Register a .IO Domain

.io is technically the country extension for the British Indian Ocean Territory, but its use has nothing to do with geography — "IO" reads as input/output to anyone technical, and it became the default for developer tools, APIs and startups somewhere around 2013.

What you get for the price is availability of short, clean names that disappeared from .com twenty years ago, plus instant recognition in a technical market. What you pay is roughly four times a .com, every year, forever.

Two things worth knowing before you commit. First, Google treats .io as generic rather than geotargeted, so it carries no India signal — fine for a global product, a real cost if your customers are all in Coimbatore. Second, the territory's political status has been under negotiation, and while registrations are being honoured, it is a background risk that does not exist with .in.

Who .io is right for

Choose .io for developer tools, APIs, SaaS products and startups selling to a global technical audience with the budget to hold it long term.

What .io costs over time

Registration is ₹4,000 and renewal is ₹4,000 a year, both including 18% GST. Over two years that is ₹8,000, and over five years ₹20,001.

We print the second number because it is the one that decides whether an extension is cheap. Full comparison on the 2026 domain price list.

What is included

• DNS management with unlimited records
• Email forwarding to any inbox you already use
• WHOIS privacy, where the registry permits it
• Transfer lock, switched on by default
• A GST invoice with your GSTIN, emailed within minutes
• Setup help on the phone, in Tamil, English or Hindi