A .com that doesn’t come back with a bill in month thirteen

The .com is included on the Complete plan at $18.99 a month. On Basic at $8.99 a month the name is registered in your own name and run for you, and the registry’s own annual fee for it, about $12 a year, is billed separately at cost.

So the accurate word is "included," and only on the Complete plan. On Basic the name is yours, registered in your own name, and you pay the registry’s own fee for it at cost with nothing added. What we don’t do is call it free for a year and then renew it at a list price.

Because a domain is registered in twelve-month blocks, and the offer usually pays for the first block only. IONOS says it on the card: "The first year is on us," with a list price of $20 a year struck out beside it. ionos.com/domains/domain-names read September 3, 2026 The promotion covers year one; year two is the list price, and that’s the year the bill comes back.

Where it is published, it’s a real number: IONOS lists a .com at $20 a year and Hostinger renews one at $19.99 a year. ionos.com/domains/domain-names read September 3, 2026 hostinger.com/domain-name-search read September 3, 2026 Several vendors publish no year-two price at all, so it’s marked not verified above rather than guessed. Here it’s the registry fee at cost, about $12 a year on Basic, or nothing extra on Complete.

Here the domain goes on the register in your own name, not ours, so it’s yours to keep, move or point wherever you like. Ask us to release it and we do, with no fee. A domain handed to you as part of a plan is worth checking on this exact point: whose name is on the registration, and what it takes to move it if you leave.

Domain included on Complete, $18.99 a month. On Basic it’s billed at cost, about $12 a year. The name is yours on either plan; the only difference is whether the registry fee sits inside the monthly or is billed through to you at cost. Neither plan marks the domain up.

A lapsed domain takes the website and every mailbox on it down with it, which is why the year-two renewal matters more than the year-one offer. We renew your domain for you as part of the hosting and tell you before anything is due, so it doesn’t lapse by accident. That’s part of what the monthly is for.

Usually, once any lock-in period has passed, but the terms vary by vendor and some hold the registration in their own account until you ask. The thing to read is the renewal price and the transfer terms together, because a domain that’s cheap to keep and hard to move is still a form of lock-in. Ours is neither: your name on the register, our help to move it, no exit fee.