.io vs .co: Price, Renewal and Availability
Pick .io for developer and technical products and .co for a general company or brand. .co is cheaper: $15.50 first year and $31.20 to renew, $140.30 over five years against .io's $235.32. 36% of .io names checked on domhaul were already registered, against 54% of .co.
Standard (non-premium) names, USD per year, quoted October 24, 2026.
| Measure | .io | .co |
|---|---|---|
| First year (lowest) | $28.12 | $15.50 |
| Renewal (lowest) | $51.80 | $31.20 |
| Renewal vs first year | +84% | 2.0x |
| 5 years, cheapest registrar | $235.32 (Porkbun) | $140.30 (Dynadot) |
| Minimum term | 1 year | 1 year |
| Porkbun first year | $28.12 | $15.76 |
| Porkbun renewal | $51.80 | $31.20 |
| Porkbun transfer | $51.80 | $31.20 |
| Dynadot first year | $28.89 | $15.50 |
| Dynadot renewal | $53.50 | $31.20 |
| Taken when checked on domhaul | 36% of 77 | 54% of 202 |
| Type | Country code (British Indian Ocean Territory) | Country code (Colombia) |
| Registry | Internet Computer Bureau Limited | Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC) |
| Rules | Open to anyone | Open to anyone |
| DNSSEC | Signed | Signed |
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Pick .io if
- Your users are developers.
- You want the tech-product signal .io carries.
- The .co is taken or gets confused with a .com competitor.
Pick .co if
- You are naming a company, shop or service, not a developer tool.
- You want the cheaper renewal.
- You can also secure the .com, so mistyped visits come back to you.
.io vs .co questions
Is .co cheaper than .io?
.io costs $28.12 for the first year and $51.80 to renew; .co costs $15.50 and $31.20. Over five years (first year plus four renewals at the cheaper registrar) that is $235.32 for .io and $140.30 for .co, so .co is the cheaper one to keep by 1.7x. Standard names at Dynadot and Porkbun, quoted October 24, 2026.
Does Google treat .io and .co as country domains?
No. Both are on Google's list of country codes treated like generic extensions, so neither is geotargeted to its country. 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.
Does .co get confused with .com?
Yes, more than any other extension: people add the m by habit, so some visitors and email go to the .com owner. .io has no such near-twin.
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.
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Full price pages: .io and .co. 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.