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Domains · .io

.io — the developer default, at a developer-tolerant price

Short, technical-sounding and everywhere in software. It is also one of the more expensive renewals among the extensions people actually brand on, and it is a country-code extension being used as a general one — both facts belong on the page rather than in the small print.

Rendering of three name tiles reading .com, .io and .dev.com.com.io.io.dev.devRenewal printed firstWHOIS privacy free

Who it suits

When .io is the right answer.

Not a list of everyone. The cases where this extension is genuinely doing work for you.

Developer tools and APIs
The association is genuinely strong. A tool on a .io reads as being built for engineers before anyone has clicked anything.
SaaS and technical startups
Short names are still findable, which is the practical reason most teams end up here rather than an aesthetic one.
Documentation and status sites
Common as a companion to a main domain, particularly for open-source projects and their docs.
Anything where the audience is technical
The people who need to remember the address already know how to spell it.

.io pricing

$46.49first year

Then $67.49 a year. The second number is the one to budget on.

Registration term
1 year
Register
$46.49/yr
Renew
$67.49/yr
Transfer in
$67.49
WHOIS privacy
Free

A transfer costs the same as a renewal and adds a full year to whatever time is already on the domain, so nothing is lost by moving in.

Registrar prices last checked 2026-09-02. Search re-confirms before you pay.

Search a .io name

Before you register

Three things about .io worth knowing first.

The parts that are easy to find out afterwards and irritating to find out afterwards.

The renewal is steep

Check the renewal figure below against .com before committing a brand to it. Over five years the difference is substantial, and it applies for as long as you hold the name.

It is a country-code extension

.io belongs to the British Indian Ocean Territory and is operated as a general-purpose extension by arrangement. Country-code extensions ultimately answer to their administration, and .io's long-term arrangements have been publicly discussed. Nobody can promise you what that means in a decade — if that uncertainty is unacceptable, .com is the conservative choice.

No registration restrictions

Despite being a ccTLD, there is no residency or presence requirement. Anyone can register one.

Questions

About .io specifically.

Why is .io so expensive?
The registry prices it that way, and we pass through what we are charged rather than discounting the first year and recovering it later. You can see the exact registration and renewal figures side by side below — that is the whole pricing story for this extension.
Is it risky to build a brand on .io?
It carries more long-term uncertainty than a generic extension like .com, because it is a country-code domain and those exist at the discretion of their administration. In practice .io has been stable and heavily used in software for years. The honest position is that we cannot underwrite a decade of policy, so if the domain is load-bearing for a business, hold the .com as well.
Does .io help with search rankings?
No. It is treated as a generic extension by search engines and carries no ranking advantage. What it carries is a signal to a technical audience, which is a marketing decision rather than an SEO one.

Other extensions

The rest of the shortlist.

Keep reading

Domains, in more detail.