.CA Domain Pricing 2025: Stop Paying Extra, Here’s What You Actually Need to Know

You’ve been paying extra. You need to stop this leakage right now.

Let that sink in.

Right now, while you’re reading this, domains registered last year are quietly draining bank accounts across Canada. The invoice arrives. CA$24.99. You pause then recall, didn’t you pay CA$5.99 last year?

You did.

That’s the moment most domain owners realize they’ve been hooked. First-year discount. Full-price renewal. Then now you’re locked in because switching feels like work and you already spent CA$25, right?

Except CA$25 this year. Next year. The year after. Five years from now, that bargain CA$5.99 domain has cost you CA$105.95. Meanwhile, someone who chose differently paid CA$61.95 for the exact same thing.

CA$44 gone. Just… gone.

And if you’ve ever missed a CIRA verification email and watched your site disappear overnight, or spent two days waiting for support to unlock your DNS settings, you know the real cost goes beyond money. Time. Energy. The sick feeling when customers email saying your website is down.

This stops here. You’re about to see the exact numbers, the hidden traps, and the one move that ends the cycle. Just the truth about what a .CA domain costs, and how to stop bleeding money every single year.

Why .CA? And Why Do the Numbers Keep Changing?

A .CA extension sends a signal. Because when someone lands on your site, they know you’re Canadian. 

They know you’re local and are here for them, not shipping from overseas or routing support through three time zones.

CIRA, the organization that runs the entire .CA registry, makes sure of that. They restrict .CA domains to:

• Canadians only
•  Citizens
•  Permanent residents
• Registered businesses
• Trademark holders. 

That exclusivity creates trust and pricing pressure.

Here’s what happens behind the scenes.

CIRA sets wholesale fees for registrars. Those fees change. When they rise, registrars pass the cost to you, sometimes openly, often quietly. When they drop, registrars pocket the difference and keep charging you the old rate.

Then there’s the discount trap.

Registrars know most people shop on first-year prices. So they slash it. CA$4.99. CA$5.99. CA$6.99. Looks incredible. You buy. Then twelve months pass and the renewal notice arrives: CA$19.99. CA$24.99. Sometimes more.

You feel tricked. Because you were.

The registrar made their profit on the bet that you won’t switch. They’re counting on inertia. On you thinking, one domain. On you not doing the math.

Time to do the math.

The Three Costs That Control Everything

You’ll hear three terms when buying a .CA domain. They might sound technical but they’re not. They’re just the three moments money leaves your account.

Registration: The Bait

Registration is what you pay the first time you claim a domain. You hand over CA$5.99 or CA$9.99, and the domain is yours for one year.

This is the number registrars advertise. Big fonts. Bright colors. “Limited time offer.”

Bait.

That first-year rate tells you nothing about what you’ll spend. The real cost? That shows up in twelve months.

Renewal: The Hook

Your domain expires after one year. To keep it, you renew. You pay again.

This is where you feel it.

Remember, the CA$5.99 you paid last year? Now it’s going for CA$19.99. Or CA$24.99. The discount is gone. The real price, the price you’ll pay every single year from now on, is staring at you.

Some people pay and move on. Others pay and feel sick. A few get angry enough to switch.

Most just… pay. Year after year. Watching the total rise.

That’s the hook. And once set, registrars know most customers stay put.

Transfer: The Exit Door

Transferring means moving your domain from one registrar to another. You pay the new registrar’s transfer fee, and they take over. You usually get an extra year added to your domain automatically.

This is how you escape.

But here’s the twist: some registrars make transfers easy and cheap while others bury the process in confirmation emails, auth codes, and waiting periods. They’re betting you’ll give up halfway through.

The registrars charging CA$24.99 renewals? They don’t advertise their transfer fees. They don’t want you looking at the exit door.

Now you know what the terms mean. Time to see what they cost, and where your money’s really going.

The Numbers That Speak Volumes: . CA Comparison Pricing Table

Look at this table. Not quickly but slowly because what you’re about to see is where the leakage happens.

See Hostinger? CA$5.99 first year. Looks like the winner, right?

Now look at the renewal column. CA$19.99.

Five-year calculation:

• Year 1: CA$5.99
• Years 2-5: CA$19.99 × 4 = CA$79.96
• Total: CA$85.95

Now Truehost:

• Year 1: CA$9.99
• Years 2-5: CA$12.99 × 4 = CA$51.96
• Total: CA$61.95

You save CA$24 over five years. That’s just the beginning.

See the Privacy included column? Hostinger includes it. GoDaddy doesn’t. So, if you want privacy protection on GoDaddy, and you do, unless you enjoy spam and scam calls add another CA$8-12 per year. 

Now that CA$11.99 first-year deal becomes:

• Year 1: CA$11.99 + CA$10 (privacy) = CA$21.99
• Years 2-5: (CA$24.99 + CA$10) × 4 = CA$139.96
• Total: CA$161.95

That’s CA$100 more than True host. For the same domain. With worse support.

This is the trap. The first-year price blinds you. The renewal bleeds you. The add-ons finish the job.

But there’s more going on here than just price. I mean, what happens when something breaks?

So, What Happens When the Domain Stops Working

11 PM on a Tuesday. You get an email from a customer: Your website is down.

You check. They’re right. The site’s dead. Email bouncing. Everything offline.

You log into your registrar. There’s a notice you missed. CIRA sent a verification email three days ago. You didn’t see it. Your domain is suspended.

Now what?

If you’re with one of the budget registrars:

• Support tickets that take 24-48 hours
• Chat bots that can’t help with CIRA issues
• Phone lines that don’t exist

Your site stays down, customers leave, sales stop, and you lose money waiting for someone to respond.

Now this scenario happens instead:

You call Truehost. A real person answers in minutes. They walk you through CIRA verification and reactivate your domain immediately. Your site is back up in an hour.

That’s the difference between CA$12.99 renewals with real support and CA$5.99 renewals with nobody home.

The cheapest price becomes expensive when your business is offline.

What You Need to Watch For (And What They’re Not Telling You)

The Renewal Ambush

Most registrars auto-renew domains. Sounds convenient. For them. You get charged automatically, often without warning. The invoice appears after the money’s gone. If the card fails, they hit you with recovery fees.

Look for registrars that send reminders before charging. That gives you a grace period. That lets you renew manually if you want control.

The Privacy Trap

Your domain registration is public by default. Name. Address. Phone. Email. Everything.

WHOIS privacy hides that information. Some registrars include it for free. Others charge CA$8-15 per year.

If privacy costs extra, add it to your real annual cost. That CA$14.99 renewal just became CA$24.99.

The Support Black Hole

DNS breaks. Email stops routing. CIRA flags your account. These things happen.

When they do, support speed matters. Live chat beats email tickets. Phone support beats chat. Canadian-based support beats offshore call centers reading scripts.

Test this before you buy. Send a pre-sales question. See how fast they respond. That’s the speed you’ll get when your site is down.

The Bundle Trap

“Get hosting + domain for just CA$4.99/month!”

Sounds great. You’re locked into CA$59.88/year for hosting you don’t need, just to keep the domain discount.

If you don’t need hosting then don’t buy it. Domain-only pricing is cleaner and cheaper long-term.

The CIRA Factor

CIRA updates wholesale prices occasionally. When they do, registrars adjust retail prices. Some do it immediately. Others wait months. A few never pass savings to customers.

This is why prices shift. Why the same domain costs CA$12.99 at one registrar and CA$19.99 at another. They’re all paying roughly the same wholesale rate. The difference is the margin.

The Transfer Freeze

Most registrars lock domains for 60 days after registration or transfer. You can’t move them during that window.

After that? You’re free to go. The transfer includes one extra year at your new registrar’s rate.

Smart buyers check transfer fees before buying. That’s your escape route if things go wrong.

Fun facts about .CA DomainYou Didn’t Know

• January 12, 1988. The same day The Simpsons debuted on TV, Canada registered its first .CA domain: upei.ca.

• Fast forward to 2020: 3 million .CA domains registered. The 12th largest country-code extension globally.

• Since 2013, you can register .CA domains with French accented characters. Café.ca. Québec.ca. Montréal.ca. 

Why Truehost.ca Keeps Winning

CA$9.99 first year. CA$12.99 every year after. Privacy included. DNS tools included. Email forwarding included. No surprise fees.

But here’s what really separates Truehost from everyone else:

When CIRA sends a verification email, Truehost sends you a reminder. They don’t wait for your domain to get suspended or bury  the notice in their dashboard. 

Instead, they email, text or walk you through the process.

When you transfer a domain to Truehost, it happens in hours and not days. Not “5-7 business days pending approval.” Hours. Your existing registration time transfers with you. You don’t lose a day.

 Responses from real people

When something breaks, you call. A real human being attends to you and responds in minutes during business hours. 

Apart from that there is also:

• Available 24/7 for emergencies. 
• No chat bots. 
• No ticket queues. 
• No outsourced call centers reading scripts.

What you see is what you pay

When you check out, the price you see is the price you pay. There are no upsells, “add privacy for just CA$9.99 more” ,or bundled services you don’t need. Clean. Transparent. Done.

Compare that to the registrars offering CA$5.99 first-year pricing:

• Renewals jump to CA$19.99-CA$24.99
• Privacy costs extra
• Email forwarding costs extra
• Support takes days
• Your domain gets suspended while waiting for help

That CA$4 you “saved” in year one becomes CA$50+ lost over five years. Add the hours of frustration, the downtime costs, the customers who couldn’t reach you, and the real price becomes clear.

You’re not saving money. You’re paying more for less.

FAQ’s

Can I register a .CA domain if I’m not Canadian?

No. CIRA requires Canadian presence: citizenship, permanent residence, registered Canadian business, or Canadian trademark. There isn’t workaround, proxy services, or loopholes.

Why do .CA domains cost more than .COM domains?

Exclusivity. CIRA restricts .CA to Canadians only, limiting supply. CIRA invests heavily in security, anti-fraud measures, and infrastructure. Those costs get baked into wholesale pricing.

What happens if I don’t verify with CIRA?

Your domain gets suspended. Website down. Email dead. You get a grace period to verify, but miss it completely and someone else can register your domain. Gone.

Can I transfer my .CA domain anytime?

Almost. Most registrars lock domains for 60-65 days after registration or transfer. After that, you can transfer freely. The transfer includes one year of renewal at your new registrar’s rate.

Is privacy protection really necessary?

Yes. Without it, your home address, personal phone number, and email become public. Expect spam. Scam attempts. Unsolicited sales calls. Not worth saving CA$8/year.

Stop the Leakage. Right Now

You know the numbers now. You’ve seen the traps. You know exactly where your money goes.

First-year discounts that triple on renewal. Privacy protection sold separately. Email forwarding charged as an add-on. Support that disappears when you need it most.

These aren’t accidents. They’re the business model.

Registrars bet on you not calculating the five-year cost. They count on you being too busy to notice the CA$8 privacy charge. They know most people will just pay the renewal and move on.

But you just read this guide. You know the math. You see the game.

The question: can you afford to keep overpaying?

Register your .CA domain with Truehost transparent pricing, no surprises, included privacy protection, and support that shows up when you need it.

Your domain is the foundation of your online presence. Build it on honest pricing and real support.