.io and .ai are country-code domains that the tech industry adopted as if they were generic. .io belongs to the British Indian Ocean Territory and .ai to Anguilla, a Caribbean island of about 16,000 people. Neither registry cares where you live, both are priced far above .com, and both carry a fashion signal that .com does not: .io says developer tool, .ai says machine learning. The signal is why founders want them. The country-code status is why you should read this before paying $70 a year for one.
The honest answer for most startups is: register the .com if you can get it, use .io or .ai as the brand if the audience expects it, and never build on one of them without owning a fallback. The reasons are in the table below, and some of them are new.
MailShrine Domains offers .io, .ai and .com among its 150+ extensions, with first-year and renewal pricing shown together so the $12.99 versus $70 gap is visible before you commit. Whichever you pick, the email DNS is written at registration and two business mailboxes are ready in minutes, so founders@ works on day one.
Real-life example: Tobias's developer-tools startup
Tobias Lenz is building a logging library and hosted dashboard in Berlin with two co-founders. The working name is "Tracekit". tracekit.com is registered to a company that appears dormant, tracekit.io is free at about $55 for the first year, and tracekit.ai is free at about $80 for a two-year minimum term. They are raising a pre-seed round and the deck needs a domain by Friday.
Tobias's goals:
- Pick the extension that reads right to developers and investors without overpaying.
- Understand the risk of building a company on a country-code domain.
- Get
hello@and three founder mailboxes live before the first investor call.
The three options compared
| .com | .io | .ai | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Generic TLD | ccTLD (British Indian Ocean Territory) | ccTLD (Anguilla) |
| Registry operator | Verisign | Identity Digital (back end) | Government of Anguilla, Identity Digital back end since 2024 |
| Typical registration | $12.99/yr | $40 to $60/yr | $70 to $100/yr, 2-year minimum |
| Minimum term | 1 year | 1 year | 2 years |
| Who else uses it | Everyone | Developer tools, SaaS, open source | AI companies and anyone wanting to look like one |
| Residency requirement | None | None | None |
| Policy risk | Negligible | Real: the territory's future is in question | Low to moderate: a small government's revenue stream |
| Default-typing traffic | You get it | Leaks to the .com | Leaks to the .com |
The .io question nobody mentions in the pricing page
.io is the country code for the British Indian Ocean Territory, the Chagos Islands. In October 2024 the United Kingdom agreed to transfer sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius. Under IANA's long-standing practice, when a territory ceases to exist in the ISO 3166-1 standard its two-letter code is eventually retired and the matching ccTLD is removed from the root. That happened to .su (Soviet Union, still lingering by exception), .yu (Yugoslavia, removed 2010) and .cs (Czechoslovakia).
Nothing has been removed yet, the process would take years, and there is strong commercial pressure to find a way to keep .io alive. But "will probably be fine" is not a sentence you want underneath a company's email addresses. If you use .io, own a .com or another fallback and keep your DNS portable.
The .ai economics
.ai is run by the Government of Anguilla and, since 2024, by Identity Digital as the technical back end. Registration revenue is a meaningful share of the island's budget, which is why .ai pricing is high and the minimum term is two years. The upside is that the government has every incentive to keep the extension stable and well run. The downside is that the price has only ever gone one way, and a rename away from .ai if the AI label stops being an asset will cost you a migration.
When .com is still the answer
Investors, enterprise buyers and anyone over forty type .com by reflex. If the .com of your name is a live competitor, you have a naming problem, not an extension problem. If it is dormant, as Tobias's was, a Buy Now listing or an offer through the aftermarket can be cheaper over five years than the .io premium.
What you need before you start
| You need | Why |
|---|---|
| Availability on all three | Decide with the real prices in front of you |
| Who owns the .com | Dormant, for sale or live competitor changes everything |
| Your audience | Developers accept .io; consumers and enterprises default to .com |
| A fallback plan | Required if you build on a ccTLD |
| A two-year budget for .ai | The registry enforces the minimum term |
Step 1: Search the name across all three
One query in the MailShrine checker shows .com, .io, .ai and the rest. Note the renewal, not the promo.
Step 2: Look up the .com owner
Open the .com. Dormant with a parking page: check for a Buy Now price. Live and in your market: rename. Live and unrelated: you can co-exist, but expect some lost email.
Step 3: Choose the brand extension
Developer tool with a developer audience: .io is understood and accepted. Machine-learning product: .ai, if you can live with the price and the two-year term. Anything sold to enterprises or consumers: .com, or rework the name until one is available.
Step 4: Register the fallback
If the brand lives on .io or .ai, also register the .com if it is free or affordable, or at minimum a second generic such as .dev or .app. Point email at the primary and redirect the rest.
Step 5: Set the term and lock
Register the primary for two or more years. Leave transfer lock and WHOIS privacy on. Tobias registered tracekit.io for two years and bought the dormant tracekit.com through a Buy Now listing for $450.
Tobias's checklist
- Checked all three; .io free, .ai free at 2-year minimum, .com dormantCompleted
- Found a Buy Now price on the .com and bought itCompleted
- Registered
tracekit.iofor 2 years as the brand domainCompleted - Privacy and lock on for bothCompleted
- Set up
hello@,tobias@on Business EmailCompleted - Redirect
tracekit.comtotracekit.ioand keep it as the long-term fallbackNot completed - Add a calendar note to review the .io sovereignty situation annuallyNot completed
Common mistakes
Paying .ai prices for a product that has nothing to do with AI. The label signals a category. If you are not in it, the signal is noise and the renewal is a tax.
Building only on .io. Treat it as a brand name with a policy risk. Own a fallback and keep DNS and mailboxes portable.
Ignoring the two-year .ai minimum. The checkout total is double what the per-year price suggests. It is not a mistake on the invoice.
Assuming the .com owner will sell for less later. A dormant .com gets more expensive the moment your product gets press.
Forgetting that investors type .com. If the deck says tracekit.io and the partner types tracekit.com, you want that to land on you.
Check your work
Type the name with each extension. Confirm you land where you expect. In the MailShrine dashboard every domain you own should show Active, the right expiry, privacy and lock on and email setup complete on the primary. Send a mail from hello@ to a Gmail address and check it arrives in the inbox, not spam; the SPF, DKIM and DMARC records are written at registration so it should.
FAQ
Is .io safe to use for a startup in the long term?
It is safe today and widely used, but it is a country-code domain for a territory whose status is changing. Use it as a brand and keep a fallback domain. Do not treat it as permanent in the way .com is.
Why is .ai so expensive?
The registry is run for the benefit of Anguilla's government and sets wholesale prices well above generic extensions, with a two-year minimum term. Demand from AI companies has kept prices rising.
Do investors care about .io or .ai?
They care that the domain fits the product and that the company owns its name. A developer tool on .io is normal. A consumer product on .io raises the question of why you could not get the .com.
Does .io or .ai hurt SEO?
Google treats .io, .ai and a few other heavily generic ccTLDs as generic for ranking purposes, so there is no geographic penalty. Rankings depend on content and links, not the extension.
Should I buy both .io and .ai?
Only if your product spans both audiences. Most teams should pick one brand extension, own the .com as a fallback if possible, and spend the rest on the product. Our guide on short domain names covers why short .io names cost more too.
Next steps
- .com vs .net vs .org: Which Extension Should You Buy? — the generic extensions compared.
- .co vs .com: Is .co a Good Domain? — another country code that became a startup default.
- Brandable vs Keyword Domains for SEO — why made-up names like Tracekit are easier to own.
Citations & References
- Reference: IANA: .io delegation record
- Reference: IANA: .ai delegation record
- Reference: Google Search Central: Managing multi-regional and multilingual sites (generic ccTLDs)
- Reference: ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency: Country codes
Written by Marcus T., DNS and deliverability editor. Marcus covers the technical side of domains so that founders know what they are building on before they build.