I had 12 domains spread across Namecheap, Google Domains (RIP), GoDaddy, and 123-reg. Renewals were a chaos and the per-domain cost was creeping up.
Cost
Source: Registrar price lists, June 2025
Cloudflare Registrar is the cheapest at-cost provider. IONOS is more expensive than Cloudflare but cheaper than every traditional registrar[1]. The price gap to Cloudflare for me was £32/year across 12 domains.
I went with IONOS because of the comparison table below.
Why not Cloudflare
| Spec | IONOS | Cloudflare Registrar |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Cheap (with deal) | Cheapest (at-cost) |
| Email forwarding | Yes | No |
| TLDs supported | 250+ | ~150 |
| DNSSEC | Yes | Yes |
| WHOIS privacy | Yes | Yes |
| Domain transfer in | Easy | Easy |
| Customer support | UK phone | Email only |
Email forwarding is the killer reason. I run hello@ on six of my domains and forward to Gmail. Cloudflare Registrar does not support email forwarding (you have to use Cloudflare Email Routing separately). IONOS has it built into the domain panel.
UK phone support also matters when something goes wrong with a transfer.
What I gave up
The Cloudflare control panel is more polished than IONOS. The IONOS UI feels like 2018. It works but it is not pretty.
DNS propagation on IONOS is slightly slower than on Cloudflare (5-10 minutes versus 2-5 minutes in my testing).
Verdict
If you have one or two domains and want the cheapest, Cloudflare Registrar.
If you have a portfolio and want email forwarding, UK support, and consolidated billing, IONOS is right.
The difference is £32/year. I valued the email forwarding more.
About the data
A note on what the numbers in this post represent so you can read them with the right confidence:
- "My own bench" rows are personal measurements on my own hardware. They are honest about my setup and reproducible there, but they should not be treated as universal benchmark scores.
- Benchmark numbers attributed to public sources (Geekbench Browser, DXOMARK, NotebookCheck, FIA timing) are illustrative, the trend is what matters, not the third decimal place. Cross-check against the source for anything you would act on financially.
- Client outcomes and ROI percentages in business-focused posts are anonymised composites drawn from my own consulting work. Real numbers, real direction, sanitised so individual clients are not identifiable.
- Foldable crease-depth and similar engineering measurements are estimates pulled from teardown reports and reviewer claims; manufacturers do not publish these directly.
- Forecasts and "what I bet" lines are exactly that, opinions, not predictions with a track record yet.
If you spot a number that contradicts a source you trust, tell me, I would rather correct it than be the chart that was off by 6 percent and pretended otherwise.