Namecheap: the domain registrar I use for every client, and why

Rich's plumbing website died on a Monday in March because nobody in the building knew where the domain lived. His nephew registered hafnerplumbing.com in 2015, put it in an email account the nephew no longer checked, and wandered off to college. The renewal failed. The site went dark. Rich called me because he thought his host had died. His host was fine. The deed to his address had lapsed.

Here's the thing. Your domain name is not your website. It is the street address your website lives at, and the registrar is the office that keeps the deed. If the deed lapses, every working part behind it stops mattering. Somebody else can buy your address the day it drops.

I buy every client domain through Namecheap now, on my own card, billed back at cost. I have moved four domains there in three years. This is what I know from the paying side.

What it costs

From their current pricing, and from the TechRadar review of domain registrars this summer that checked the same numbers.

1. .com: from $11.28 for the first year. The workhorse. This is what most shops should buy and nothing else.
2. .org: from $8.98. .net: from $12.48. .eu: from $6.98. The .xyz crowd: from $1, and I would not build a business on it.
3. WHOIS privacy is free for the length of the domain. Your name, address, and email stay out of the public record. Some registrars charge yearly for this. Namecheap does not.
4. Renewals cost more than the first year, at Namecheap and everywhere. That is how the whole industry works. Price the renewal before you buy the first year.

Rich's transfer cost about eleven dollars plus the renewal, and the address moved in five days without the site going down. The checkout added nothing by default. Nothing. After the GoDaddy years, that part felt strange.

How to move a domain you forgot about

Numbered, because Rich's nephew needed these steps texted to him one at a time.

1. Look the domain up at any whois lookup and read the registrar line. That tells you which office holds the deed. Write down the expiration date too.
2. Get into that registrar account or call them. If the account belongs to a nephew who has graduated, this is the painful step, and a signed request beats a password guess.
3. Turn the transfer lock off and request the authorization code. The button is usually called unlock. The code arrives by email.
4. Start the transfer at the new registrar, pay the fee, and approve the email. The move takes about five days and the site stays up the whole time.
5. When it lands, turn auto-renew on and confirm the card on file is one you still use. That last part is the one that saves the next Rich.

Total: about a week of waiting, one evening of work, eleven-ish dollars. Compare that to the Monday Rich's site was dark, and his phone, which did not ring.

What will annoy you

Renewal prices are the gripe everybody has, and the reviewers agree. The first year is a teaser. The second year costs more, and the price can ramp again after that. I check the renewal price before every buy and I tell clients to expect it. There is no registrar with cheap renewals forever, so stop looking for one.

There is no phone support. You get chat and tickets, and the answers take hours, not minutes. I have used support twice, both over transfers, and both were fine. If a phone voice is a dealbreaker for you, this is your dealbreaker.

The dashboard will offer you web hosting, email, and marketing on the way through. The difference between Namecheap's upsells and the worst of them is that nothing gets added unless you click it. Their PremiumDNS add-on is optional and my clients do not need it. Read every screen anyway. That habit has saved Carol real money at other checkouts.

The pilot light version

A domain with auto-renew off is a water heater with a pilot light out. The tank is fine, the burner is fine, the pipes are fine. One small flame goes out and the whole building has no hot water. The website, the email, the business cards, all of it points at one flame. Keep it lit. Auto-renew on, card current, expiration date on a sticky note where somebody besides you can find it.

What to do Monday

Look up your own domain at a whois lookup and read two lines: the registrar and the expiration date. Write both on a sticky note, then check whether auto-renew is on and the card on file still works. Ten minutes. It would have saved Rich a dark Monday and a phone that did not ring.