Seven endings on our tracker cost more than twice their first-year price to renew. .shop jumps from $1.16 to $27.18. Here is exactly how the promo math works, how we flag it, and the two numbers that keep you safe.
A $1.16 domain that costs $64.88
.shop currently registers for $1.16 at Spaceship and renews at $27.18 a year at Cloudflare. Over three years that is $64.88, of which $1.16 is the headline and $63.72 is the part nobody advertises.
This is not a malfunction. New generic endings like .shop, .tech, .cloud, and .xyz are sold to registries on volume, so registrars buy first-year registrations below cost and recover it on renewals. The promo is the business model.
The two numbers that keep you safe
First, the renewal price. It is printed on every comparison on this site next to the first year, in the same size, with the $0.18 ICANN fee already inside. A renewal within a few dollars of year one means steady pricing. A renewal at five or twenty times year one means the first year is bait.
Second, the three-year total: year one plus two renewals. It compresses the whole trick into one number. A $2.98 .co looks cheaper than a $10.47 .com until the totals read $56.94 against $29.38.
How the trap flag works
Every quote on this site is scored the same way: if renewal is at least 2.25 times the first year and at least $15 higher, the ending carries a renewal-trap flag. Both conditions matter. A $6.67 .com renewing at $17.16 is a 2.5-times jump but only $10.49, so it reads as an aggressive promo rather than a trap.
Right now 7 of 24 endings trip the flag on their cheapest first year: .agency, .cloud, .co, .run, .shop, .tech, and .tools. All seven are cheap-registration generics. None of the classics (.com, .net, .org, .io, .dev, .app, .ai) currently trip it.
Promos are not the enemy
A promo with an honest renewal is just a discount. Namecheap’s NEWCOM649 code drops .com to $6.67 for new customers against a $17.16 renewal. Steep, but the three-year math is printed right next to it, so it is your choice with open eyes.
The enemy is the missing number. Any registrar page that shows the first year in 40-pixel type and the renewal behind a tooltip has told you everything about whose interests that page serves.
Questions this article answers
What is a domain renewal trap?
A first-year price set far below the renewal to win the sale. We flag any ending where renewal passes 2.25 times the first year with at least a $15 jump. Currently 7 of 24 tracked endings.
Which ending has the worst renewal markup?
.shop: $1.16 to register, $27.18 a year to renew, more than 23 times the first-year price. Its three-year total is $64.88, almost all of it renewal.
How do I avoid renewal traps?
Read two numbers before you buy: the renewal price and the three-year total. If renewal is more than double year one, assume year one is marketing and budget the renewal.