The Anguilla registry charges 10x .com
The .ai TLD is a country-code domain operated by the government of Anguilla, not a commercial registry. Wholesale pricing sits around $70/year vs. ~$9/year for .com, so registrars build their consumer pricing from a baseline that's already an order of magnitude higher.
For Anguilla — a Caribbean island of ~15,000 people — .ai is genuinely a sovereign revenue stream, reportedly contributing tens of millions annually to the territory's budget. There is no commercial pressure to lower prices.
The 2-year minimum doubles upfront cost
.ai registrations must be purchased in 2-year increments — there is no 1-year option. That turns a $70 sticker price into a $140 first transaction, and renewals come at the same 2-year cadence. For founders comparing $9 .com to .ai at checkout, the gap looks closer to 15x than 10x.
AI startup demand compressed a decade of growth into 3 years
Before late 2022, .ai was a niche TLD used mostly by ML research groups and consultancies. ChatGPT's launch created the first generation of well-funded AI startups all needing names simultaneously. Premium .ai registrations and aftermarket sales 10x'd between 2022 and 2024.
The aftermarket reflects this most clearly. One-word .ai names that traded at $5K–$20K in 2021 now clear at $100K–$1M. Category-defining names trade in the multi-million range — comparable to early .com sales from the dot-com era, but compressed into a much shorter window.
The supply of memorable .ai names is fixed
There are roughly 2,500 single-word English nouns that work as company names, a few thousand more if you count adjectives and short compounds. Most have already been registered. New AI startups are bidding against a pool that cannot grow.
What you should actually pay in 2026
Unregistered .ai: $140–$400 for the first 2 years at any registrar. Long-tail two-word .ai on aftermarket: $1K–$10K. Pronounceable one-word .ai: $25K–$250K. Category-name one-word .ai: $250K–$2M+. Three-letter pronounceable .ai: low five figures. Numeric or hard-consonant LLL .ai: high four to low five figures.
Compare any quoted number to recent comparable sales before agreeing — aftermarket listing prices are anchors, not clearing prices.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does a .ai domain cost?
- Unregistered .ai costs $70–$200 per year at any major registrar with a 2-year minimum, so a fresh registration is $140–$400. Premium one-word .ai domains on the aftermarket clear at $25K–$250K, and category-defining names (Cursor.ai, Perplexity.ai tier) trade at $250K–$2M+.
- Why is .ai more expensive than .com to register?
- The .ai registry is operated by the government of Anguilla and prices wholesale at roughly $70/year vs. ~$9 for .com. Registrars add their margin on top. The TLD also enforces a 2-year minimum registration, doubling the upfront cost.
- Will .ai domains get cheaper?
- Registry pricing is unlikely to drop — Anguilla treats .ai as sovereign revenue. Aftermarket prices for premium .ai may soften slightly as AI hype normalizes, but the supply of memorable one-word .ai names is fixed at a few thousand, so scarcity will hold.
- Is a .ai domain worth the price?
- For an AI-native company, yes. .ai signals category membership to investors, press, and users in a way .com no longer does. For a non-AI company, no — pay for .com instead.
- Why did .ai domains explode in price after 2023?
- ChatGPT's launch in late 2022 created the first wave of AI-funded startups that all needed naming. Demand for memorable .ai names went from a few hundred annual buyers to tens of thousands within 18 months, while supply of registerable premium names stayed flat.
- Can I get a .ai domain for under $1,000?
- Yes, for long-tail two- or three-word .ai names that nobody has prioritized. Short one-word .ai and pronounceable three-letter .ai start at five figures and go up from there.
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