The $12 Problem
Most developers own more domains than they remember. The side project from 2022, the SaaS idea from 2023, the personal blog you might write someday. Each one renews annually at whatever price the registrar set, and because it's only $15 here and $20 there, you never audit it.
Add them up and you're probably spending $100–$200/year on domains you barely use — sometimes paying double what you would at a different registrar because you signed up during a "first year $0.99" promotion and never noticed the renewal price.
This post covers four registrars that developers should consider in 2026, ranked by the criteria that actually matter: renewal pricing, API access, DNS management, WHOIS privacy (included or upsold), and the transfer-out experience when you eventually want to leave.
The Four Registrars Compared
| Porkbun | Cloudflare Registrar | Namecheap | Squarespace Domains | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| .com renewal | $10.37/year | $9.77/year (at cost) | $13.98/year | $20/year |
| WHOIS privacy | Free | Free | Free (first year); included in renewal | Free |
| API access | Full REST API. Register, transfer, update nameservers, manage DNS records | Full API via Cloudflare dashboard. Requires using Cloudflare DNS | Limited API. Available but less documented than Porkbun's | No public API for domain management |
| DNS included | Free DNS hosting with Anycast. Not required — use any nameserver | Must use Cloudflare DNS. Cannot point domains to external nameservers | FreeDNS included. Can use any nameserver | Basic DNS included. Can use any nameserver |
| Transfer-in price | $9.55 (.com) — adds 1 year | At-cost renewal price — adds 1 year | $10.28 (.com first year discount available) | Varies. Google Domains customers grandfathered at lower rates |
| UI quality | Clean, indie feel. No upsells. Dark mode included | Cloudflare dashboard. Functional but dense. Built for infra management, not domain shopping | Cluttered. Upsells for hosting, VPN, SSL certificates on every checkout | Squarespace website builder integrated. Clean but pushes you toward Squarespace site plans |
| TLD selection | 500+ TLDs. Strong on ccTLDs and new gTLDs | 200+ TLDs. Only popular TLDs — no rare ccTLDs | 400+ TLDs. Broad selection, heavy on promotions | 300+ TLDs. Standard selection |
Porkbun: The Indie Darling
Porkbun started in 2015 with a simple pitch: fair renewal pricing, no upsells, and a product that treats domain registration as a utility, not a sales funnel. Eight years later, they're still the registrar most developers recommend when someone asks "where should I transfer my domains?"
The selling points that matter:
Pricing transparency. A .com renews at $10.37/year — a dollar markup over wholesale ($9.77). Most registrars charge $14–$18. For a developer with 10 domains, that's $50–$80/year saved by moving to Porkbun. The pricing page shows first-year and renewal prices side by side — no hidden bait-and-switch.
API access. Porkbun's REST API lets you register domains, manage DNS records, update nameservers, configure URL forwarding, and enable SSL certificates programmatically. You can script your entire domain infrastructure — useful for agencies, SaaS platforms that register domains for customers, or anyone who wants to buy a domain from a custom interface rather than a registrar dashboard.
No upsells. The checkout flow is a single page: enter your info, pay, done. No "Add hosting for $5.99/month," no "Protect your domain with Premium DNS for $9.99," no "Get a professional email address for $3.99." This alone makes it faster to buy a domain than at Namecheap, where declining the eighth upsell is a ritual.
Transfer-out: Two clicks. Unlock domain, copy auth code, paste into new registrar. No retention dark patterns, no "are you sure?" flow with six confirmation screens.
Porkbun's .com renewal price is $10.37 plus ICANN fee ($0.18), totaling $10.55/year. Cloudflare is $9.77/year (at cost). The $0.78 difference per domain buys you: freedom to use any DNS provider, a clean REST API, and a checkout flow that doesn't require cloud infrastructure knowledge. For most developers, that's worth it.
Cloudflare Registrar: At Cost, With a Catch
Cloudflare sells domains at wholesale cost — the price they pay to the registry, with zero markup. For a .com, that's $9.77/year. No first-year discount games, no renewal markup. You pay exactly what the domain costs.
The catch: you must use Cloudflare's DNS. Cloudflare Registrar domains cannot point to external nameservers. If your app is hosted on Vercel, Netlify, or a Hetzner VPS, you either use Cloudflare's DNS (in proxy mode or DNS-only) or you don't use Cloudflare Registrar.
For most developers, this is not actually a catch — Cloudflare's DNS is fast (one of the fastest authoritative DNS services, with anycast across 330+ cities), free, and includes DDoS protection via the orange cloud proxy. If you're already using Cloudflare for DNS, adding domain registration is a natural move that saves money.
Where it becomes a problem: if your DNS setup requires CNAME flattening at the apex (Vercel/Netlify do this automatically with their nameservers), Cloudflare's CNAME at apex (via CNAME flattening) works but adds a layer of indirection. If you need to delegate subdomains to different DNS providers (e.g., api.example.com to AWS Route 53, app.example.com to Vercel), Cloudflare supports NS delegation but it adds complexity.
The API story: Cloudflare's API is comprehensive but designed for infrastructure management, not domain registration. Creating a domain registration via API requires navigating Workers, Pages, DNS, SSL/TLS, and Registrar endpoints. Porkbun's API is simpler — register domain, done.
Namecheap: The Default That Overcharges
Namecheap was the developer-friendly registrar for a decade. Their first-year .com at $6.49 (with promo codes) made them the default recommendation for side projects and hackathons. The problem: renewal pricing.
A .com renews at $13.98/year — 43% more than Porkbun and the highest of the registrars in this comparison. First-year discounts mask this, and most developers who own 5+ domains registered years ago on Namecheap are overpaying by $3–$4 per domain per year without realizing it.
Namecheap's checkout experience has degraded over time. Every purchase now includes upsells for PositiveSSL ($5.99/year), PremiumDNS ($4.88/year), and Namecheap VPN ($1.88/month). The "no thanks" links are small and the "recommended" badges are prominent. It's not a scam — the pricing is disclosed — but it's a worse experience than Porkbun's single-page checkout.
The reason to use Namecheap in 2026: TLD coverage. They support more ccTLDs (country-code domains like .io, .co.uk, .de, .ca) than Porkbun or Cloudflare, and their ccTLD renewal pricing is sometimes competitive. If you need a .io domain, Namecheap renews at $36.98/year — expensive, but Porkbun's .io is $40.83 and Cloudflare doesn't sell .io at cost. For common TLDs, transfer out. For obscure ccTLDs, Namecheap might still be your best option.
Squarespace Domains (Formerly Google Domains)
Google sold its domain registration business to Squarespace in June 2023, completing the migration in mid-2024. If you had domains with Google Domains, you now log into Squarespace to manage them. The service continues with the same pricing (grandfathered customers) or Squarespace's standard pricing (new customers).
For new customers, Squarespace Domains charges $20/year for a .com — double the wholesale price. There's no API, the DNS management is basic (no advanced routing, no health checks, no analytics), and the entire experience is designed to funnel you toward buying a Squarespace website plan.
The reason to consider Squarespace Domains: if you already have a Squarespace site, the integration is seamless. One dashboard, one billing, one support team. If you don't, there's no reason to pay $20/year when Porkbun charges $10.37 for the same product with a better API and no website builder upsells.
If you had domains with Google Domains and haven't checked your renewal pricing since the migration, log in now. Grandfathered pricing varies — some accounts kept Google's $12/year rate, others were bumped to Squarespace's $20/year. A quick transfer to Porkbun or Cloudflare saves you money immediately.
The Transfer Strategy
If you own domains scattered across multiple registrars, here's the one-time cleanup that pays for itself:
Audit. Log into every registrar account you have. List every domain, its renewal date, and its current renewal price. You'll probably find at least one domain renewing at a rate you didn't realize you were paying.
Transfer to your primary registrar. Consolidate everything into Porkbun (if you want flexibility and API access) or Cloudflare (if you're already using Cloudflare DNS and want the absolute cheapest price). Transfers add one year to the existing expiration — so you're not losing any time you paid for.
Set auto-renew. Domain expiration is the most avoidable disaster in tech. Enable auto-renew with a credit card that won't expire, and set a calendar reminder 60 days before each renewal so it doesn't blindside you.
Turn off WHOIS privacy at registrars that charge for it. Porkbun, Cloudflare, and Namecheap all include WHOIS privacy for free. If your current registrar charges for it (looking at you, GoDaddy), the transfer alone saves $10–$15/year per domain.
A developer with 8 domains renewing at Namecheap's $13.98 rate saves $27.28/year by transferring to Porkbun ($10.37/domain × 8 = $82.96 vs $111.84). That's a free domain and a half, every year, for an hour of transfer work.
The Verdict
| Use case | Best registrar | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest .com renewal | Cloudflare | At-cost pricing ($9.77/year). Must use Cloudflare DNS |
| Best API + flexibility | Porkbun | Full REST API, any DNS provider, clean checkout, $10.37/year |
| Rare ccTLDs (.io, .co.uk) | Namecheap | Broader TLD selection. First-year promos on ccTLDs still worthwhile |
| Already on Squarespace | Squarespace Domains | Integration simplicity. Otherwise, no reason to pay $20/year |
| Bulk transfers (50+ domains) | Porkbun or Cloudflare | Both support bulk transfers with discount pricing |
For most developers, the answer is Porkbun. The API is the differentiator — being able to script domain registration, DNS management, and SSL certificates means your infrastructure is code, not a dashboard. The $0.78 premium over Cloudflare is the cheapest API access you'll ever buy.
Originally published at pickuma.com. Subscribe to the RSS or follow @pickuma.bsky.social for new reviews.
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