by Porkbun LLCDomain registrars
A registrar with all-in prices: a .com is $11.08 to register, renew or transfer, ICANN fee included, with free privacy, DNS, DNSSEC and forwarding.
An all-in $11.08 .com that costs the same to register, renew or transfer, with privacy, DNS, DNSSEC and forwarding included.
Porkbun’s table shows every fee, the ICANN fee included, and marks the .com "At Cost", with no first-year discount that later doubles. Privacy, DNS on Cloudflare’s network, one-click DNSSEC, email and URL forwarding and free SSL come with the domain, and you can use other nameservers. A free API registers, renews and manages DNS. It suits individuals and small teams who want a low, steady yearly bill and a few developer conveniences.
Against 3 other products we reviewed in Domain registrars: what you pay for with each, the five access facts, the plan limits we recorded and each review's bottom line. The note under the table says how each one was checked.
| Metric | Porkbun | Cloudflare Registrar | Namecheap | Squarespace Domains |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you're paying for | Worth the priceAn all-in $11.08 .com that costs the same to register, renew or transfer, with privacy, DNS, DNSSEC and forwarding included. | Worth the priceA .com at the registry’s own price, $10.46 a year for registration and renewal alike, with DNS, DNSSEC and email routing included. | Worth the priceA low first-year .com with free privacy, DNS, DNSSEC and email and URL forwarding, and the freedom to point it at any nameservers. | Easy to adoptA domain with privacy, DNSSEC, email aliases and forwarding switched on, managed in a simple dashboard, with no website plan required. |
| Overall score | 8.5 | 8.6Best | 7.6 | 6.8 |
| Free option | Paid only | Paid only | Paid only | Paid only |
| Card to start | –Not measured | –Not measured | –Not measured | –Not measured |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $11.08/yr | $10.46/yr | $18.48/yr | $20/yr |
| Pricing model | Usage-based | Usage-based | Usage-based | Usage-based |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices |
| Billing unit | Per domain per year, all fees included | Per domain per year, at cost | Per domain per year | Per domain per year |
| .com year 1 / renewal | $11.08 / $11.08 (about $11.81 announced from Nov 1, 2026) | $10.46 / $10.46 | $11.28 (sale, list $14.98) / $18.48, each plus $0.20 ICANN fee | $10 (first-year discount) / $20 |
| 3-year .com cost (scenario) | $33.24, computed at the prices listed on Oct 16 | $31.38, computed | $48.84, computed | $50, computed |
| .io and .ai | .io $28.12 year 1, renews $51.80; .ai $82.70/yr, 2-year minimum | .io $32 year 1, renews $50; .ai $80/yr, 2-year minimum | .io $34.98 year 1, renews $75.98; .ai $89.98/yr, 2-year minimum, renews $114.98 | .io $60 year 1 (list $70); .ai $85, 2-year minimum |
| ICANN fee | Included in the shown price | Passed through at cost, not itemised | $0.20 a year, added in the cart | Not mentioned; home page says fees are included |
| Restore (redemption) fee | $200 plus the renewal (price page) | Varies by TLD; amount not stated | $88.48 for .com including the renewal | $45 for .com |
| Grace period after expiry | Ends day 35–45 at the normal price; auction possible from about day 26 | 40 days for most TLDs (FAQ) | About 30 days at the normal renewal price | 30 days (Squarespace Domains LLC); 40 days for Tucows domains |
| Refund window (new registration) | 96 hours with a 5% fee (help center); cart and agreement say no refunds | None; registrations and renewals are final | 5 days, at Namecheap’s discretion | 5 days for gTLDs; none for .io |
| Nameservers | Porkbun DNS (on Cloudflare) or any external nameservers | Cloudflare nameservers only | Namecheap BasicDNS or any external nameservers | Squarespace DNS or 2–13 custom nameservers |
| Email forwarding | Free, 20 per domain, no catch-all | Free Email Routing, 200 rules | Free, up to 100 forwards, catch-all | Free, up to 100 aliases, catch-all |
| Domain/DNS API | Free; purchases use prepaid credit by default | Registrar API (beta) and DNS API; no spend condition | Yes, after 20 domains, a $50 balance or $50 spent; IP allowlist | Reseller API only, for approved resellers |
| 2FA | Security keys and passkeys (WebAuthn), authenticator app, email | Security keys (WebAuthn), authenticator app, email | Security keys and passkeys (FIDO/WebAuthn), authenticator app | Passkeys and hardware keys, authenticator app, SMS in five countries |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | Not stated | Company SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022; Registrar not named in the SOC 2 service list | Not stated | Not stated |
| Registry lock | Not stated | Enterprise only, through sales | Domain Vault for .com and some TLDs; price not stated | Not stated |
| Bottom line | From its public pages, Porkbun pairs an all-in .com price that does not rise at renewal with free essentials and a capable API. The restore fee is $200, and its refund pages disagree. | From its public pages, Cloudflare Registrar has the lowest 3-year .com cost here and the same price every year, with the essentials included. The trade-offs are Cloudflare nameservers only, no refunds and no published restore fee. | From its public pages, Namecheap includes everything most owners need and keeps the cart clean, with a published restore price. Renewals cost more than the first year, the ICANN fee is added on top, and its pages disagree on the new-customer code and on renewal refunds. | From its public pages, Squarespace Domains is the most hands-off option here, with protections on by default and a $45 restore fee. A .com renews at $20 after a $10 first year, and bulk tools, DNS export and a customer API are not offered. |
Evidence: Porkbun: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Cloudflare Registrar: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Namecheap: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Squarespace Domains: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.
Review from public pages
Written from Porkbun's public pages (pricing, security or privacy, and docs) as read on Oct 16, 2026. We did not sign up, and no hands-on run is published yet.
We read Porkbun's domain price table, the .com, .io and .ai TLD pages, the transfer page, the product pages for WHOIS privacy, DNS, email and URL forwarding, the security page, the registration agreement (effective March 17, 2025), the data processing addendum, knowledge base articles on privacy, DNSSEC, refunds, expiry, auto-renew, subaccounts, bulk actions and transferring out, and the API documentation and changelog on Oct 16, 2026. We added a .com to the cart without signing in; we did not create an account or pay.
The cart matches the table: $11.08, "Hidden Fees none", a one-year term, and free Link-in-Bio, web hosting and email hosting trials bundled with the domain. Upsells (a .net, email and web hosting) are offered but not selected.
Three points need care. The refund rules differ by page: the help center offers 96 hours with a 5% fee, the cart says "NO REFUNDS / NO EXCEPTIONS", and the agreement says fees are non-refundable. The restore fee is $200 on the price page but "varies by the registry" in the help center. And Porkbun's own API changelog says domains registered through the API were only transfer-locked at the registry after a recent fix.
Register, renew and transfer are all $11.08, ICANN fee included, so a 3-year .com is $33.24 at the listed price.
vs Namecheap: Squarespace Domains renews at $20 after a $10 first year; Namecheap at $18.48 plus the ICANN fee.
Privacy, DNS, DNSSEC, email and URL forwarding and SSL are free, and you can switch to any nameservers.
vs Cloudflare Registrar: Cloudflare Registrar requires Cloudflare nameservers.
A free REST API covers registration, renewal, transfer-in and full DNS and DNSSEC management, with per-key IP, domain and permission scoping.
2FA supports WebAuthn security keys and passkeys and authenticator apps, with passwordless passkey login; authorized users cannot unlock domains or fetch auth codes.
The price page lists a $200 restore fee in addition to the renewal price; the help center says the fee varies by registry.
Workaround: Auto-renew is on by default, and the domain renews at the normal price until the grace period ends on day 35–45.
The help center offers deletion with a refund within 96 hours (5% fee, some TLDs excluded); the cart and the agreement say there are no refunds.
API purchases spend prepaid account credit by default (a one-off card hold through a Stripe Link agent wallet is the alternative), need a verified email and phone, and are capped at $100 per registration and $100 a month until you change the limit.
The pages describe a CSV export of the domain list but no DNS zone file export; records can be read through the API.
Porkbun bills each domain per year and includes the ICANN fee in the shown price. For our scenario, one .com for 3 years costs 3 × $11.08 = $33.24 (computed) at the prices listed on Oct 16, 2026; Porkbun has announced that the .com price rises to about $11.81 on Nov 1, 2026, which would make later renewals about $0.73 a year higher. .io is $28.12 in the first year and $51.80 after; .ai is $82.70 a year, 2 years at a time. Email forwards beyond 20 cost $3 each a year, and email hosting is $36 a year. An ACH-only account can save over 3%.
Unlock the domain with the lock icon and choose "Get Authorization Code"; you can approve the transfer out to skip the 5-day wait, and a bulk CSV export can include auth codes. No transfer-out fee is listed. The agreement opts you out of the 60-day lock after a registrant change, except for marketplace purchases. No DNS zone export is described, so copy records through the API or by hand.
From its public pages, Porkbun pairs an all-in .com price that does not rise at renewal with free essentials and a capable API. The restore fee is $200, and its refund pages disagree.
| Limit | As recorded |
|---|---|
| Billing unit | Per domain per year, all fees included |
| .com year 1 / renewal | $11.08 / $11.08 (about $11.81 announced from Nov 1, 2026) |
| 3-year .com cost (scenario) | $33.24, computed at the prices listed on Oct 16 |
| .io and .ai | .io $28.12 year 1, renews $51.80; .ai $82.70/yr, 2-year minimum |
| ICANN fee | Included in the shown price |
| Restore (redemption) fee | $200 plus the renewal (price page) |
| Grace period after expiry | Ends day 35–45 at the normal price; auction possible from about day 26 |
| Refund window (new registration) | 96 hours with a 5% fee (help center); cart and agreement say no refunds |
| Nameservers | Porkbun DNS (on Cloudflare) or any external nameservers |
| Email forwarding | Free, 20 per domain, no catch-all |
| Domain/DNS API | Free; purchases use prepaid credit by default |
| 2FA | Security keys and passkeys (WebAuthn), authenticator app, email |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | Not stated |
| Registry lock | Not stated |
Read from the vendor's public pages on Oct 16, 2026. No hands-on run is published yet. How we check
We have not published a sign-up run for Porkbun yet. The access facts above were read from its sign-up and pricing pages on Oct 16, 2026.
We have not published API calls for Porkbun yet.
Porkbun lists 3 plans. The cheapest paid plan, .com renewal (yearly list price), costs $11.08/yr.
Prices as listed, USD, excluding tax; observed 2026-10-16.
Source: porkbun.com pricing page. Prices change; the observed date above is when our agent read them.
We read the price tables, carts, agreements, help centers and developer pages of three domain registrars on the same day and scored them on the same six indicators. What a .com costs over 3 years, how renewals compare with the first year, what is included, and who should pick which.
