Dynadot Full Review: Your First Step for a Domain
In regards to starting your new website, you're starting with the correct step. Researching domain registrars and registering your domain is an important step that can make or break your website running experience.
All domain registrars have their pros and cons, which makes them more appealing for certain individuals relative to others depending on each person's goal, so what makes Dynadot special? and is it the right choice for you?
Pros
Cons
Content
Quick Stats
Dynadot includes multiple security and add-on services. Users can get hold of reduced rates for bulk purchases. It’s perfect for anyone looking to register their first domain or manage previously owned domains.
Let’s check the full picture...
Plans and Pricing
A few points should be taken into account when it comes to plans and pricing of domain registrars. First, a trap that many new individuals fall into is the low initial prices, which spike on renewal.
Another issue is the add-ons and security features some of the domain registrars offer that might make some of the more expensive vendors better suited than others that sell these add-ons separately for an extra cost. Finally, the transfer fee is another point to look out for as it’s not always a free process, with some vendors charging a hefty price for domain transfer.
Here we will dive further into these points and explain how Dynadot compares to them, so you can decide for yourself if Dynadot is the correct choice for you.
1. Initial prices
Dynadot offers moderate prices for their domain name registrations, starting at $7.99 per year for a .com top-level domain (TLD), $5.99 for a .net, $8.99 for a .org, and $10.99 per year for a .co TLD.
The prices drop for bulk consumers spending more than $5000 yearly, and super bulk with more than $50,000 per year spending. Some users and companies buy the domain across multiple TLDs such as .net, .com, and .org so that all traffic gets redirected to their website.
In some cases, it even extends to buying the most common misspellings of their domain names to ensure users will reach their website and are granted the traffic they are seeking.
Price Category | Regular | Bulk | Super Bulk |
---|---|---|---|
.com | $7.99/year | $8.75/year | $8.50/year |
.net | $5.99/year | $5.99/year | $5.99/year |
.org | $8.99/year | $8.99/year | $8.99/year |
.co | $10.99/year | $9.99/year | $9.75/year |
It is important to note that all domain registrars change the price according to how in-demand your domain name is. Therefore, a short 2 or 3 syllabled domain name could cost users extra relative to longer domains that might make no sense.
There are no additional ICANN fees, as it is included in the prices mentioned. As some of the other competitors charge an extra $0.18 that is applicable to most TLDs and is paid yearly for each domain name registered.
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2. Renewal prices
Like most domain registrars, the renewal rate is slightly higher than the starting price, and again it depends on the TLD used. However, with Dynadot, the renewal price would still sit at a low rate of $9.25 per year for .com domains, $10.99/year for .net domains, $10.99/year for .org domain, and $22.99/year for .co domains.
Here you can find the renewal rates for the most common TLDs:
Renewal Price Category | Regular |
---|---|
.com | $7.99/year |
.net | $5.99/year |
.org | $8.99/year |
.co | $10.99/year |
3. Domain transfer
Whether you want to transfer to or from Dynadot, it is a good idea to check how the procedure is and if there are any extra costs involving the switch.
- Transferring to Dynadot: Transferring your domain name to Dynadot is quick and simple.
You start by checking if your domain is eligible for transfer at your current registrar. Then you unlock your domain and pay any possible due fees your previous registrar might ask for.
Finally, you enter your authorization code obtained from your previous registrar. Once you’re done with the previous steps, you’ll be left with an easy-to-go-through registration process.
The cost of transfer to Dynadot according to the TLD are:
TLDs Transfer Fees | Regular | Bulk | Super Bulk |
---|---|---|---|
.com | $9.99 | $9.25 | $8.99 |
.net | $10.99 | $10.50 | $10.25 |
.org | $10.99 | $10.75 | $10.50 |
.co | $22.99 | $21.99 | $21.00 |
Once the transfer fees are paid, you’ll receive an authorization code to input at the next registrar website you go for.
- Transferring from Dynadot: Transferring to another registrar requires unlocking your domain and then transferring it to your selected domain.
4. Grace period
A grace period is a period that retains your domain name for a set duration even if you fail to renew on time after it has expired.
A domain expires when you fail to pay for your domain name at the time of renewal. The grace period allows for users who missed the renewal to get hold of their domain name back.
If you don’t renew your domain within the grace period, then the domain will be deleted from Dynadot, and they would lose control of the domain name, and they won’t be able to renew them. This could open the opportunity for someone else to get hold of your domain name and ask for a higher price.
If a domain wasn’t renewed within the grace period and wasn’t purchased by someone else, a restore feature is available for users to attempt to get hold of their domain which is available for 30 days after the grace period had expired. This window of time is called the redemption period.
The restore process is complicated, takes time to process, and includes a 1-year renewal. In terms of pricing, it is also more expensive, as it costs $89.99 to restore your domain.
Dynadot grants you a grace period of 40 days for most TLDs which is longer than most domain registrars offer. However, it is important to note that Dynadot will penalize late users for the last ten days of the grace period, which will include a $10 late renewal extra fee.
4. Payment methods
Increased diversity of payment options means more flexibility for users to pay their dues in whichever form they chose from. Different vendors accept different methods of payment.
Dynadot accepts payments through the following methods:
- Credit Card
- Debit Card
- Paypal
- Skrill (Moneybookers)
- Alipay
- eCash
- Bank Wire
- Money Orders
- Cashier’s Checks
- Personal Checks
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Privacy, Protection, and Add-ons
After creating your account at Dynadot, you will be able to tell how dedicated they are to security and privacy. From their 2-factor authentication log-in to their free, lifelong privacy protection offered with each new domain registered.
1. Privacy and protection
Dynadot provides the following privacy and protection features:
- Two-factor authentication and time-based one-time password: Dynadot provides two methods by which you can secure your account. These include an SMS-based authentication and a Google-based authenticator app.
Using these two together is recommended to secure and protect your account, ensuring it’s only accessible by you.
- Account lock: This is a feature that activates when sensitive changes regarding your account info, password, or domain are attempted. It ensures no hacker or someone who stumbled upon your domain account can make changes easily, as it adds an extra layer of protection beyond passwords, namely concerning your birthday.
- WHOIS privacy and protection: Dynadot offers privacy and protection at no extra cost to conceal your private information (such as your name, phone number, email address, etc.) from the WHOIS database, in addition to protecting your domain from the mail, email, and phone from spam and unwanted requests.
Other websites cost around $10 per year for this functionality.
2. Features and add-ons
Along with your registration, Dynadot also provides a variety of apps that help businesses grow, either at reduced rates, free trials or entirely for free!
Add-on services by Dynadot include:
- Website builder: Dynodot provides a free website builder that allows you to build your website smoothly with an easy-to-use drag and drop interface that contains multiple templates.
The plans start from a free plan that allows for the creation of a single page, a basic plan costing $10.00/year, a pro plan costing $30.00/year, and a professional plan costing $100.00/year.
- Grace deletion (tasting) policy: A nice feature Dynadot provides is the grace deletion, as it provides you a chance to try out a domain, check the traffic to, and delete it if you find it unworthy.
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User Experience
The user experience of a domain registrar isn’t a complicated subject, as the steps required to register a domain are not that hard. However, considering other functionalities, you might require in the future, customer support and how personnel from the website conduct themselves with you come to play.
We further discuss user experience according to the following sections:
1. Ease of use
In general, the user experience, according to multiple users with different levels of expertise, including the tech-savvy and the new to use domain registrars, is pleasant. You won’t have to worry about any complex steps; the process is easy to follow.
Creating an account on Dynadot takes less than a minute. Checking for a domain and registering it online will also take around a minute. In the event you find yourself in a bind, you can refer to the customer support section, which we will discuss next.
2. Customer support
Dynadot provides live chat with one of their agents if you face any issues. However, the customer support, as we tried them, had some delay in time as it took us a while to get in touch with them. In addition to the live chat functionality, users can try phone call support if they feel it’s needed or send an email.
The solutions individuals seek can often be found in the knowledge base of the website. The knowledge base contains a variety of articles and information. The customer support will often redirect you to an article with more info within the knowledge base.
If you want to ask other users for their experiences, you can go to the local forums, which contain discussion topics, where many users ask each other. It also gives an insight into how satisfied most users are.
If you want further reads, Dynadot provides articles and blog posts to further search on the newest technologies related to the domain registrar, hosting, and website building.
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Final Verdict
Do we recommend Dynadot as a domain registrar? Yes, we do!
Dynadot provides multiple features that can be appealing for many users, including the low prices on the .net TLDs, the higher than the average grace period, and multiple other features regarding privacy and protection.
The user experience is also positive, with an easy-to-follow domain registration process. However, some of the user reviews we compiled had issues regarding the post-registration steps, as some felt the emails and follow-up steps were a bit confusing.
On the other hand, getting help from customer support is somewhat hard, as they are often busy with a customer. The same goes for tickets and response emails. While the knowledge base is useful, sometimes users require fast access to info, in which case live chat comes to play.