Keep your address in your name
If you already have a domain, sign in to your registrar account: the company you pay for it every year. If you don't have one, you buy it today; this lesson has no path without a domain.
Buy or review it from an account in your name or your business's name. Never in your freelancer's name or an agency's.
If it's in someone else's name, ask them in writing to move it into your name or to an account of yours. If they don't answer, tell AXIS Tutor before you go on.
Turn on auto-renew and check that the card on file is still valid.
Leave WHOIS privacy on, which hides your contact details, and leave the transfer lock on.
Before you pay, compare the renewal price, not the first-year price. Prices as of 12 Oct 2026 are below.
Turn on two-factor authentication for the registrar account. It's another key to the building: add it to your access register from lesson I.2.3.
Write down in your record sheet the registrar, the registrant, the expiration date and whether it renews on its own.
Key points
- What ICANN says: only the registrant, or a contact they authorize, can start a transfer. If your domain is in someone else's name, your address depends on them.
- One registrar describes the classic case: the third party who did you the favor of registering it put their own name as registrant instead of yours.
- Privacy hides your details, but they have to be real. If you don't answer a registrar's question about them within 15 days, it can suspend your domain.
- The lock shows up as
clientTransferProhibited: the registry rejects any transfer until you ask to remove it. Cloudflare, for example, locks domains by default. - Auto-renew only charges if your payment method is current. ICANN asks you to keep it that way, and Cloudflare turns auto-renew on for every registration.
- Prices for a .com as of 12 Oct 2026: Cloudflare, which sells at cost, charges US$ 10.46. GoDaddy charges US$ 2.99 the first year with a new-customer coupon and US$ 22.99 to renew.
- The .com goes up on 1 Nov 2026: Verisign, which sells it wholesale, moves from US$ 10.26 to US$ 10.97.
- If you serve Mexico, a .mx costs US$ 23.98 the first year at Namecheap and US$ 58.98 to renew; at Cloudflare, US$ 30.70. A .com.mx at Namecheap is US$ 10.48, then US$ 34.98.
- At Cloudflare, a .co costs US$ 30 a year, renewals included. A .es starts at US$ 5.29 the first year and renews at US$ 5.71 to US$ 17, depending on the agent.
- Anyone in any country can register a .co, and anyone can register a .mx or .com.mx, first come, first served. A .es is open to individuals and private entities: confirm the requirements with your agent. Third-party prices come from a price-comparison site; confirm them at your registrar before you pay.
- If the domain expires, your website and email stop. For a .com, the registrar warns you twice: about a month before and about a week before. After that there's often a grace period and then a 30-day redemption period; at Cloudflare, the grace period is 40 days.
- After that, the name is released, and ICANN can't give you back an expired domain. Country domains such as .mx, .co or .es set their own rules.
Source: F25, F26, F27, F28, F29, F30, F31, F32, F33, F34, F40, F41, F42, F43, F44, F45, F46, F47, F48, F49, F50, F51