Left · the labs.llc tool
Registrar prices, side by side
The renewal trap, worked out: the labs.llc price desk against two comparison sites and the registrar it reads.
Right · set against
- TLD-List
Registration, renewal and transfer prices for each ending across many registrars.
page checked 2026-09-27 20:03 UTC - TLDSpy
Price comparison across 50+ registrars, with WHOIS and DNS checks and a portfolio audit.
page checked 2026-09-27 20:03 UTC - Porkbun pricing page
The registrar's own list: registration, renewal and transfer for its endings, with first-year sales.
page checked 2026-09-27 20:02 UTC
1 · The tool
What it is, and who it is for
Domain endings are sold on their first year. A name that costs a few dollars to register can cost hundreds a year to keep, and the jump is easy to miss on a sales page. The labs.llc price desk turns one registrar's public list around: it leads with the renewal, works out the jump in dollars and per cent, and adds up five and ten years of ownership.
It is for anyone choosing an ending, and especially anyone tempted by a very cheap first year.
2 · The workings
How it works
The site's relay, tools.php?op=prices, fetches Porkbun's public pricing API on the server at most twice an hour and keeps it for 24 hours; if Porkbun cannot be reached it serves the last good copy marked as stale (tools_prices.php lines 1-16). It computes the trap, the five-year total and the ten-year total (first year plus nine renewals), and checks each ending against IANA's root-zone list so the Handshake names the registrar also sells are marked as outside ordinary DNS. The page sorts, filters and exports CSV and JSON.
- api.porkbun.com pricing endpoint: Porkbun's public list
- data.iana.org TLD list: which endings are in the DNS root
Where the work happens: A server relayThe relay fetches and computes; the browser sorts, filters and exports.
3 · The test
What we ran, and what came back
Run against a local copy of labs.llc build 537, byte-identical to the live site. Times are UTC.
| What we did | When (UTC) | What came back |
|---|---|---|
| .com, cold cache | 2026-09-27 20:00:03 | HTTP 200 in 12.9 s, fetched fresh. Registration, renewal and transfer all $11.08; no trap; five years $55.40, ten years $110.80. |
| The whole list, warm | 2026-09-27 20:00:23 | HTTP 200 in 0.004 s from cache: 909 endings, 636 in the DNS root; 396 of those renew for more than year one. Worst jumps: .dealer and .inc, $257.98 then $2,060.25 (+698.6%); .feedback, $9.27 then $309.47 (+3,238.4%). |
| Cross-check against Porkbun's own page | 2026-09-27 20:02 | .com listed from $11.08, renewal and transfer $11.08: the same figures the relay returned two minutes earlier. |
4 · Side by side
Row by row against TLD-List, TLDSpy, Porkbun pricing page
2 to labs.llc3 elsewhere1 level
01How many sellers
One. Every price is Porkbun's, so it cannot tell you where an ending is cheapest.
Evidence: tools_prices.php; payload noteTLD-List compares dozens of registrars per ending; its .com page, as shown in search results (the site refused our direct fetch), gave a range from $3.80 to $56.00 across 57 registrars.
TLDSpy tracks 50+ registrars and 2,100+ extensions, updated daily.
To find the cheapest place to buy, use a comparison site.
02What a name costs to keep
Ranks every ending by the renewal jump in dollars and per cent, with five- and ten-year totals and the rule for each sum written beside it.
Evidence: tools_prices.php lines 11-13TLDSpy shows a five-year total of registration plus four renewals at standard rates.
Porkbun lists registration, renewal and transfer columns with first-year sales highlighted.
labs.llc goes to ten years and puts the steepest jumps first. TLDSpy's five-year total is the nearest thing elsewhere.
03Real DNS or not
Checks every ending against IANA's root-zone list: 636 of 909 are in the root, and the Handshake names are marked as outside it.
Evidence: tools_prices.php lines 60-70; test at 20:00:23 UTCTLDSpy tracks 2,100+ extensions.
labs.llc separates the two; we did not check how the others label names outside the root.
04Buying on the spot
No buy button and no affiliate links.
Evidence: payload notePorkbun checks availability and registers in the same place, with bulk search of up to 100 domains.
Porkbun is the shop; labs.llc is a reading of its price list.
05Sales, fees and premium names
Leaves out coupons, promotions, taxes and premium names, and says so in every answer.
Evidence: payload note, 20:00:03 UTCPorkbun shows current first-year sale prices and says all prices include ICANN and other fees.
TLD-List includes ICANN and setup fees for a one-year period, per its listing.
For today's actual checkout price, the registrar's page is fuller.
06Knowing where the number came from
Names its single source and its limits in the payload itself, and the test figures matched Porkbun's own page to the cent.
Evidence: payload source_url and note; cross-check at 20:02 UTCTLD-List collects prices from public registrar sources and APIs.
TLDSpy offers an API and a portfolio audit.
Both approaches are open about sources; the comparison sites trade a single checkable source for breadth, and TLDSpy adds portfolio tools labs.llc lacks.
5 · The shortcomings
Where it falls short
- One registrar only, so it cannot find the cheapest seller or the best renewal elsewhere.
- No coupons, promotions, taxes or premium names.
- US dollars only, and the first fetch after the cache empties took 12.9 seconds in our test.
6 · The verdict
Which side, for which job
Left: labs.llc Registrar prices
Pick the labs.llc desk while you are choosing an ending and want to know what it costs in year two and year ten, not year one.
Right: elsewhere
Once you have chosen, pick TLD-List or TLDSpy to find the cheapest registrar, or Porkbun to buy.
The clearest view of the renewal trap in this comparison, from one named and checkable source. It is not a price-comparison engine.
Try Registrar prices on labs.llc