year* | $12.99/year* | X | ✓** | |
*First-year pricing listed. May renew at a higher rate. Some plans require a two- or three-year purchase. **Requires an email or web hosting plan. ***One-time purchase deal only. ****Privacy 50% off with the purchase of tier 2 hosting plan. |
A domain registrar is a company that provides domain registration to ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN manages the Domain Name System (DNS). A registrar is a trusted provider of services and must comply with the DNS rules and regulations that ICANN establishes. These rules were created to protect the global ownership rights of all domain name holders.
Anyone who wants to build or own a website must register their domain name through a domain registrar. The registrar collects information like the name of your business, a physical address where you can be reached, and the name of an administrative contact or owner. This helps ensure that any questions of ownership that arise around a domain name can be resolved easily by a registered agent or owner of the domain.
For a step-by-step walk-through, read our guide on how to register a business domain.
While researching about buying your domain or building your website, you might read about the WHOIS Database (pronounced “who is”). ICANN manages the WHOIS Database, which includes an entry for every one of the 351 million domain names connected to the internet. The WHOIS Database allows internet users to look up registration information about every registered domain.
These days, most domains are protected by Domain Privacy, meaning personal information connected to your domain name is protected from spammers or hackers. With Domain Privacy, your personal information remains hidden.
IONOS: Best Overall for Small Business Domain Registration
IONOS is a best domain registrar for small businesses because it’s so cheap. It’s feature-packed for a domain registrar at any cost, but at $1 for the first year, IONOS is the cheapest path to a domain with a free SSL certificate and a 2GB business email address. Your .com domain renews automatically annually at $17—still a bargain for what’s included.
Known primarily as a web host, IONOS offers a free domain name with email hosting for $12 per year. If you need web hosting plans that include a free domain, SSL, and email account starting at $12 a year, IONOS is your best registration option at just $1 a month for the first year.
While these are introductory rates, IONOS remains valuable when it comes time to renew. Annual renewal costs for its email hosting plan remain $12 after the first year, and its website builder plan goes to an affordable $60. If you’re hosting WordPress or some other kind of website, hosting will run you $96 per year. Considering everything that’s included, any of these plans are a remarkable value.
GoDaddy: Best Domain Registration for Multiple Domains
GoDaddy is the world’s biggest domain registrar, managing an impressive 75 million domains worldwide. It’s also among the most popular sources for web hosting, email, and website builder plans. More importantly, if you manage many domains, GoDaddy is the best domain registration service for you.
With a first-year domain-only purchase price as low as $.99, GoDaddy domains renew at $21.99 a year—slightly more expensive than other domain providers. However, all GoDaddy domains include domain privacy for free, which saves GoDaddy users $10 to $20 a year—easily offsetting the additional expense of the domain renewal.
All of its plans are competitively priced, but you have to make a three-year commitment to receive the best price. If this fits the bill, we recommend the $5.99 per month Web Hosting Economy plan (introductory price), which includes everything you need to get started with your new small business website, including a free domain, an SSL certificate, and domain privacy.
While GoDaddy is known best for domain name registration, its web hosting packages are a good value. If you need a site builder, plans start at $9.99 a month.
DreamHost: Best for Bundled Domain, Email, and WordPress Domain Registration
DreamHost offers users a .com domain starting at just $8.99 a month, but the real value of the DreamHost system comes when you choose one of their hosting plans. With annual payments, web hosting is available for just $2.95 a month for unlimited sites for the first year, and all plans come with access to a no-code, drag-and-drop WordPress website builder.
In addition to its website builder, DreamHost makes a strong case for businesses that have multiple websites. The unlimited websites plan includes unlimited domains, emails, bandwidth, and storage. That’s on top of a free SSL certificate with each domain you’re hosting and includes domain privacy for the first year.
DreamHost also includes other features that make it worthwhile, including daily backups and free WordPress site migration. DreamHost also automatically updates WordPress core and security as updates become available. The most valuable feature they include in hosting is BoldGrid, the award-winning WordPress page builder theme that makes it easy to build a WordPress website from scratch.
You can purchase a .com domain without hosting through DreamHost for $8.99, and the annual renewal is just $19.99, making DreamHost more affordable than many of the other registrars we reviewed. The Shared Starter web hosting package includes everything you need to build a website, and it renews annually for just $6.99 a month.
Domain.com: Best Domain Registrar for Standalone or Multiyear Registration
If you’re looking for an affordable way to buy domains on multiyear contracts, Domain.com is the solution you’re looking for. Domain.com is a domain registrar that offers flat-fee .com domains for $9.99 a year. This makes it easy for you to put any of your domain name ideas into play quickly and easily.
You can buy your domain on contracts up to five years in length. What you won’t find with this standalone registrar, however, are bundled solutions for domain, website, and business email, unlike with Bluehost and DreamHost.
For those who later decide to build a website, Domain.com makes it easy to transfer your domain, forward your domain, or upgrade your account to include hosting. It even has a website builder plan, though the builder is quite limited in functionality and design features. It pales compared to the value you get with the best drag-and-drop website builders.
With Domain.com, the price of your domain remains the same. There is no introductory period, so a .com renews for the same $12.99 you paid for the first year. Additionally, you can add domain privacy and an SSL certificate, all on the same multiyear agreement.
Hostinger: Best Domain Registration With an AI Website Builder
Hostinger is a registrar and web hosting provider known for providing an affordable hosting solution for small business websites. It’s also included on our list of best web hosting services. However, its standout features are its AI website builder and content creator, which can help you build your website faster and better. Read more about the advanced AI features in our Hostinger review. Also, because it’s primarily a hosting provider, transitioning from a domain-only purchase to a hosting plan is simple.
The Single hosting plan has features most small businesses will need. That includes a free SSL, WordPress page builder theme, and weekly backups. However, these features notwithstanding, Hostinger’s web hosting offerings are not as robust as those from other dedicated web hosts like IONOS or Bluehost.
Hostinger’s site builder plans come with a free domain and unlimited free SSL (you can build up to 100 websites using its site builder). For domain-only purchases, you can get a .com domain for $4.99 for the first year and $15.99 a year thereafter, which makes Hostinger one of the more affordable domain solutions we reviewed. And no matter how you register a domain with Hostinger, free domain privacy is included.
InMotion: Best Domain Registrar for Customer Service
InMotion is a web hosting provider that also sells domain names. It is known for having excellent customer service both on the sales and technical sides. Chat support is available on all tiers 24/7/365, and phone support is available to the top two tiers of users, the Power and Pro plans.
For users on the Core plan, or if you’re just looking to park your address until you’re ready to build a website, a new .com domain name will run you $20.74 a year. Or you can get one for free if you sign up for its second tier or higher web hosting plans, starting at $4.79 a month for the Launch tier. The Launch tier includes many valuable features, including unlimited email addresses. It renews at an affordable $13.99 per month after the two-year introductory period expires.
InMotion is a feature-packed domain registrar and hosting service that provides small businesses with virtually everything they need to set up a website and grow their businesses. With plans starting at an affordable $2.99, there’s an InMotion plan to fit any budget. Its top-shelf customer support can have you up and running fast.
Porkbun: Best for Bulk Domain Purchase & Unusual Domain Registration
Porkbun is an out-of-the-box but excellent value-priced domain host. We are including in our list of best domain registration services for their great bulk, domain, pricing, and specialization in creative domain extensions.
They feature very affordable pricing both for registration and renewals, and unlike some other domain hosts, they offer other extras for free, including WHOIS privacy, SSL certificates, and email forwarding. All of this pricing is provided transparently to help small businesses make good, long-term budgeting decisions—though it varies widely based on your chosen TLD.
They offer a Weebly-based website builder and WordPress hosting on shared hosting services. You can also build a static page or create a PHP-based site if that’s your thing. For small businesses, their web hosting services are a good value and offer flexible options.
On the downside, while Porkbun is a great domain and website host, as businesses’ websites grow in size and complexity, they may begin to feel limited in terms of storage capacity and bandwidth. Growing businesses may eventually require other providers to expand to enterprise-level web hosting services.
If buying multiple domains—especially creative ones—is important to your business, definitely give Porkbun a whirl. To top it all off, they have a friendly, fun vibe and customer service team, and even a store with their Porkbun-branded merch, making them a joy to work with.
Hosting Your Domains and Website Separately vs All-in-One Hosting
While many small businesses want to simplify their IT solutions by finding a single provider of domains, websites, and email hosting services, others take the opposite tack. Known as “vendor lock-in,” having all services with one provider can sometimes increase costs, making moving difficult if you take issue with pricing or policies with your complete provider. Splitting your hosting services can sometimes save money and keep your options open if you’re willing to deal with the additional effort.
SiteGround: Best Domain Registrar for Easy Ecommerce Website Building
SiteGround is a domain registrar and hosting provider that is ideal for some novice users who need a website builder and ecommerce solution. Every SiteGround domain and hosting package comes with free access to Weebly, an ecommerce site builder from Square. It’s easy to use and fast to learn. In fact, Weebly’s drag-and-drop builder is one of the best for small businesses.
SiteGround plans start at $2.99 a month for the first year, plus a free domain—if chosen from the most popular types of TLDs (.com, .net, .org, and .us). More creative TLDs incur additional costs. While SiteGround is a good choice for beginners and startups on a budget, their low prices do jump up in year two, so be prepared. SiteGround caps the number of visitors depending on which plan you choose, and storage space is also quite limited. If you need more storage space or unlimited visitors, consider DreamHost or Bluehost instead.
SiteGround is a great place to get a domain and web hosting if you need a good deal on a great website builder and aren’t too concerned about traffic volume. Another plus is their carbon-neutral hosting through Google’s net-zero data centers. SiteGround is well-ranked on customer review sites G2, TrustRadius and TrustPilot averaging 8.9 out of 10. For certain ecommerce businesses, especially those with a climate-friendly pledge to their customers, SiteGround could be the ideal solution.
ScalaHosting: Best Domain Registrar for Secure Cloud Hosting
ScalaHosting is not the least expensive for domain hosting, but its big selling point is its high-security cloud service, which gives users a secure, virtual private server (VPS) for $14.95 a month with the Entry Cloud plan. If security and scalability are top concerns, a VPS with ScalaHosting is the way to go. ScalaHosting also ranks highly in customer reviews on G2 and Trustpilot.
In addition to its cloud services, ScalaHosting provides shared hosting and WordPress hosting solutions that are more in line with or even beat the competition. In fact, with unlimited email addresses and bandwidth on all tiers of service, ScalaHosting is a worthy competitor to the other domain registrars and hosting providers we reviewed.
Bluehost: Best Domain Registrar for Bundled Domain, SSL, and WooCommerce
Bluehost is a top web hosting service that is known for its affordability and reliability. For small businesses considering building an online store in WordPress, the Online Store plan comes in at just $9.95 a month for the first year. It comes complete with a managed WordPress installation, WooCommerce pre-installed, and more than $450 in upgrades and add-ons included. This makes Bluehost’s online store plan a great value for your business.
Domains cost $12.99 a year unless you buy a hosting package, which includes your domain and SSL. Also, domain-only purchases do not have an SSL certificate, though you can buy one for an additional fee. Similarly, Bluehost does not offer free domain privacy. If you’re just looking to secure a domain name and have no plans to build a website, you’re better served by IONOS or GoDaddy, which both include an SSL certificate with their domains.
If you plan to build a small business website on WordPress, Bluehost is one of the best places to buy a domain. Domains are $12.99 a year, and you can get a domain free with an SSL certificate and business email for $2.95 a month for the first year, making Bluehost one of the most affordable ways to take your small business online.
How We Evaluated the Best Domain Registrars
Getting the right business domain name for your website and professional email is a vital part of your business branding. However, with so many ways to register a domain, it can be confusing to figure out which offers the most value for your business. To help you choose, we ranked the best domain name registrars based on factors important to small businesses, including:
- Cost: Ideally, domain registration should start at $10 or less for the first year for a .com domain, or $17 per year for providers with no first-year pricing. Other TLDs can cost more, such as .io, which can run up to $40 a year. The registrars we reviewed all offer inexpensive .com domains. Top domain name registration providers with options for free .com domains scored higher as well.
- Ease of use/transparency: Some domain registrars make registering a new domain easier and more transparent. We chose providers that eliminate needless steps and clearly lay out your options such as privacy, email, and website plans. Most even have domain name generators to give you domain name ideas should your first choice be taken.
- Features: Domain registrars that provide additional features beyond domains are more valuable to small businesses. These features can be anything from SSL certificates to website building to free email forwarding, which saves you money.
- Customer service: Every domain name registrar on this list has to be reachable. That means they provide effective, timely support. Most of the providers we included here provide some version of 24/7 support. This means you can get your problems solved when you need to.
- Customer reviews: We look at top-rated customer review sites: G2, TrustRadius, and Trustpilot. By averaging scores (where sufficient reviews are available) and reviewing a sampling of opinions. We then take these results into account in scoring based on our methodologies.
- Security: All the domain name registrar services on this list have to offer significant security features, including verification steps, WHOIS privacy, and a free SSL (if purchased through hosting plans).
- First-hand experience: Nothing substitutes for first-hand experience. We have worked with all of the domain registrars included here and know from our own experiences the value and service they offer to customers.
Key Considerations When Choosing a Domain Registrar
Selecting the right domain registrar is one of the most important decisions you can make when securing your small business’s presence on the internet. There are several key considerations to note before you make your final decision.
- How much does each domain cost? Does the registrar offer introductory pricing? What is the regular annual domain registration fee after the introductory period ends?
- What features are included with the domain? Does the domain registrar provide value-added features like free SSL certificates, domain privacy, or email forwarding?
- What features do you need? Are you just buying the domain to protect your brand identity? Or are you looking to build a website, host a company email, or build a brand presence online? Does the registrar you’re considering provide the features to accomplish these goals? And how does it all pencil out if you continue to expand your use of services?
- There’s a lot more to the web than .com. With over 1,500 TLDs, the .com domain extension for your business is not the end all, be all. Besides extensions such as .biz or .co, many companies use extensions like .restaurant or .shop, especially when their name ends with the extension. With search queries more common than exact web address entries, the supremacy of the once mighty .com has faded. And getting creative with your domain can save you money! Discover more about business domain names.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
When it comes to safety and security, TLD registrars like IONOS, GoDaddy, and Hostinger are all on pretty even ground. All must follow exacting standards to maintain their status with ICANN. These standards include providing optional domain privacy, securing your domain registration with features to deter would-be domain thieves from attempting to steal your domain, and other means of locking your domain to prevent transfer.
Certainly. Domain registrars vary wildly in terms of price and features. Some include value-added features like free SSL and domain privacy, while others allow you to host websites, company emails, and more. If you need WordPress CMS, some registrars specifically focus on this marketplace. Ultimately, the registrar you choose will be determined by the features you need most.
Domain privacy keeps the contact information used to register your domain on WHOIS as private. It reduces spam and junk mail and is especially ideal for businesses that want to keep their physical addresses private (like home-based businesses). Some domain registrars include this free, while others charge around $11-$20 per year—but the added security is well worth it.
Bottom Line
Looking purely at domain names with website hosting as a whole package, the top domain name registrar for small businesses from our testing is IONOS. Domains are available through IONOS for as little as $1 a month for the first year. WHOIS domain privacy is included, and there are several inexpensive web and email hosting options depending on your needs.
Alternatively, for a standalone domain registry, we recommend Domain.com as our next choice for the best registrar for domain names. It costs just $12.99 a year for a .com domain, year after year, and they make it easy to register your domain for multiple years at a time.