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NameCheap vs GoDaddy Review 2024 (Which One is Better for You?)

Are you stuck in NameCheap vs GoDaddy battle to decide where to buy domain names? This is the most confusing situation when you are going to setup a blog or website as a newbie. Although, there are many other domain registrars where you can buy a domain name but the dominant and well-reputed players are NameCheap and GoDaddy.

Let’s start!

These two companies are well reputed and very famous because of their domain registration business. Both are an ICANN accredited domain registrar. So, who won in NameCheap and GoDaddy comparison?

GoDaddy claims to manage over 77 million domains while NameCheap has 10+ million domains under their management. But merely numbers can’t help you to conclude which one is the best.

After experiencing both of the company’s services, we work to write this in-depth NameCheap vs GoDaddy comparison which will surely help you to make a decision without any haziness.

NameCheap vs GoDaddy Comparison Review

NameCheap vs GoDaddy Comparison 2024

Which One is the Best Registrar and Hosting Provider?

We divided this comparison into several parts to explain each and every feature/product they are offering such pricing, renewal rates, SSL certificate, Freebies, Hosting plans, Interface and Customer support.

Pricing: Who Offer Domains at the Lowest Price?

The price tag is the basic factor before making a decision to buy or not. Almost all of the companies offer domain in a few dollar but in the very next year they charge pretty more money as compared to the first year. Both NameCheap and GoDaddy are famous due to their low price offers for new customers.

This is the best tactic to entice more customers by giving them an exclusive and biggest discount for the first year.

Here is the GoDaddy cost structure for the domain name. These prices are for the 1st year when you are going to purchase a new domain with a new account and may fluctuate as they offer promotions time to time.

GoDaddy Prices

  • .com for $0.99/year
  • .org for $8.99/year
  • .net for $ 11.99/year
  • .info for $2.99/year
  • .biz for $7.99/year

NameCheap Prices

  • .com for $8.88/year
  • .org for $12.48/year
  • .net for $ 7.88/year
  • .info for $0.88/year
  • .biz for $11.88/year

As you can see GoDaddy offer bigger promotional discounts. So if you want a domain for one year then surely go for GoDaddy or check out following GoDaddy alternatives.

Winner: GoDaddy

Note: If you planned to buy a domain for more than one year then choosing NameCheap would be a great option. Because GoDaddy demands more money on renewals. NameCheap is best for long term run because their renewal rates are same just like you pay for the new domain name.

Renewal Rates

Almost all of the companies offer promotional discounts like GoDaddy as they offer “.com” in just $0.99 for the 1st year. But the game starts from the 2nd year when the charges are high sky for the next years. GoDaddy charge more money as mentioned earlier than the normal renewal rates if compared to NameCheap.

With NameCheap you have to pay the same money as you had paid for the new domain purchase. For .com TLD extension, the renewal price is $10.69, but GoDaddy charge $14.99.

Here is the comparison of renewal rates:

GoDaddy Renwals

  • .com for $14.99/year
  • .org for $17.9/year
  • .net for $ 11.69/year
  • .info for $2.99/year
  • .biz for $7.99/year

NameCheap Renewals

  • .com for $10.69/year
  • .org for $12.48/year
  • .net for $ 12.88/year
  • .info for $2.99/year
  • .biz for $7.99/year

So if you have the aim to hold a domain for more than a year then you should surely buy it from NameCheap. If you buy from GoDaddy then you may save some money for the 1st year but later that you have to pay more money than the NameCheap.

Winner: NameCheap

Freebies

Yes, we do love freebies and everyone else, but you know a limited number of company’s offers useful freebies. In NameCheap vs. GoDaddy, NameCheap won the race.

NameCheap offer free WhoisGuard for first year and later on charge only $2.88. WhoisGuard is designed to protect your privacy. It protects your name, email address, phone number and keeps them secret to avoid spamming, domain hijacking or any unwanted situation.

On the other side, GoDaddy does not include any freebie. They charge $7.99 for the privacy protection and $14.99 for privacy and business protection (includes some more protection), Which is much than NameCheap.

Winner: NameCheap

SSL Certificate

Now let’s talk about the SSL certificate. Basically, it is a security protocol to protect the customer’s important information like credit card numbers, password and usernames etc.

Here we got another advantage because of registering a domain with NameCheap. They charge only $9/year, but we recommend you to subscribe it for more than a year because it will lower down the price to $8.95/year. It is applicable for a single site.

While GoDaddy charges $55.99/year for the first year and $69.99 at renewal. It also can be used to secure one site.

Winner: NameCheap

Grace Period

The Grace period is the time duration during which the company holds your expired domain name. Different domain extensions have different grace period. The company will send you several emails when your domain is expiring and after it expired to renew it.

If we talk about the NameCheap, they advise reactivating your expired domain name within 27 days. Here note that this grace period is applicable on .com, .net, .org, .info and .biz.

While GoDaddy got a lead here, they offer 41 days. At exact 42 days, they will cancel your domain. This grace period is applicable on the .com, .net, .info, .biz, .cc, .org, etc.

Winner: GoDaddy

Purchasing Process & Upsell

Upsell is a strategy where the company offers different related products to increase their sales. It’s a good strategy from the business point of view, but too much upsells could abandon potential customers.

Let’s first talk about GoDaddy. They don’t care about whether the customers confused or annoyed due to their upsell strategy, they just keep on showing from years.

If you are new and never experience the buying procedure, then be careful, because while singing up you should proceed to next steps after viewing the whole page.

When you enter your domain name and click on “search” then on the next page you will see several upsells, which at first wander your mind. Then after passing through this step on the next page there is a list of related products like privacy protection, hosting, site builder and email services.

For hosting, GoDaddy may attract you due to their low-cost plans. But we would recommend InMotion Hosting and Bluehost as they are one of the best hosting providers. GoDaddy is cheap but not worthy of hosting your professional sites. Slow server response, below average support services and high renewal rates, is the traditions of GoDaddy.

Now if we talk about NameCheap upsell tactics, the signing up procedure is pretty simple and clean. Yes, they do offer some related products but still a neat page. So if you are a new domain buyer then purchase it from NameCheap because we think the process will not frustrate you. Moreover, if you need the explanation at any step, you can do so by starting a live chat.

As we know every company using upselling traps, but some companies made this process confusing and ultimately new customer end up buying some unwanted features. Before finishing the order make sure to uncheck all the unwanted offers. The buying procedure of NameCheap is much simpler than GoDaddy.

Winner: NameCheap

Auto-Renewal

Auto renewal is an option which helps to make the payment automatically at the time when your domain is expiring. If you did not renew your domain then your site goes offline.

“Auto-renew” option will greatly help when you forgot or due to some other reason did not renew the domain manually. For this, you just need to keep enough money in the attach credit card account and enable the renew option.

So that next time when the time comes, the company deduct the renewal amount without any downfall.

Winner: Tie

Control Panel Interface

A domain control panel gives you the ability to configure all domains, subdomains, emails, transferring and DNS feature, etc. A poorly designed control panel waste user’s precious time.

How was the experience about their control panels? Because it is the most valued factor while choosing a domain registrar. A dashboard which is easy to navigate, provide a user-friendly experience. So who is the winner between NameCheap and GoDaddy competition?

NameCheap Control Panel Overview

Recently NameCheap updates its domain management panel and now the new panel is very smooth and seamless. On the dashboard of NameCheap, you can easily manage multiple domains and perform any required task such as domain renewal, Name Server editing and can check SSL certificate details as well. For DNS/Name Server changing, just click on the domain name for which you want to add new records and enter NS records there.

GoDaddy Domain Control Panel

GoDaddy also has a great, easy to navigate and beginner friendly domain management panel. Just like NameCheap, at the very dashboard, you can renew domain names, add WHOIS Guard, Edit Domain and DNS settings within minutes. Overall, both companies are offering user friendly control panel and declaring one is best than other would be inappropriate.

Winner: Tie

Customer Support

It doesn’t matter whether you are buying a hosting plan or a domain name, customer support is always important because sometimes you need help in some queries which are difficult to understand. We found that the response time of GoDaddy is slow over the email support.

We purchased a domain from GoDaddy. They usually take one day to respond to your email and are inconsistent. Sometimes their response comes within a day and sometimes they even forgot to reply after passing several days.

Live Chat is only available from Monday to Friday during specific hours. Although, you can contact them over the phone 24/7. But not everyone wants to contact over the phone, most of the people use Live Chat, where they can write their issues comfortably.

On the other hand, NameCheap's support services are pretty reliable and available 24/7. They did not offer support services via phone but you can contact them through live chat which is really good. Although by submitting ticket sometimes the repose is late but live chat is very much and easily accessible.

We are not only ones having bad support experience with GoDaddy, but there are a plenty of users complaining about their support services. So in a NameCheap vs GoDaddy comparison based on our experience, NameCheap is the winner.

Winner: NameCheap

Web Hosting Plans

Both companies are known as one of the top domain registrars, but later on, they also offer cheap hosting plans. Both are offering the almost same uptime and servers speed. But if you are new then NameCheap is good for you because they offer 24/7 live chat support. Moreover, NameCheap offers the lowest cost hosting at $9.88/year while GoDaddy charges $59.88/year. Yeah, NameCheap offers hosting plan for one year under $10

NameCheap Hosting plan also includes malware scanner, backup (twice a week), free site builder and SSD accelerated storage space. It’s not over yet you can host 3 domains on the “Value” (basic) plan, which is really an attractive option for newbies and those having very limited budget.

But GoDaddy has much more thirst of money. They charge $23.88/year for back & restore, $17.88 for malware scanning, No free site builder and you are allowed to host only one website on their Economy (Basic) plan.

If you want to host your site from these two, here we build a comparison table to help you pick the right one.

Features

NameCheap

GoDaddy

Free domain

Yes

Yes

Websites

3

1

Storage

20GB-SSD Accelerated

100GB-No SSD

Bandwidth

Unlimited

Unlimited

Refund Policy

14 days

30 days

1-Click Installer

Yes

Yes

Support 24/7 (Live Chat)

Yes

No

Price

$9.88/year

$59.88

Our Recommendation for Hosting

If you want web hosting just for the sake of getting experience, then cheap hosting might be a considerable option. We would recommend you to glance over the list of cheap WordPress hosting providers.

For professional or business website we would like to recommend using InMotion Hosting. Also, there are some well reputed hosting companies, here look at the list of top best WordPress web hosting companies.

So, Who is the Winner in NameCheap and GoDaddy competition?

Well, as you can see the winner is NameCheap. Yes, GoDaddy is also a good choice for domain buying but why to pay high renewal rates? Both are well-known companies and not involved in any fraudulent activities.

We would recommend you to purchase a domain from NameCheap because the renewal rates are pretty low as compared to the GoDaddy and for hosting service, must go for InMotion Hosting. Moreover, you will also get free WhoisGuard for the first year and well-furnished control panel for easy management from NameCheap.

Please don't hesitate to share this Namecheap vs Godaddy comparison on social media.

Wayne Robinson
 

Wayne is an enthusiast web hosting and server management expert with over 8 years of experience dealing with different kinds of hosting companies. He is also familiar with web hosting technical stuff and server optimizations and shares thorough, well-tested reviews and guides on the same domain.

Click Here to Leave a Comment Below 1 comments
Faisal

Excellent and detailed comparison. It’s really helpful to the idea of what both these services offer and which is better in what way. Well, as you said for a long term website namecheap is better and if one is just buy to transfer the website later on within short time godaddy is better. I was about to buy a domain and wanted to get more details about both of these top services. Thanks for sharing the detailed article about Namecheap vs Godaddy Cheers.

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