news After ICANN86, is price still the main factor when choosing a domain registrar?

[nicenicnicenic is verified member.]

After following ICANN86 in Seville, I have been thinking about how much the role of a domain registrar has changed.

For many years, a lot of people chose a registrar mainly by price, especially the first-year registration price. Price still matters, of course. For domain investors, agencies, resellers, and anyone managing many domains, even a small difference can add up. But I am not sure price should be the only factor anymore.

With more TLD options, more brand protection concerns, and more businesses treating domains as long-term digital assets, registrar choice now affects more than just registration cost. It can also affect renewal reliability, DNS management, account security, abuse handling, API access, TLD coverage, and how easy it is to manage domains over time.

So I am curious how others see this today. When you choose a domain registrar, what matters most to you?
Price, renewal cost, support, DNS stability, API access, TLD coverage, account security, or long-term trust?

 

[HelmutsHelmuts is verified member.]

me, after the icann86 > thinking even more and more about the independence from the 3rd party software providers.. the work on our own dns continues

 

[nicenicnicenic is verified member.]

me, after the icann86 > thinking even more and more about the independence from the 3rd party software providers.. the work on our own dns continues

That is an interesting point, Helmuts. Independence becomes more important when domain operations scale. DNS, automation, API reliability and internal control are things users usually notice only when something goes wrong.

The challenge is finding the right balance between building everything internally and keeping operations simple for users.