I have been a regular user of the Namecheap registrar since 2012. I have registered and renewed several domains with them and have also transferred TLDs to them.
In addition to Namecheap, I use GoDaddy to register TLDs. GoDaddy is my first domain registrar and hosting service provider. I started my online journey by registering a TLD with it in 2011. I also bought my first-ever shared hosting plan from this company. Below, I have compared the pricing and features of various services of the two companies.
Finding and registering domains
Namecheap features two domain finder tools – Beast mode and single search. Beast Mode is a utility that lets users find TLDs beginning/ending with certain letters/words. It can pluralize nouns or drop the last vowel of the words you enter in the domain finder tool. The tool can find available TLDs belonging to a category of the user’s choice. Some of the categories you can choose are colors, religion, cities, etc. The GoDaddy website doesn’t feature a tool like Namecheap’s Beast Mode but offers a bulk TLD search tool and suggests available alternative domains when the extension you have chosen isn’t available for registration.
Pricing
Pricing is one of the reasons why any wise person would purchase a domain from a registrar. While registrars such as GoDaddy sell .com TLD without privacy for around 9 dollars, NC sells these and many more extensions for a very affordable rate of 5 to 7 dollars. During Black Friday or Cyber Monday sale, the price of TLD drops further. I bought a TLD from the registrar for around 2 dollars in 2018/2019’s Black Friday sale organized by NC. A few years back, GD offered massive discounts on the registration of a top-level domain. I purchased 2 to 3 .coms for 0.99 dollars. The firm is not offering huge discounts anymore.
New domain registration
| Extension | Namecheap | GoDaddy |
| .com | 5.98 | 11.99 |
| .net | 10.98 | 9.99 |
| .org | 8.68 | 9.99 |
| .io | 32.98 | 59.99 |
| .me | 5.88 | 7.99 |
| .co | 3.98 | 11.99 |
| .ai | 69.98 | 249 |
Renewal fees
| Extension | Namecheap | GoDaddy |
| .com | 13.98 | 18.99 |
| .net | 14.98 | 19.99 |
| .org | 14.98 | 20.99 |
| .io | 34.98 | 62.99 |
| .me | 18.98 | 21.99 |
| .ai | 69.98 | 66.88 |
Transfer fees
| Extension | Namecheap | GoDaddy |
| .com | 9.18 | N/A |
| .net | 10.98 | N/A |
| .org | 10.98 | N/A |
| .io | 32.98 | N/A |
| .me | 14.98 | N/A |
| .ai | 189.98 | N/A |
GoDaddy doesn’t offer a domain privacy add-on for free. You can purchase the add-on while registering the TLD. Namecheap users enjoy free domain privacy for a lifetime.
From the above three tables, it is clear that NC is an affordable registrar compared to GoDaddy.
Wallet
Namecheap website features a wallet utility. You can add money to the wallet if you want NC to use the funds deposited to renew your TLD. NC also lets you buy new services/products with the wallet. You can add money to the wallet using a credit card or PayPal. GoDaddy offers a similar feature called in-store credit.
Support
If you’re using GoDaddy, you have three options for contacting the company’s support team – write an email, use live chat or dial the support phone number. The support team will respond to your query within 1 or 2 hours if you’ve sent an email. Live chat and dialing the phone number is the quickest way to contact GD support staff. NC users can click the “Live chat” option to talk with the customer support team in real time. This option appears when users log in to the dashboard and move the mouse cursor over the “contact us” submenu that appears at the top left corner of the menu. Users can also write an email to the company’s support team.
Security
The users of the two registrars can enable 2-factor authentication for their accounts. The two registrars have introduced a PIN-based verification method to ensure no one fiddles with your product by impersonating you. The first thing that the technical support executive will ask you is your PIN. The PIN is displayed in the accounts section of your dashboard.
Discounts
Namecheap shows the ongoing sale on its homepage. GoDaddy’s website doesn’t have a dedicated sales page, nor it shows offers on its homepage. It offers a discount when you register a domain for two years.
Shared
GoDaddy offers these four shared hosting packs – Starter, Economy, Deluxe, and a 12.99-dollar plan. The Starter and Economy subscription of GD supports hosting a single site. They offer 30GB and 100GB storage memory and let you create 1 and 10 databases. Websites hosted on Starter shared servers are allocated 512MB RAM. Starter and Economy plan cost 3.99 and 5.99 dollars. Deluxe, priced at 7.99 dollars per month, supports unlimited sites and 25 databases. The 12.99 dollar subscription ship with a premium SSL certificate. Users of Economy, Deluxe, and 12.9 USD GD shared hosting packages can register a free domain worth 11 or 12 dollars. They also get a business email ID.
NC also provides an affordable shared hosting service. It has introduced three plans, Stellar, Stellar Plus, and Stellar Business. Priced at 1.8/month, the Stellar server lets users host three websites, and it provides 20GB of storage memory. The Stellar Business server supports unlimited sites but offers 50GB SSD instead of unlimited storage memory. This subscription costs 4.98/month. The Plus plan is priced at 2.98, and it supports unlimited sites. It also offers unlimited storage memory. Anyone who purchases a 1-year or 2-year shared hosting subscription from Namecheap will get a free TLD and can activate free Namecheap CDN for their sites. NC will create two backups of the sites hosted on their shared servers. It also lets the shared plan users buy and link a dedicated IP address with their server. The Stellar plan enables you to create 30 email addresses, and the Plus/Business server lets you create unlimited email addresses.
Users can buy one of these six email hosting plans from GoDaddy – Essentials, Plus, Online Business Essentials, Business Professional, Individual, and Team. The last two plans i.e. Team and Individual are the cheapest mail hosting package of GD. They cost 1.99 and 3.99 dollars, respectively, and provide 10GB to 25GB storage for mail. The remaining subscriptions are powered by Microsoft 365. The email Essentials pack, priced at 3.24/month, offers 10GB of storage memory. Plus, Business Essential costs 4.69 and 8.49 dollars. They provide 50GB and 1TB of storage memory. GD’s Business mail hosting plan comes with a free subscription to the online version of MS Office 365. The Business Professional subscription costs 11.74/month. It lets you install MS Office 365 on five devices and offers everything you get with the Business subscription.
NC has launched three mail hosting packages – Starter for 0.93 per month, Pro for 2.43/month, and Ultimate for 4.30. The three plans ship with 1, 3, and 5 mailboxes and offer 7, 45, and 105GB of storage memory. The Pro and Ultimate subscriptions give users access to collaboration tools. The Ultimate Plan ships with office tools that let you create documents, presentations, and spreadsheets online.
Other services offered by Namecheap:
- Logo creator, VPS hosting, VPN.
- CDN, site maker, ID validation.
- Premium DNS.
Other services offered by GoDaddy:
- VPS hosting.
- Dedicated hosting and website builder.
Closing words: GoDaddy’s fees for registering a new domain are higher than Namecheap’s plans, but its shared/email hosting packages are priced competitively.
