.host Domain
Built for the Hosting Industry
Register your .host domain from just £77.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
What is a .host domain?
The .host domain is a natural fit for web hosting providers, managed hosting companies, and server management platforms. Beyond tech, it also works for event hosts, Airbnb hosts, and hospitality businesses. That flexibility gives it broader reach than you might expect from a four-letter extension.
Who should register .host?
Web hosting companies, managed server providers, event hosts, and Airbnb hosts.
Why choose .host?
- Four letters with dual meaning
- Natural fit for hosting providers
- Works for tech and hospitality
- Short enough for any marketing channel
Who runs .host, and since when
Registry data from the .host delegation record held by IANA, which maintains the internet's root zone. Eligibility comes from the registry's own policy, and the prices are ours.
- Extension type
- Generic (gTLD)
- Registry operator
- Radix Technologies Inc.
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 2014
- Delegated 22 May 2014
- Who can register
- Open to anyone worldwide, with no hosting-industry credentials required
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £77.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
What a .host domain costs a hosting company
We sell hosting, so this is the extension aimed squarely at us, and it is worth being plain about what it does and does not buy. Radix calls .host the signature extension of the hosting industry on its own marketing site, and as positioning that is fair enough: the word is exact, it is four letters, and it lets a hosting company drop "hosting" or "host" out of the second level and shorten the whole address.
The pricing needs reading properly. At £77.99 a year it is the dearest extension in this group, though the longer spelling, .hosting, runs to £375 a year here, so .host is the cheaper of the two by a wide margin. What catches people out is the premium tier. Radix's own launch policy states that some names sit in pricing tiers carrying their own registration, transfer, redemption and renewal price. The premium is annual. A name costing several hundred pounds to register costs that again every year, which is worth checking before you fall for a two-word .host.
Beyond hosting there is a second reading the registry pushes less hard: event hosts, podcast hosts, venues and hospitality. It works, though a technical audience will assume servers first.
What we would say to another hosting business: a .host makes a good short brand asset and a good address for a status page, a knowledge base or a control panel. It makes a poor replacement for the .co.uk or .com your customers already have in their address book.
As a UK web hosting company it totally makes sense to own a .HOST domain name. It also allowed us to shorten our domain name from 11 characters (ioxhost.com) and 13 characters (ioxhost.co.uk) to just 8 characters (iox.host).
What that means if you are buying one
Read that as a testimonial on the registry's own site, because that is what it is. The mechanic it describes is real though: cutting thirteen characters to eight is worth something on a card, an invoice and a support signature. What it leaves out is that the shorter address only helps while the old .co.uk keeps working and redirects to it.
Is .host the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.host works well if
- You run a hosting, server or infrastructure business and want a short brand address for a status page, documentation or a control panel.
- Your .com or .co.uk carries the word "hosting" in the second level and you would rather that word sat after the dot.
- You host events, podcasts or venues and want an address saying so in four letters.
- The name matters more to you than the price, because it is going on invoices, signatures and support tickets for years.
Look elsewhere if
- At £77.99 a year this is roughly eight times a .co.uk. For a small hosting reseller that is a real line on the accounts, every year.
- Your customers already know your .com. Moving a hosting brand to a new address costs support tickets and lost mail, and the gain is cosmetic.
- The name you want sits in a premium pricing tier. Under Radix policy that price repeats at every renewal, not only at registration.
Want a modern hosting address without this price? A .cloud costs under a third and is well understood by buyers. See .cloud pricing.
.host vs .hosting: which should you register?
These are the two extensions built for this trade and the price difference between them is startling. A .host renews at £77.99 a year here; a .hosting renews at £375.00. Over a decade that is roughly £780 against roughly £3,750 for what is, technically, the same thing on a different string.
They also read differently. A .host names a thing or a person, so it works behind a brand and works again for event and podcast hosts. A .hosting names an activity, which reads as a service description rather than a name and runs three characters longer. Neither is wrong. One of them is priced for a registry that expects very few buyers.
For almost every hosting business the answer is the .host, and for a lot of them the honest answer is neither: keep the .co.uk your customers already type and spend the difference on the platform behind it.
| .host | .hosting | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual price here | £77.99 | £375.00 |
| Cost over ten years | About £780 | About £3,750 |
| Length after the dot | Four characters | Seven characters |
| What it names | The host, person or machine | The service you sell |
| Second meaning | Event and podcast hosts | None, one meaning only |
.host domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .host domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyNo. ICANN records the .host registry agreement as base and non-sponsored, so there is no industry body, no charter and no verification of any kind. Event hosts, podcast hosts, venues and hospitality businesses all use it, and the word carries for them. Expect a technical audience to think servers first, which is either helpful or a small explaining job depending on what you actually do.
The registry sets the wholesale price and Radix priced .host as a niche business extension rather than a mass-market one. Nothing technical justifies the gap: the DNS, DNSSEC and mail behaviour are identical to any other domain. What you are paying for is the exactness of the word in a sector where the obvious .com names went a long time ago. Budget it as an annual cost, because it recurs.
Usually not. Your existing address holds your links, your Google history, your mail routing and the bookmark in every customer's browser, and a move puts all four at risk for a cosmetic gain. The better pattern is to keep the main site where it is and use the .host for something new: a status page, a documentation site, a control panel login, or a short address for marketing. Redirect it if it is only a brand asset.
Included with Your .host Domain
DNS Management
Full DNS zone editor to manage A, CNAME, MX, TXT, and all record types.
Email Forwarding
Set up professional email addresses and forward to any inbox.
Auto-Renewal
Never lose your domain with automatic renewal protection.
Free 10GB Mailbox
One 10GB mailbox (POP3/IMAP) included with every domain, on any TLD.
Other Technology Domains Extensions
Register your .host domain today
Secure your .host domain from just £77.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
