TL;DR: To buy a domain name, search for it at an ICANN-accredited registrar, check the renewal price (not just the first year), skip the add-ons, list yourself as the owner, pay, and turn on auto-renew. Every registrar pays the .com registry $10.97 a year from November 1, 2026, up from $10.26 (ICANN, Verisign), so a $0.01 first year gets made up at renewal. No website yet? WebZum builds one in about five minutes, and you can see and edit it free for 30 days with no credit card. On Professional ($34/mo, month to month), WebZum registers and pays for your .com, covered up to $20 a year, while you stay on the plan.
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Disclosure: WebZum publishes this blog and makes a website builder that includes a domain on its Professional plan. Registrar prices come from each company’s own pages, linked inline.
Verified October 30, 2026. US prices before tax. Registrars change prices often, and many will reprice .com after the registry fee went up on November 1, 2026, so check before you pay.
How do you buy a domain name, step by step?
You search for the name at a registrar, pay for at least a year, and it’s yours for as long as you keep renewing.
Step 1: Pick the name before you shop
Choose something people can spell after hearing it once on the phone. Still deciding? See how to name your business and get the domain.
Don’t stuff in keywords for Google. Google says keywords in a domain name “have hardly any effect beyond appearing in breadcrumbs,” and that the ending (.com, .org and so on) “only matters if you’re targeting a specific country’s users” (Google Search Central). Get the .com if you can, because it’s what customers type. Verisign counted 182.5 million .com and .net names at the end of September 2026, with 13.1 million new ones that quarter alone (Verisign Q3 2026), so expect to try a few versions.
Step 2: Choose where to buy it
Buy from an ICANN-accredited registrar, or a website company that registers through one. ICANN says your registration “must be subject to a Registration Agreement with an ICANN Accredited Registrar,” and that you’re entitled to clear pricing, renewal and transfer information (ICANN). Your website builder may include a domain, too.
Step 3: Search, then read the renewal price
When the name shows as available, look past the big number. Many registrars price the first year low and make it back later:
- GoDaddy: $0.01 for the first year, but “3-year purchase required. Additional year(s) $22.99” (GoDaddy).
- Namecheap: a $6.48 “new customer special” for the first year, “limited to one domain purchase per user/household,” then $18.48 a year to renew (Namecheap).
- Hostinger: “a .com domain costs $0.01 for the first year. After that, the renewal fee is $19.99/year” (Hostinger).
ICANN requires registrars to make renewal fees “reasonably available” when you register (ICANN ERRP). If you can’t find the renewal price, that tells you something.
Step 4: Skip the add-ons
Most of what’s added at checkout is optional; see the add-ons section below.
Step 5: List yourself as the owner
Enter your name or your business as the registrant, with an email you’ll still check in five years. ICANN says you “must provide accurate information” and “respond to inquiries from your Registrar within fifteen (15) days” (ICANN). The first one is usually a verification email. If it goes unverified, “ICANN requires the registrar to place a hold on the domain,” and the site stops working until you click the link (Cloudflare Docs).
Use an email that isn’t on the new domain. ICANN wants owners to keep “a secondary email point of contact that is not associated with the domain name itself,” so reminders still reach you if it lapses (ICANN ERRP).
Step 6: Pay, and turn on auto-renew
Pay, switch auto-renew on, and keep the card current. ICANN: if you choose auto-renew, “you must also keep your payment information current” (ICANN). Then point the domain at your website (see the last section).
How much does it cost to buy a domain name?
A .com costs about $10 to $23 a year, and the registry sets the floor. Verisign, which runs .com, charges registrars $10.97 per name per year from November 1, 2026 (it was $10.26 before), “for each annual increment of an initial and renewal .com domain name registration” (ICANN fee schedule, Verisign letter). ICANN adds $0.20 a year on top (Namecheap, Hostinger).
So compare the cost over 36 months, not the first year. We added up one .com at each registrar from their own pages on October 28–30, 2026:
| Where you buy one .com | Year 1 | Years 2 and 3 | WHOIS privacy | Domain cost over 36 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ⭐ WebZum Professional ($34/mo) | Included | Included while you stay on Professional | Not a separate charge | $0 extra (WebZum covers registration up to $20/yr) |
| Cloudflare Registrar | ~$11.17 (at cost) | ~$11.17 × 2 | Free | ~$33.51 |
| Porkbun | $11.08 | $11.08 × 2 | Free | $33.24 at the October 30 price |
| Hostinger | $0.01 | $19.99 × 2 | Free | $39.99 |
| Namecheap (new customer) | $6.48 | $18.48 × 2 | Free | $43.44 |
| GoDaddy | $0.01 (3 years required) | $22.99 × 2 | Free | $45.99, paid up front |
| Squarespace Domains | $20 | $20 × 2 | Included | $60 |
Sources: Cloudflare, Porkbun, Hostinger, Namecheap, GoDaddy, Squarespace Help, WebZum FAQ.
How we got the numbers:
- Cloudflare prices are “always at or below what registries and ICANN charge us” (Cloudflare). Its product page doesn’t print a .com price, so that row is our math: the $10.97 registry fee plus ICANN’s $0.20.
- Porkbun listed .com at $11.08 to register and renew on October 30, 2026, before the November 1 registry increase; expect renewals to tick up there and at most registrars. Hostinger and Namecheap may add ICANN’s $0.20 a year at checkout.
- Squarespace says “common TLDs like .com and .org are $20 per year” (Squarespace Help).
- WebZum isn’t a registrar you pay per name. On Professional, the live FAQ says the plan “includes a custom domain that WebZum registers and pays for on your behalf, or you can connect a domain you already own” (WebZum FAQ). We cover registration up to $20 a year, which takes in a standard .com. On Basic ($19/mo), the site stays on yourbusiness.webzum.com.
If you’re paying for a website anyway, check whether the domain is already in the bill before you buy it twice.
Is the free domain that comes with hosting really free?
For one year, and only if you pay a year or more up front. Hostinger says “all hosting plans – except Single – come with a free domain when ordering for one year or a longer period” (Hostinger). We checked what that means at the till.
On the afternoon of October 28, 2026, from a US connection, we opened Hostinger’s checkout for its Premium plan and changed nothing but the billing term. We stopped before paying.
- 1 month ($12.19): no domain. The cart said, “Want a free domain? Choose a longer plan.”
- 12 months ($47.88): “Great news! You get a free domain for 1 year with this order.” The domain line showed $13.99 crossed out to $0.
- 24 months ($83.76): the same one free year, not two.
So the free domain is a first-year bonus for prepaying hosting, and the renewal arrives a year later as its own bill. Others work the same way. Bluehost’s free domain comes with 12- or 36-month terms, its .com is $12.99 the first year and $23.99 to renew on its own (Bluehost), and if you cancel inside its 30-day window, Bluehost “will deduct a non-refundable domain fee from your refund, at the regular cost of your domain” (Bluehost). Wix gives its voucher only with “the first-time purchase of a site plan,” not on monthly billing, and says it “does not include privacy protection” (Wix Help Center).
WebZum Professional is the exception we know of: it’s month to month at $34/mo, and the .com stays included for as long as you stay on the plan.
Which add-ons can you skip when you buy a domain?
Most of them. Privacy protection used to be the big upsell; it’s free at every registrar in the table. GoDaddy says domain privacy “is automatically included for free with every eligible domain” and on by default (GoDaddy Help). Namecheap calls it “FREE for life” (Namecheap), and Porkbun says “most registrars charge for this service; we believe your privacy shouldn’t come at a price” (Porkbun). One catch: some endings, like .us, “are not currently eligible” for privacy at all (GoDaddy Help).
Usually safe to leave unticked:
- Paid SSL certificates. Namecheap sells them “from $5.99/year” (Namecheap). Most website hosts, WebZum included, set up SSL for you at no extra charge.
- Premium DNS (“just $4.88/year” at Namecheap). A small business site doesn’t need it.
- Hosting and email bundles you haven’t compared. Trials renew at full price; see how much website hosting costs.
- Extra endings (.net, .biz, misspellings) unless you have a real reason.
Who owns the domain after you buy it?
Whoever is listed as the registrant, as long as they keep paying. Hostinger puts it simply: “When you buy a domain, it belongs to you – and not the domain registrar” (Hostinger).
The detail people miss is the organization field. GoDaddy notes that “if a Registrant Organization is provided, it becomes the Registered Name Holder per ICANN policy” (GoDaddy Help). If a web designer or old employee bought it under their name or company, they’re the owner on paper. Fix that while everyone’s friendly.
What happens if your domain expires?
Your site and email stop working, and after a short window you can lose the name. ICANN’s Expired Registration Recovery Policy requires at least two reminders before expiry, “approximately one month” and “approximately one week” out, plus one more within five days after (ICANN ERRP). But it also says “registrars may delete registrations at any time after they expire.”
After deletion there’s a 30-day Redemption Grace Period when a .com can still be restored, for a fee. The registry alone charges registrars $40 per restore (ICANN fee schedule), before the registrar’s own fee.
Registrars handle the gap differently. Cloudflare gives 40 days: the domain works for 30, then shows a parked page, then enters redemption (Cloudflare Docs). Squarespace charges renewals 15 days before the renewal date and retries a failed card every five days (Squarespace Help). Auto-renew and a current card avoid all of it.
Can you move a domain to another company later?
Yes, but usually not in the first 60 days. Under ICANN’s current Transfer Policy, a registrar may deny a transfer requested “within 60 days of the creation date,” and a change to the registrant’s name, organization or email can trigger a separate 60-day lock (ICANN Transfer Policy, ICANN FAQ). ICANN’s own advice: if you plan to move registrars, transfer first and change your contact details after.
That’s changing, slowly. On June 7, 2026, ICANN’s board adopted new transfer recommendations, to be implemented “subject to prioritization” (ICANN Board). The working group’s report standardizes the lock at 30 days (GNSO), but no start date has been set, so plan around 60 days for now.
Often you don’t need to move the domain at all; you can switch web hosts by updating “your domain name’s nameservers” (ICANN FAQ).
How do you connect a new domain to your website?
You point the domain’s nameservers or DNS records at your website host, using the values the host gives you, and the host turns on HTTPS. Two things to know:
- Some registrars decide this for you. At Cloudflare, “all domains on Cloudflare Registrar use Cloudflare nameservers,” so you add records there rather than switching nameservers (Cloudflare Docs).
- A domain that’s been owned before can carry baggage. Google suggests you “clean up your recently purchased domain” by checking Search Console for manual actions and leftover URL removals from the previous owner (Google Search Central).
Then give Google time: see how long Google takes to index a new website.
How does it work if you build your site with WebZum?
Get the site up first and add the domain when you upgrade, so you’re not paying for a name with nothing behind it. Here’s the flow as recorded on our own demo builds in October 2026:
- Sign up and describe your business in a sentence, or paste your Google link.
- Answer about four questions. WebZum then builds the site, with pages, copy, photos and a logo, in about five minutes.
- Look at it live on a WebZum address (yourbusiness.webzum.com) during a 30-day free preview. No credit card.
- Fix anything by typing in the editor chat, like “make the colors navy and orange” or “add a page for AC repair.” Editing is free during the preview.
- Pick a plan when you’re happy. Basic ($19/mo) keeps the site on your webzum.com address. Professional ($34/mo) adds your own domain: WebZum registers and pays for the .com (covered up to $20 a year) while you’re on Professional, month to month, or you connect one you already own. The FAQ says “SSL certificates and DNS are set up automatically — no technical steps on your side” (WebZum FAQ).
Every plan has a 30-day money-back guarantee. WebZum isn’t the cheapest way to get a .com, and it isn’t trying to be. You’re paying for an agency-quality site in about five minutes, for far less than an agency charges, with top-quality AI copy and custom images, served as fast static pages from a global network, with the domain, SSL and setup handled and no surprise renewal fees. Prefer the domain in your own registrar account? Buy it anywhere above and connect it.
Where should you buy your domain?
It depends on what you’re doing with it.
- Choose Cloudflare or Porkbun instead if you only need the name, you’re comfortable with DNS, and you want the lowest renewal price year after year.
- Choose GoDaddy, Namecheap or Hostinger if you want a low first year and are fine with the higher renewals. GoDaddy’s $0.01 deal means paying for three years up front.
- Choose WebZum Professional if you need the website too and want the domain, hosting, SSL and setup in one monthly bill. See how WebZum compares with GoDaddy.
FAQ
How to buy a domain name?
Search at an ICANN-accredited registrar, check the renewal price, skip the add-ons, list yourself as registrant with an email you’ll keep, pay, turn on auto-renew, then point it at your site. Or start a free WebZum preview and get a .com included on Professional.
How much does it cost to buy a domain?
Usually $10 to $23 a year for a .com. Over 36 months, one .com ran from about $33 at at-cost registrars to $60 at Squarespace in our October 28–30, 2026 check.
Can I buy a domain forever?
No. You rent it a year at a time, and most registrars let you prepay “1-10 years” (GoDaddy). Keep auto-renew on and it stays yours.
Can I get a domain name for free?
Only for a year, and usually only if you prepay hosting for 12 months or more. In our Hostinger checkout test, the 1-month cart had no free domain and the 24-month cart still got just one free year. WebZum Professional includes the .com month to month while you’re on the plan.
Do I need to pay for WHOIS privacy?
Not at GoDaddy, Namecheap, Porkbun, Cloudflare, Hostinger or Squarespace, where it’s free or included for eligible domains. Some endings, like .us, can’t have privacy at all (GoDaddy Help).
Does a .com rank better on Google?
No. Google says the ending only matters if you’re targeting one country, and “Otherwise Google Search doesn’t care which TLD you’re using” (Google Search Central). Pick .com because people remember it.
Do I need a domain before I build my website?
No. With WebZum you build and edit the whole site on a free preview first, then add the domain on Professional. See also how long it takes to build a small business website and how much website hosting costs.
Get the site first, then the name
Buying a domain takes ten minutes. Giving people a reason to visit is the hard part. Start your free WebZum preview, answer a few questions about your business, and see your finished site in about five minutes. When you’re ready for your own .com, Professional includes it.