Hover Full Review: Welcome to the TLDs Haven
Hover is a division of Tucows Inc., a publicly traded Internet services and telecommunications company. With an easy-to-use interface, no upsells, and helpful customer support, Hover comes as a fan-favorite domain registrar which provides users with hundreds of domain extensions to choose from when making their domain name. Hover also provides useful domain management tools to ease your experience further.
Pros
Cons
Content
Quick Stats
Hover is another domain registrar that offers its services, allowing you to register your domain, but what makes Hover better than other domain registrars? Is it the low prices? Premium customer support? Or is there something else?
Let's check the full picture together...
Plans and Pricing
When it comes to plans and pricing of domain registrars, a few points should be considered. Many new individuals fall into a trap is the low initial prices, which spike considerably 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.
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 Hover compares to them to decide for yourself if Hover is the correct choice for you.
1. Initial prices
The initial price of a domain means how much you're renting that domain for per year. A low initial price is often encouraging and can help motivate users to purchase a domain. Generally, Hover prices aren't high; rather, they are on the lower end compared to other registrars.
For example, Hover provides the .design TLD for a relatively lower price than other registrars, $6.99/year.
Initial TLD prices for the 4 most common TLDs include:
TLDs | Price |
---|---|
.com | $13.99/year |
.net | $15.49/year |
.org | $13.99/year |
.co | $25.99/year |
An ICANN fee of $0.18 is added to the domain purchases on Hover.
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2. Renewal prices
The renewal prices of TLDs are just as important as the initial prices. A sudden upsell in prices can be a factor leading you to lose your domain name. Generally, Hover doesn't have upsells except on domains that had a discount price on initial purchase.
Here you can find the renewal rates for the most common TLDs:
Renewal Price Category | Regular |
---|---|
.com | $15.99/year |
.net | $17.49/year |
.org | $15.99/year |
.co | $25.99/year |
Hover provides customers who own more than ten domains discounts on renewal prices. The more domains you have, the lower the price will be.
3. Hover domain transfer
Transferring to and from a domain registrar is another important feature to look out for. There are always fees to be paid to the service you are transferring to, as it is part of the ICANN policy to extend any domain transfer by 1 year.
Hover doesn't take extra charges to transfer domains to its own; rather, they take fees to extend your domain registration by 1 year.
The cost of transfer to Hover according to the TLD are:
TLDs | Transfer Fees |
---|---|
.com | $13.99 |
.net | $15.49 |
.org | $13.99 |
.co | $25.99 |
Once the transfer fees are paid, you'll receive an authorization code to input at the next registrar website you go for.
- Transferring from: Transferring to another registrar requires unlocking your domain and then transferring it to your selected domain.
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4. Add-ons prices
Hover allows users to purchase add-ons to their domain purchases allowing users to add useful tools to their domains. There are two main add-ons, and these are email solutions and WHOIS privacy. Further descriptions of the add-ons and what they include are mentioned in the add-on section.
Email solution add-ons pricing includes:
Email Solution | Forward | Small Mailbox | Big Mailbox |
---|---|---|---|
Price | $5/year | $20/year | $29/year |
Hover provides the WHOIS privacy add-on for free with every TLD purchase.
5. Payment methods
Increased diversity of payment options means more flexibility for users to pay their dues in whichever form they choose from. Different vendors accept different methods of payment.
Hover accepts payments through the following methods:
- Credit Card
- Paypal
Privacy, Protection, and Add-ons
After creating your account at Hover, 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
Hover provides the following privacy and protection features:
- Two-factor authentication and time-based one-time password: Hover provides the possibility to add a two-factor authentication method, which adds a layer of security beyond the use of a password, which makes your account harder to hack.
- Transfer lock: Hover locks any attempts of domain transfer unless you unlock your account actively. In the event you want to transfer your domain somewhere else, you can unlock the domain and move it to another registrar accordingly.
- Account lock: In the event multiple failed attempts are made to access your account, or unauthorized access is detected, your account will be locked until you unlock it using your email. This helps prevent brute-force hacking.
- PIN code: Hover uses PIN code authorization which is sent over the email when verifying who you are over the phone to ensure the support team is in contact with the correct person.
- WHOIS privacy and protection: Hover provides free WHOIS protection on every domain purchase. Typically domains purchased will be visible for users to view in the WHOIS directory by typing the domain name.
Using the WHOIS protection will prevent spam emails and phone calls from disturbing you, as they will be sent to Hover first, then after filtering, the relevant contacts will be sent to you.
2. Features and add-ons
Along with your registration, Hover also provides a variety of apps that help businesses grow, either at reduced rates, free trials, or completely for free!
Add-on services by Hover include:
- Email solutions: Hover provides three types of email solutions: the Forward, Small Mailbox, and Big Mailbox solutions. The features of each include:
- Forward solution: Receives all emails and forwards them to a pre-existing email of yours.
- Small Mailbox: Provides you with 10GB of storage to send and receive emails.
- Big Mailbox: Provides you with 1TB of storage to send and receive emails.
- Forward solution: Receives all emails and forwards them to a pre-existing email of yours.
- Grace period: Hover provides a 34-day grace period for you to register your domain after your domain subscription period is due.
- Redemption and restoration: Hover allows users for 30 days after the grace period is over to get their back domains which they missed in the grace period for an extra $175, in a period called the redemption period.
To help draw a relatable comparison, Gmail provides 15GB of storage; based on how fast you fill your Gmail account, you can draw a conclusion. If you run a business, the extra $9 per year might be worth the price.
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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 customer support agents from the website conduct themselves with you come to play.
We further discuss user experience according to the following sections:
1. Ease of use
Hover is a subsidiary of the famous domain registrar Tucows. The whole idea behind making it was to make domain registration as simple and intuitive as possible so that even someone with no prior experience can register a domain with them.
2. Customer support
An important point to take into consideration with domain registrars is customer support, as running into problems will often require expert consultation. Luckily Hover has multiple forms of customer support to help you when you are in need.
Hover provides the following methods of customer support:
- Phone support
- Email and ticketing
- Knowledge base
- FAQs
- Blogs and articles
Final Verdict
All in all, Hover is not a bad choice to register your website at. Their interface is simple and easy to use, their customer service is readily available, and while their prices are not the lowest, they are still considered on the lower end of the spectrum among domain registrars.
In addition, they provide a wide variety of TLDs, including more than 400 readily available TLDs. The .design TLD at Hover is among one of the best priced.
Although Hover doesn't provide all the features and add-ons out there, they have more than an impressive arsenal of privacy and protection tools at their disposal.
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