Domain Registration Glossary

At-Cost Registrar

An at-cost registrar sells domains at exactly what the registry charges them — no markup. Cloudflare and (for some TLDs) Spaceship operate this model. It's the mechanism behind the cheapest long-term domain prices in the market.

Transfer Lock

Transfer lock prevents your domain from being moved to a different registrar without your authorization. There are two types: ICANN's mandatory 60-day post-registration lock, and the user-toggled registrar lock. Both affect your ability to move domains quickly.

ICANN Fee

The ICANN fee is a mandatory $0.18/yr charge added to every gTLD domain registration and renewal. It's non-negotiable — every registrar pays it and passes it to you. The cheapest registrar in the world cannot sell a .com for less than $0.18/yr.

Renewal Shock

Renewal shock is the price jump between a domain's first-year promotional rate and its year-2+ renewal price. GoDaddy's .com goes from $0.99 to $21.99 — a 22x increase. Understanding renewal shock is the single most important thing to know before buying a domain.

WHOIS Privacy

WHOIS privacy hides your personal contact details (name, address, email, phone) from the public WHOIS database. Since GDPR in 2018, it's the regulatory floor — every registrar should offer it free. GoDaddy and Network Solutions still charge for it.