Buy Your Domain

Picking a .co.uk vs .com, where to buy it, what to budget, and the WHOIS / security basics to set up the moment it’s yours.

Updated 14 May 20265 min read

You can launch on a free your-brand.turboit.uk subdomain, useful for shipping the same day. For anything you want to take seriously (ads, partnerships, longevity), you’ll want your own domain. This page is the non-technical walkthrough.

Choose a domain that ages well

.co.uk: strongly preferred for UK-focused raffle sites. Customers trust it more than .com for a UK business; Cashflows treat it as a positive signal.
.com is fine but unnecessary for a UK-only operation. If your favourite .com is free, take it; otherwise .co.uk is the right call.
.uk works but conveys nothing extra. Skip unless your .co.uk is taken.
Avoid hyphens, numbers, and weird TLDs; raffles-uk-2024.win is fundamentally untrustworthy looking. Customers screenshot the URL bar in trust-test moments.

Naming tips:

Pick something short, pronounceable, and memorable. Two-syllable made-up words (e.g. “Stardust”, “Velora”) age better than literal phrases (“DailyUKWinners”).
Don’t put “raffles” or “competition” in the name unless you’re committed to that being your permanent identity. Pivoting to a generic prize-draw brand later is easier from a non-literal name.
Check Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok handles before buying: a domain you can’t match on social is a permanent marketing tax.

Where to buy

Cloudflare Registrar offers at-cost pricing, no markup, and comes with the cleanest DNS UI. Highly recommended. cloudflare.com/products/registrar.
Namecheap has a friendly UI, fair pricing, decent support. The mass-market default.
GoDaddy is the biggest brand, but constant upsell spam during checkout and renewals more expensive than first year. Workable; not recommended.
Google Domainswas discontinued in 2024 and migrated to Squarespace. Don’t start here.

Whichever you pick, take WHOIS privacy (free at Cloudflare, cheap at Namecheap). Otherwise your home address ends up in public WHOIS lookups.

What you’ll pay

.co.uk costs £8–£12/year in the first year, similar at renewal. Cloudflare comes in around £8.
.com runs £10–£15/year, with Cloudflare around £9.
Bigger registrars often offer a £0.99 first year with a £15+ renewal; eyes open on the renewal price.

After you’ve bought it

Set the WHOIS contact email to a mailbox you actually monitor. Domain expiry warnings go here, and a missed one is a launched site going dark for a week.
Enable two-factor auth on your registrar account. Domain hijacking is a real attack vector for any site with revenue.
Move on to Connect Your Custom Domain(that’s where the DNS records go).

Don’t buy multiple domains until you have one working

New operators often buy 3–4 variants (.com, .co, .shop, the hyphenated version) on day 1. Most never get used. Buy the one you’ll actually run; come back for protective variants once you have revenue to protect.