How to Pick a Great Domain Name (Tiers, Checklist and Budget Tips)

About a decade ago I bought my first domain with no plan at all. I wanted a home for my blog, published one or two posts that nobody read, and moved on. The name had three words and two hyphens, something like book-of-something.com if memory serves. Since then I have bought a handful of domains for different projects, and I have picked up a few lessons about branding them, where to buy them and how to find a good one on a budget.

I'm no domain name expert. But if you are working out how to pick a domain name, this is what I wish someone had told me before I paid for that first one.

S-tier domains: one English word on a .com

S-tier has a single requirement: one English word, on a .com.

Those names are rare, and the prices show it. OpenAI bought chat.com, which now redirects to ChatGPT. The previous owner, HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah, had reportedly paid $15.5 million for it in 2023, according to Verdict. The two-letter ai.com sold for $70 million in April 2025, Domain Name Wire reports. And the AI startup Friend spent about $1.8 million on friend.com, most of the money it had raised, 404 Media found.

I doubt many of my readers shop at that level, at least for now. You can build something real without it.

A-tier domains: the realistic target

Aim for A-tier, especially if you are building a startup, and grab the name early. Good names rarely get cheaper while you wait. Here is the checklist I use:

  • A .com in most cases.
  • A .ai only if the project is strictly an AI project.
  • A .so or .xyz in extremely rare cases.
  • Brandable: it sounds like a name, not a description of what you sell.
  • Pronounceable: someone can hear it once and type it correctly.
  • Short, with no hyphens or digits.
  • Clear of trademark conflicts, with matching social handles available.

If a name fails two or more of these, keep looking. It costs nothing to keep looking.

How to craft a great .com domain

Most good .com names are not found. They are built, and the steps below take about an hour.

  1. Start with the idea, not the name. Write down what the project does, who it is for and how you want people to feel about it. Then list 20 words around that: verbs, metaphors, places, short fragments. Ignore availability for now.
  2. Play with the pieces. Join two short words, trim a long one, change a syllable, or add a small prefix or suffix such as "get," "try" or "hq." Use those sparingly, because a name made entirely of add-ons sounds generic.
  3. Say it out loud. Tell the name to a friend over the phone. If they ask how to spell it, it fails. Names that survive a spoken test are the ones people pass along.
  4. Check availability in bulk. Registrars such as Namecheap, Porkbun and Cloudflare let you search many variations at once, so test your whole list in one sitting instead of falling for one name early.
  5. Check trademarks and handles. Search your country's trademark database and the major social platforms before you pay. A name you cannot use on social media is only half a brand, and a name that collides with a trademark can be taken from you later.
  6. Watch the renewal price. A standard .com usually costs somewhere between $10 and $20 a year, but first-year promotions can hide a much higher renewal rate. Read the renewal line before you check out. If you are on a budget, skip premium listings and put the money into the project.

What to avoid

My old book-of-something.com broke almost every rule here, which is probably why I can't recall the full name today.

  • Hyphens and numbers. People forget them, mishear them or drop them when typing.
  • Names that are hard to spell. Every misspelling sends visitors to someone else.
  • Names too close to a big brand. You will lose the search results, and possibly a legal argument.
  • Names tied to one product. A domain like bestshoes.com gets awkward the day you start selling bags.
  • Trendy extensions you don't understand. If you cannot explain why you chose .xyz or .so, use .com.

Before you pay

Run one last test. Write the name on paper, hand it to a stranger and ask them to say it back, then type it from memory. If both go right, register it.

Then publish something. My first domain taught me that a name only matters once people have a reason to visit.