BuyDomains.com is a place where you can buy domain names for your website. You can’t buy inexpensive domains there, though. BuyDomains.com specializes in buying and selling top-of-the-line domain names that run for hundreds and thousands of dollars.
These premium domain names cost a lot because they’re highly desirable. Most are concise, keyword-rich words that make great brand names. But is buying a premium domain from BuyDomains.com worth the money? I’ll explore that question and compare BuyDomains.com to its competitors.
BuyDomains.com Compared
Even though BuyDomains.com’s parent company, Domain.com, made my list of the best domain registrars, BuyDomains.com did not. Instead, I recommend GoDaddy for its privacy, domain protection, and fair pricing. You can purchase your first .com domain from GoDaddy for just $0.01 if you keep it for at least two years.
- GoDaddy — Best for domain protection and privacy
- Hostinger — Best for bundling domain registration and Ib hosting
- Porkbun — Best for creative domain extensions
- Domain.com — Best for fast and simple domain purchasing
- Network Solutions — Best for long-term domain registrations
- Namecheap — Best for affordable domain registration
- NameSilo — Best for buying domains in bulk
Find out what makes each of these services great in my list of the top domain registrars.
About BuyDomains.com
Along with selling premium domains, BuyDomains.com provides domain registration and domain transfer services. It also gives buyers the option of paying the asking price for a domain or making an offer to the seller—as long as it’s competitive. Since BuyDomains.com only offers about 20 high-quality extensions—compared with GoDaddy’s 500—companies often use the service to upgrade their brand website to a .com or .net domain.
For example, one social impact brand upgraded from an old domain and brand name to the more memorable KarmaKarma.com using BuyDomains.com. Other companies know right away that they want a domain name that’s short, keyword-rich, and memorable. They go straight to BuyDomains.com to find a perfect fit and are willing to shell out the cash.
BuyDomains.com Health and Stability
Founded in 1999, BuyDomains.com is a privately held company based in Burlington, Massachusetts. The company keeps the information about salaries and revenue close to its chest, and its LinkedIn profile states that it has between 1,000 and 5,000 employees.
On the About section of its website, BuyDomains.com.com is listed as a “division” of Newfold Digital. Newfold Digital is also the holding company for Bluehost, HostGator, NameJet, Freeparking, and Domain.com. This suggests that, like many brands in Newfold Digital’s portfolio, BuyDomains.com is a stable and reliable company.
BuyDomains.com Pricing
BuyDomains.com isn’t the type of domain service that offers discounts and packages to its customers. Since it deals specifically in the most valuable domain names, prices are notoriously high. Some users have successfully negotiated lower prices, but there’s no guarantee you’ll get a better deal.
BuyDomains.com Pricing Structure
The pricing structure for BuyDomains.com is simple. You use the search feature to find a name available for sale and a list of domains will pop up. When I searched for Dogs.com, for example, that particular domain wasn’t available. But Dogs.org was—for a whopping $120,088!
Despite high prices, many of the user reviews I studied showed an impressive level of customer satisfaction. Customers are willing to shell out the cash for BuyDomains.com’s short, sweet, keyword-rich domain names—because they work.
BuyDomains.com Pricing Comparison
Because BuyDomains.com is one of the most expensive domain registrars on the market, the companies on my list of top domain registrars are less expensive to buy from. GoDaddy offers some of its domains for just $0.01 for the first year when you purchase two years’ worth of registration for that name. The second year—and every year after that—typically costs around $20 for GoDaddy’s cheapest domains.
Of course, GoDaddy also offers premium domains that cost thousands of dollars. But BuyDomains.com only sells those domains.
Hostinger is also a lot less expensive than BuyDomains.com. It offers tons of domain name choices with a variety of extensions. Depending on the extension and the desirability of the domain name, Hostinger typically offers registration for $0.99 to $129.99 every year. You won’t find many premium domain name options there, though.
BuyDomains.com Trials and Guarantees
BuyDomains.com doesn’t offer any trials or guarantees. In addition, all sales are final, so make sure you really want that pricey .com before you shell out $2,488 for it.
BuyDomains.com Domain Registrar Review
If you’re in the market for a premium domain, BuyDomains.com can be a great option for you. However, it’s expensive and probably not ideal for the average consumer, which is why it didn’t make my list of the top domain registrars.
To see my favorite choices, take a look at my review of the seven best domain registrars.
What Makes BuyDomains.com Domain Registering Great
Top-quality choices: This is the point of BuyDomains.com, after all! You’d be hard-pressed to find some of these premium domains anywhere else. And if the domain you want isn’t available, BuyDomains.com will offer a range of quality alternatives. Each domain will end in one of the 21 extensions BuyDomains.com uses. This means you’ll still be buying a premium name that probably already gets plenty of site traffic.
Accessible customer service: Connecting with a BuyDomains.com customer service agent is easy. A chat widget is readily available—but not intrusive—if you want to talk to someone. Or, you can call a BuyDomains.com domain expert using the prominently displayed phone number on the site.
Bargaining options: Yes, BuyDomains.com domains are expensive. But the price you see on the listing is not the final price. If you plan to purchase a domain using BuyDomains.com, I recommend clicking the red Make Offer button instead of buying it at the listed price. Express why you would like to purchase the domain and go back and forth with the company representative a few times. You aren’t going to get the domain name for pennies, but you will most likely nab a fairer price.
Extensive Knowledge Base: If you want to learn more about premium domains or what to do after you purchase a domain, check out BuyDomains.com’s FAQ section. It isn’t the biggest knowledge base I’ve ever seen, but it’s laser-focused on the whys, whens, and hows of working with premium domains. And if you still don’t know the answer to your question after reading a dozen articles, just call the customer service reps.
Where BuyDomains.com Domain Registering Falls Short
No refunds: Unlike GoDaddy and Hostinger, both of which offer refund policies, all BuyDomains.com sales are final. This means that if you purchase a domain name like greatantbertha.com for $1,288 and suddenly realize—with horror—that you forgot the u in “aunt,” there’s nothing you can do. Bertha will forever be an ant, not an aunt. Jokes aside, this strict no-refund policy can make purchasing a pricey domain name from BuyDomains.com feel even riskier.
Clunky Website: Maybe it’s because there isn’t much to navigate, but the BuyDomains.com website feels outdated and unintuitive. You have to scroll down to the fine print in the footer if you want to look at the BuyDomains.com FAQs, about section, or blog—which was last updated in 2019. The site could use a little refresh if you ask us!
High prices: The downside of only dealing in premium, high-priced domains is that there are only so many people in the world who are willing to purchase them. Why pay thousands for a short, keyword-rich domain name on BuyDomains.com when you could probably find something similar-ish—and a lot cheaper—on Hostinger or GoDaddy?
Limited choices: I ran a little test to see how BuyDomains.com’s domain inventory compared with GoDaddy, and I Ire surprised at what I found. In both GoDaddy and BuyDomains.com, I searched for the domain name blaze.net. The name was available for purchase on GoDaddy for a whopping $50,000 as a required minimum offer. If I didn’t want to go broke paying for this pricey domain, GoDaddy gave us other options: blaze.global for $3,119.99, blaze.health for $39.99, blaze.store for $349.99, and blaze-tech.net for $14.99. BuyDomains.com, on the other hand, couldn’t scrounge up any domains with the word blaze in them. Instead, my first three choices were BurningLight.net for $2,988, FlashDance.net for $1,188, and JetSetters.net for $4,488. Which domain registrar would you go with? I know what my answer to that question would be.
BuyDomains Domain Registrars Compared
Even though it’s a solid option for some folks, BuyDomains.com offers limited choices at high prices, which means it’s definitely not for everyone. Instead, I recommend GoDaddy or Hostinger as the top choices on my list of the best domain registrars.
- GoDaddy — Best for domain protection and privacy
- Hostinger — Best for bundling domain registration and Ib hosting
- Porkbun — Best for creative domain extensions
- Domain.com — Best for fast and simple domain purchasing
- Network Solutions — Best for long-term domain registrations
- Namecheap — Best for affordable domain registration
- NameSilo — Best for buying domains in bulk
Final Verdict
BuyDomains.com sells premium domain names that can make your website a success. The domains are keyword-rich, short, and memorable. But due to the limited choices and bloated prices, I don’t recommend BuyDomains.com for most users.
Instead, most of you will find what you need on GoDaddy, Hostinger, or any of the other domain registrars on my best-of list.