.com vs .io: Price, Renewal and Availability
Pick .com if you can get it. Pick .io for a developer tool or SaaS when the .com is taken and you are ready to pay 4.3x as much over five years ($235.32 vs $54.40). .io costs $28.12 for the first year and $51.80 every renewal; .com is a flat $10.88. .io names are easier to find free. 75% of .com names checked on domhaul were already registered, against 36% of .io.
Standard (non-premium) names, USD per year, quoted October 24, 2026.
| Measure | .com | .io |
|---|---|---|
| First year (lowest) | $10.88 | $28.12 |
| Renewal (lowest) | $10.88 | $51.80 |
| Renewal vs first year | same | +84% |
| 5 years, cheapest registrar | $54.40 (Dynadot) | $235.32 (Porkbun) |
| Minimum term | 1 year | 1 year |
| Porkbun first year | $11.08 | $28.12 |
| Porkbun renewal | $11.08 | $51.80 |
| Porkbun transfer | $11.08 | $51.80 |
| Dynadot first year | $10.88 | $28.89 |
| Dynadot renewal | $10.88 | $53.50 |
| Taken when checked on domhaul | 75% of 4,260 | 36% of 77 |
| Type | Generic | Country code (British Indian Ocean Territory) |
| Registry | VeriSign Global Registry Services | Internet Computer Bureau Limited |
| Rules | Open to anyone | Open to anyone |
| DNSSEC | Signed | Signed |
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Pick .com if
- The .com is free or affordable.
- Your buyers are not developers: consumers, local customers, enterprises.
- You want the lowest renewal and no question mark over the extension's future.
Pick .io if
- Your users are developers, who read .io as a tech product.
- The short name you want is free on .io and taken on .com.
- You can absorb a renewal of about $50 a year and the open Chagos question.
.com vs .io questions
Is .io more expensive than .com?
.com costs $10.88 for the first year and $10.88 to renew; .io costs $28.12 and $51.80. Over five years (first year plus four renewals at the cheaper registrar) that is $54.40 for .com and $235.32 for .io, so .com is the cheaper one to keep by 4.3x. Standard names at Dynadot and Porkbun, quoted October 24, 2026.
Does a .io domain hurt SEO?
No. Google treats .io as a generic extension, not as a British Indian Ocean Territory site, so it is not geotargeted. Google ranks pages, not extensions: neither one gives a ranking boost or penalty, and links, content and how people respond to the result decide where a site ranks.
Is the .io domain going away?
.io is the country code of the British Indian Ocean Territory (the Chagos Islands). In October 2024 the UK agreed to hand sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius. ICANN has said that if the IO code is removed from the ISO 3166-1 list, a five-year window to phase the domain out would begin, and past retirements have run slowly. .io was still delegated in the root zone when these prices were taken, and it registers and renews normally. It is a risk to weigh for a name you plan to keep for decades, not a reason to panic.
Why do startups use .io?
Because the short .com they wanted was taken, and "io" reads as input/output to programmers. Over the 2010s it became the default for developer tools and SaaS, so to that audience it signals a tech product rather than a cheap fallback.
More comparisons
- .io vs .ai 5 yrs $235.32 vs $413.50
- .io vs .co 5 yrs $235.32 vs $140.30
- .io vs .dev 5 yrs $235.32 vs $60.23
- .io vs .app 5 yrs $235.32 vs $68.47
- .com vs .net 5 yrs $54.40 vs $62.60
- .com vs .org 5 yrs $54.40 vs $54.55
Full price pages: .com and .io. All domain extension comparisons, the price list for every TLD, and the long read on .com vs .io vs .app vs .dev for startups. Have a name? The domain value calculator prices it and finds available alternatives.