A standard .com renewal runs about $15 a year. Miss the window and that same domain can cost $200 to recover — or $10,000+ to buy back from whoever grabs it. The price of forgetting scales fast.
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Same domain. Different timing. Very different price.
| When you act | What you pay | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Before expiration | $10–$20/year | Normal renewal |
| Grace period (0–45 days after expiry) | $10–$20/year | Still at standard price |
| Redemption period (up to 30 more days) | $90–$220+ | Renewal + redemption fee |
| After pending delete — domain released | $1,000–$100,000+ | Buy from new owner |
| Squatter won't sell | Not recoverable | Start over with a new domain |
GoDaddy's published redemption fee is $80. Namecheap charges $120 for .com redemptions. Some registrars reach $200 or more. Add that to your standard renewal and the bill grows fast.
The redemption fee is the easy part to quantify.
A domain that goes offline even for a few days starts dropping in search rankings. Google interprets unavailability as a signal that the site is unreliable. Rebuilding that trust takes weeks or months.
The moment your domain lapses, email sent to that address bounces. Customers, suppliers, and vendors all get delivery failures. There is no clean way to redirect that traffic while the domain is down.
If your domain gets parked or pointed at a competitor's page, visitors think you have closed or rebranded. That impression is hard to undo even after the domain is recovered.
For any business with an online checkout or contact form, downtime means missed orders. A two-day outage at a $1,000/day site costs more than a year of renewals combined.
In September 2015, Google.com briefly expired. An engineer inside Google registered it for $12 through Google Domains' own redemption flow. Google recovered it within an hour, but the incident made headlines precisely because it showed no one is immune to a lapsed renewal.
Google had the leverage to recover quickly. Most businesses do not. When a small company loses a domain, the options are narrower: pay whatever the new owner wants, or rebuild from a new domain name and restart every link, every citation, and every customer relationship that pointed to the old one.
The fix is not complicated. A reminder 30 days before expiration costs nothing and takes under a minute to set up. The $15 renewal is always cheaper than the alternative.
Standard .com renewal cost per year at most major registrars
GoDaddy, Namecheap, Google Domains
Redemption fee charged on top of renewal after the grace period ends
GoDaddy ($80), Namecheap ($120), varies by registrar
What Google.com cost to register in 2015 when it briefly expired
Google / The Verge, September 2015
Credit cards are typically valid for 3–4 years. If your domain is registered for 2 years, there is a real chance the card on file expires before the domain does. Auto-renew fails silently and you find out when the site goes down.
ICANN requires registrars to send two expiration notices, but they go to the email in WHOIS. If that inbox is outdated, both notices disappear. You get no warning at all.
This page focuses on the cost side of domain expiration. The main guide covers the full picture: when to check your expiration date, how the grace and redemption periods work, and how to build a renewal routine that does not rely on memory.
Read the domain renewal guide →It depends on how late. During the grace period (usually 0–45 days after expiration) most registrars charge the standard renewal price — around $10–$20/year for .com. After that, the redemption period kicks in and you pay the renewal fee plus a redemption surcharge, typically $80–$200 extra. GoDaddy lists a $80 redemption fee; some registrars charge $150 or more.
A redemption fee is a surcharge registrars add when you try to recover a domain after the grace period has ended. It is separate from the normal renewal cost. ICANN defines the redemption period structure, but each registrar sets its own fee. Expect $80–$200 on top of the standard renewal price.
Yes. After the grace period and a 30-day redemption period, the domain enters a 5-day pending delete phase. Once that ends, the domain is released publicly and anyone can register it — including domain investors who use automated tools to grab valuable names within seconds. At that point, recovery means buying it back from whoever claims it, at whatever price they set.
There is no fixed price — it is whatever the new owner wants. Short, keyword-rich, or brand-name domains regularly sell for $1,000–$100,000 or more on the aftermarket. Some owners refuse to sell at all. In 2015, even Google.com briefly transferred to an outside registrant for a $12 registration fee before Google recovered it through their registrar.
Auto-renew helps, but it fails more often than people expect. Expired credit cards, changed billing emails, registrar policy changes, and failed payment processing all cause auto-renew to silently miss the charge. Setting an independent reminder means you have a backup that does not depend on your registrar getting it right.
Renew at least 30 days before the expiration date. That keeps you well within the grace period window and gives time to fix any payment issues. Setting a reminder 30–60 days out is the safest approach.
Free email reminders — days before, on the day, and follow-ups until it is done. No account needed.
Remind Me Before My Domain ExpiresLast modified: