This review covers Spaceship as a registrar: prices, features, transfers, expiry, support and what customers say. Every price and term was checked on 31 October 2026; Spaceship changes prices often, so treat them as a snapshot.
The verdict: who Spaceship suits
Spaceship suits people who want a cheap, clean place to register and hold everyday names such as .com, .net and the low-cost new extensions, and who are happy to manage things themselves through a dashboard. Domain investors are a natural fit too. Domain Name Wire wrote on 30 September 2026 that “with a modern interface, very low pricing, and a domain sales system, Spaceship has captured a lot of domain investor inventory.”
It suits you less if you want phone support, plan to keep a cheap first-year extension for years without checking its renewal price, or could not afford a temporarily locked account.
Who runs it matters for a registrar. Spaceship describes itself as “an ICANN-accredited domain registration and web services platform founded by Richard Kirkendall”, and its press release notes that Spaceship is a trademark of Namecheap, Inc. Domain Name Wire reports that “Namecheap launched the Spaceship brand in 2023”. The IANA registrar list shows “Spaceship, Inc.” as Accredited, with IANA ID 3862. On size, Spaceship says it “surpassed 10 million domains under management” in September 2026, a figure from its own press release.
Spaceship prices: first year against renewal
For .com the renewal is only a little above the first year; the gap that catches people is on promotional first-year prices. All figures are US dollars per year from Spaceship’s pricing and transfer pages, checked 31 October 2026.
| Item (checked 31 October 2026) | First year | Renewal | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| .com | $8.88 | $9.98 | Pricing tab (plus a $0.20 ICANN fee listed separately) |
| .net | $11.20 | $11.20 | Pricing tab (plus $0.20 ICANN fee listed) |
| .org | $6.65 | $11.39 | Pricing tab (plus $0.20 ICANN fee listed) |
| .ai | $79.98 | $79.98 | Pricing tab |
| .com transfer in (includes one year) | $9.48 (marked “Sale”) | Transfer page | |
| .com redemption fee | $41.40, plus the standard renewal price | Redemption pricing page |
Put simply, a .com renews for $1.10 more than its first year, while a .org renews for $4.74 more ($11.39 against $6.65). The .net and .ai prices stay the same at renewal, and .ai gets no first-year discount at all. Domain Name Wire also noted on 30 September that .shop, .xyz and .top “each cost less than $2 at Spaceship right now”; check their renewal price before you register several.
The ICANN fee of $0.20 a year for .com, .net and .org is shown as its own line on the pricing tab. How Spaceship’s renewals compare with other registrars is covered in domain renewal prices, and what a name costs in general is in how much is a domain name.
Features and free privacy
Privacy is the stand-out inclusion. Spaceship’s privacy page says: “Domain privacy is free for life with nearly all our domains, and simply gets added automatically when you register yours.” The service it uses is called Withheld for Privacy. The word “nearly” matters: “due to the registry restrictions, domain privacy is unavailable for certain TLDs.” What privacy does and does not hide is explained in domain privacy protection.
The security page lists DNSSEC authentication, DNS DDoS prevention, free SSL-protected redirects, two-factor authentication, passkeys and suspicious login monitoring. For an active domain you can manage contacts, privacy, auto-renew, nameservers, DNS records, URL redirects and email forwarding.
Around the registrar sit hosting, VPS, EasyWP managed WordPress, an AI website builder and Spacemail (Pro shown at $0.98 a month after a 30-day trial). For sellers there is SellerHub, which charges a 10% commission on a sale; where else to list a name is covered in where to sell domain names.
Transfers, expiry and the 60-day rule
To move a name in, Spaceship’s transfer page says: “First, you need an authorization code (also known as an EPP, auth code, or transfer code)”, and you may need to remove the registrar lock at your current provider. It says transfers “autocomplete in 30 minutes, but no longer than 5 days max”. Each transfer adds one year of renewal, privacy stays free for eligible names, and Spacemail Pro comes free for one year via a promo code sent when the transfer completes. Typical timings across registrars are in domain transfer time.
Two timing points are worth knowing. If you have just renewed an expired name at your old registrar, Spaceship recommends “waiting 45 days after the original expiration date before transferring”, so the old registrar cannot revoke that renewal year. Separately, under ICANN’s Transfer Policy a registrar may refuse to transfer a name out within 60 days of its registration or of a previous transfer. Moving a name between two Spaceship accounts is a different process, a push, and is covered in how to accept a domain push.
On expiry, Spaceship’s domain life cycle guide sets out the stages. The grace period lasts 30 days, during which you can renew “by paying just the renewal price”, but a domain not renewed within 7 days of expiry “stops resolving on the 8th day”. Redemption “typically lasts 42 days” and pending delete “typically lasts 5 days”. There are exceptions: .eu has no grace period, and .to goes offline as soon as it enters grace. Terms run from one to ten years.
Support, reviews and the catches
Spaceship’s contact page lists email ([email protected]) and chat; no phone line is listed there. There is also a knowledge base, a status page, a public roadmap and an AI assistant called Alf.
On Trustpilot, checked 31 October 2026, Spaceship had a TrustScore of 4.3 (“Excellent”) from 4,375 reviews, 712 of them in the last 12 months. Of those, 77% were five-star and 10% one-star. The profile is claimed, invites customers to review and has replied to 100% of negative reviews; Trustpilot notes that it does not fact-check reviews. Its AI summary of recent reviews mentions praise for a “modern and intuitive platform design”, a “fast and reliable support team” and “affordable and transparent pricing”.
The same summary records the main complaint: “strict account verification procedures and unexpected security locks that temporarily restricted access”, and support that was occasionally “slow or unhelpful” with complex account suspensions. Add the renewal gap on promotional extensions and the privacy exceptions, and those are the catches. There was also a major outage on 13 August 2026, which Spaceship’s CEO, Hillan Klein, put down to “a cooling system failure” at a Phoenix data centre. It hit hosting, VPS, email forwarding and Spacemail; the Spaceship.com site itself stayed online.
If you are buying an existing name to hold at Spaceship, check its past first. The Domain History Checker gives a year-by-year Wayback Machine timeline of what the domain was used for, and the Domain Age Checker shows its registration date, with a flag for names that were dropped and re-registered.
Frequently asked questions
Is Spaceship a legitimate domain registrar?
Yes. IANA lists Spaceship, Inc. as an accredited registrar with ID 3862, and the brand belongs to Namecheap, Inc.
How much does a .com cost at Spaceship?
$8.88 for the first year and $9.98 to renew, plus a $0.20 ICANN fee listed separately, checked 31 October 2026.
Is WHOIS privacy free at Spaceship?
Free for life on nearly all extensions and added automatically, but registry rules make it unavailable for certain TLDs.
Does Spaceship offer phone support?
Its contact page lists email and chat, plus the AI assistant Alf. No phone number is listed there.
What happens if my Spaceship domain expires?
You get a 30-day grace period at the normal renewal price, though the name stops resolving on day 8. Redemption then costs $41.40 plus renewal for a .com.
The takeaway Spaceship is a low-cost, well-equipped registrar for everyday names; check renewal prices and keep your account details in order. If you want a name with some age to hold there, browse aged domains on the SERPHeroes marketplace, where each listing shows its registry age and an archive spam scan.
