The renewal price is the real price

Year one is marketing; year two is the business

A domain you keep is a subscription: you’ll pay the renewal price every year for as long as the project lives. Registrars know the first-year number is what gets compared, so that’s the number that gets discounted. The renewal is where the actual pricing lives.

Real examples from registrars’ own public pages, checked 23 August 2026: Name.com listed .com at a $12.99 promotional price against $17.99 regular. Gandi listed .com registration at $11.00 — and renewal at $38.38. Porkbun, to its credit, listed $11.08 for both. Same product, radically different year-two math.

How to find the renewal price before you buy

Three ways, in order of reliability:

• The registrar’s published price list, if it has a renewal column — link it, screenshot it, date it.
• The cart: some registrars only reveal renewal pricing at checkout or in the fine print under the promo price.
• Multi-year math: price two years in the cart, subtract the first-year promo, and the difference is the real annual rate.

Portfolio math

If you hold ten domains, a $7 difference in renewal price is $70 a year, forever. Across the common retail range (roughly $11–$20 for a .com renewal, higher for many other TLDs), a ten-domain portfolio can cost anywhere from ~$110 to well over $250 a year for identical domains.

SpargoDomains shows the renewal price next to the first-year price before you confirm any purchase — at cost they’re the same number, which is rather the point.