An entrepreneur opening an online shop often spots incredibly cheap offers in the .online, .store or .shop zones. The names look handy too: misol.store or misol.shop instantly says "retail". A year later, though, renewal can cost several times what the first year did. That is not a scam but normal domain market pricing, and it only hurts people who did not know about it.
Why the first year is so cheap
Every zone is run by a registry that sets a wholesale price for sellers. Newer zones such as .online, .store and .shop want registration numbers to grow fast, so registries and sellers run big first-year promotions. The discount applies only to new registrations; after that the domain renews at the zone's standard price. In other words, the first-year price is marketing and the renewal price is the domain's real yearly cost. Classic zones like .com or the national .uz show much smaller gaps, so the yearly payment stays fairly stable.
An example: a clothing shop in Tashkent
A small clothing shop in Chilanzar moves its Instagram sales to a website and buys misol.store cheaply during a promotion. The owner prints the address on ads and packaging. A year later the renewal bill is far above the promo price, but dropping the name is hard: customers know it, search engines have indexed it and it is on the packaging. Changing would mean new ads, reprinting and some lost rankings, so the shop pays. A quick cost check at the start would have led to another zone or a planned budget.
How to calculate the real cost
Look at the total over at least three to five years, not the first-year price. It takes a minute:
5-year cost = first-year price + 4 × renewal priceA domain with a cheap first year and an expensive renewal usually ends up costing more over five years than one that renews at the same price each year. A simple comparison table helps.
| Item | misol.store | misol.uz |
|---|---|---|
| First-year price | from the seller's page | from the seller's page |
| Renewal price | from the seller's page | from the seller's page |
| Five-year total | by formula | by formula |
| Clarity for a local audience | medium | high |
Does paying for several years help?
Registering for five years at once usually does not lock in the promo price, because the discount covers only the first year and the rest are charged at renewal price. Multi-year payment still lowers the risk of an accidental lapse and protects paid years from future increases. Transferring to another provider rarely helps either: a transfer normally adds a year at close to the standard price, so moving every year to chase discounts costs more time than it saves.
Cheap zones and email reputation
There is another hidden side to price. Zones that are almost free in year one are also popular with spammers, who can buy hundreds of throwaway names cheaply, so some mail filters treat messages from them more strictly. Your shop's email will not necessarily land in spam, but correct SPF, DKIM and DMARC records matter even more if order confirmations and invoices are to reach customers, and sending volume from a new domain should grow gradually.
Premium names are a separate category
In these zones the registry marks some short or popular-word names as premium, and their price can stay high at every renewal. If a search result shows a premium label, ask for the renewal price separately.
Checklist before you buy
- Check the exact renewal price, not just the promo price.
- Calculate the five-year total and compare several zones.
- If your customers are mostly in Uzbekistan, a .uz domain often feels more natural.
- Make sure the name is not premium.
- Enable auto-renewal and keep your balance topped up so the shop never goes offline unexpectedly.
In the sayt.uz cabinet current prices are shown when you choose a domain and later in the renewal section. A few minutes of checking saves years of surprise costs. A cheap first year is fine, as long as you choose knowing what the following years will cost.