Domains & DNS

Where to buy a domain, how to point it at AWS or Vercel, and which TLDs make sense for an MVP without setting fire to your wallet.

Buying a domain is the easy part. Pointing it at the right place, not overpaying for renewals, and keeping email working takes about an hour the first time and ten minutes thereafter. This page is the cheat sheet.

We'll cover where to buy, what to do once you've bought, and the actual DNS records you'll need for the most common MVP shapes.

GoDaddy

GoDaddy is the easiest place on the internet to buy a domain, and the most expensive place to keep one. First-year prices for .com often hit $0.99-$11.99 with promo codes; renewals snap back to $19.99-$24.99/year. ICANN fee is the same $0.18 everywhere.

The dashboard is cluttered with upsells (privacy, "professional" email, hosting) but the underlying registrar service works fine. Two-factor auth is supported, the API exists, and DNS edits propagate quickly.

vibecodersguidetomvp.help was bought at GoDaddy because the .help TLD was on a deep promotion. We then delegated DNS to AWS Route 53 (more on that below) so the registrar's only job is renewing once a year.

Pick GoDaddy if: you don't want to think, the promo price is good, or you're buying as a gift and need a polished checkout.

Cloudflare Registrar

Cloudflare sells domains at registry cost, with no markup. A .com is $9.77/year (the wholesale price plus the $0.18 ICANN fee), every year, forever. They make money on the rest of the Cloudflare stack, not on you.

The catch: Cloudflare Registrar requires you to use Cloudflare DNS (which is fine, it's the best free DNS in the business), and they don't sell every TLD. New gTLDs and country codes are often missing.

Pick Cloudflare Registrar if: you're cost-sensitive over a multi-year horizon, you're already using Cloudflare for DNS or Pages, or you want zero-drama renewals at a wholesale price.

Namecheap

Namecheap is the middle ground: cheaper than GoDaddy at renewal ($13-$15 for a .com), wider TLD selection than Cloudflare, free WHOIS privacy included. The UI is dated but functional, support is responsive, and they sell almost every TLD you'd actually want.

Pick Namecheap if: Cloudflare doesn't sell your TLD, you want a friendlier renewal price than GoDaddy, and you don't want to delegate DNS.

Porkbun

Porkbun has built a small but loyal following with low prices, a clean dashboard, and free WHOIS privacy plus free SSL on parked domains. .com is around $11/year, many novelty TLDs are cheaper than anywhere else, and the API is good.

Pick Porkbun if: you're collecting niche TLDs (.dev, .app, .xyz, .fyi), want a simple dashboard, and prefer an indie registrar to a corporate one.

AWS Route 53 (registrar)

Route 53 sells domains too, not just DNS. Prices are at-cost-plus-tiny-margin: .com is $14/year, .io is $39/year, .dev is $12/year. Not the cheapest, but if your site is on AWS, having one bill for everything is genuinely nice.

The bigger reason to know about Route 53 isn't the registrar — it's the DNS service. Route 53 hosted zones are $0.50/month each, plus $0.40 per million queries. For an MVP that's pennies.

Pick Route 53 as registrar if: you want one AWS bill, the price is acceptable, and you're already in the AWS ecosystem. Otherwise, just use Route 53 for DNS and buy the domain elsewhere.

Price comparison

First-year and renewal pricing for the most common TLDs (April 2026, no promos):

Two takeaways: Cloudflare Registrar wins long-term on every TLD it sells, and GoDaddy renewals are roughly double Cloudflare's.

Transfer vs delegation

These are not the same thing, and people conflate them constantly.

• Transfer moves the domain to a new registrar. The new registrar bills you, the old one stops. Requires an EPP/auth code, takes 5-7 days, often includes one extra year of registration.
• Delegation keeps the domain at its current registrar but points its nameservers at someone else's DNS. Takes effect in minutes to hours. You still pay the original registrar at renewal.

Most people just want delegation. Buying at GoDaddy and delegating to Route 53 (what this site does) gives you GoDaddy's UX plus Route 53's reliability and AWS integration, without the hassle of a formal transfer.

We wrote about this in detail in domain-transfer-vs-delegation.

DNS providers

You will end up with three options and they all work:

• Route 53. The right pick if your site is on AWS. ACM certificate validation is one-click, alias records to CloudFront/ELB are first-class, and the API is well-documented. $0.50/month per hosted zone.
• Cloudflare DNS. Free, fast, and includes proxying (orange cloud) which gives you DDoS protection and analytics for free. Pick this if you're not on AWS or if you want Cloudflare's edge features.
• Your registrar's built-in DNS. Fine for "park a domain and forward email." Less fine if you need wildcard records, complex routing, or any kind of API automation.

For anything serious, delegate to Route 53 or Cloudflare. The registrar's built-in DNS is a footgun once you have more than three records.

TLDs for MVPs

You don't have to use .com. You probably should anyway, but here's the rest of the field:

Don't pay $200/year for .ai unless the product is genuinely AI-first and you've validated demand. A .com with the right name beats a .ai with the wrong name every time.

DNS records for an AWS-hosted site

Here's roughly what vibecodersguidetomvp.help's Route 53 hosted zone looks like (sanitized):

# Apex pointing at CloudFront via ALIAS record
vibecodersguidetomvp.help.        A     ALIAS d1a2b3c4d5e6f7.cloudfront.net.

# www subdomain redirects to apex (via S3 redirect bucket + CloudFront)
www.vibecodersguidetomvp.help.    A     ALIAS d8h9i0j1k2l3m4.cloudfront.net.

# ACM certificate validation (added once when you request the cert)
_abc123.vibecodersguidetomvp.help.       CNAME _xyz789.acm-validations.aws.
_def456.www.vibecodersguidetomvp.help.   CNAME _uvw345.acm-validations.aws.

# Email — Resend handles privacy@ alias and outbound
vibecodersguidetomvp.help.        MX    10 feedback-smtp.us-east-1.amazonses.com.
vibecodersguidetomvp.help.        TXT   "v=spf1 include:amazonses.com ~all"
resend._domainkey.vibecodersguidetomvp.help.  TXT  "p=MIGfMA0GCSqG..."
_dmarc.vibecodersguidetomvp.help. TXT   "v=DMARC1; p=none;"

A few notes:

• ALIAS records are AWS-specific. They look like A records to the outside world but resolve dynamically and are free of charge. Use them whenever you're pointing at CloudFront, an ELB, or another Route 53-hosted resource.
• ACM validation CNAMEs are easy to forget — if you delete them after the cert issues, the cert won't auto-renew.
• SPF, DKIM, DMARC need to be in place if you're sending any email at all. Even a single noreply@ reset email will land in spam without them.

Our recommendation

• You want zero hassle: buy at GoDaddy, eat the renewal premium, delegate DNS to Route 53 or Cloudflare. This is what we did.
• You're on AWS and price-sensitive: buy at Route 53 directly so it's all on one bill, OR buy at Cloudflare Registrar and delegate DNS to Route 53.
• You're cost-optimizing for the long run: buy at Cloudflare Registrar and use Cloudflare DNS. Cheapest by a wide margin over a 5-year horizon, no surprises at renewal.
• You collect domains: Porkbun. Best UX of the cheap registrars.

Whatever you pick, turn on two-factor auth and the registrar's domain-lock feature the day you buy. A stolen domain is the only category of MVP disaster you cannot easily reverse.

Related reading

• Transferring vs delegating a domain
• Cheapest static site on AWS: S3 + CloudFront
• Deploying with S3, CloudFront, ACM, and Route 53
• Hosting platforms
• Email providers
• Skills index