When AI companion Friend founder Ari Schiffman splashed $1M on the elite domain Friend.com, it got people talking. Could Schiffman justify the expenditure at such an early stage for his startup? He thought so, stating “I view this as saving money. Much less money needs to be spent on marketing, it’s a one-time thing.”
While you don’t need to spend a seven-figure sum on a domain name, it’s important to recognise that a strong domain is an early investment — one that lowers long-term costs and provides serious returns. Your domain name determines how customers find you, whether or not they trust you, and impacts key metrics like the cost of customer acquisition and customer lifetime value.
If you want a domain name that provides a real return on investment, you have to follow the data. Let’s find out how brands and businesses should choose a domain name in 2025.
Domain Extension
Domains are essentially constructed of two parts: a memorable ‘name’ portion, like ‘ApolloTechnical’ and an extension, also known as a top-level domain or TLD such as .com.
.com is our go-to example of a domain extension: making up 44% of all websites, it is by far the most recognizable of TLDs and consequently we found it was viewed as the #1 most credible extension for brand websites, by consumers and investors alike.
However, as the gold standard of domain extensions, .coms are in high demand and short supply. When paired with single English words or short brandable business names, .com domains can cost anything from five to seven figures. This exclusivity has driven the uptake of a small selection of alternative extensions whose credibility is increasingly proven through wider use.
When choosing an alternative extension for your brand, you must ensure audience recognition and familiarity, without which your customers won’t trust (or even remember) your website. 76% of surveyed consumers said that familiarity with a domain extension improves their trust in that brand.
What’s more, there is significant variance across target markets. For example, tech-savvy audiences are twice as likely to recognize .ai and .io domains (89% and 77% respectively) compared with the average consumer (40%).
Alternatives to .com in 2025
Variance in audience familiarity means that alternative extensions are often industry-specific. The top options in 2025 are:
- .net — not industry-specific, but seen as somewhat old-fashioned now. As seen in: International e-sim brand Maya.net.
- .co — growing in popularity as an alternative to .com, and recognized by 51% of consumers as of 2025. As seen in: ‘Big-Three’ dating app Hinge.co.
- .org — best suited for charities and nonprofits, and is familiar for 81% of consumers. As seen in: Oxfam.org
- .ai — software and services founded on AI. Currently experiencing a surge in popularity, but don’t mislead your customers if your integration of AI is merely superficial. As seen in: Chatbot service Character.ai
- .io — I/O stands for input/output, making this extension best suited to tech startups, SAAS, etc. As seen in: website builder gohugo.io.
Your choice of, or range of options in, domain extension will limit the types of names you can select, based on affordability and availability. Short, exact match .com domains will be expensive or already owned by a thriving brand. You can’t consider your domain extension without also considering your domain name and, as a result, your business name.
Choosing Your Domain Name
The ‘name’ portion of your domain name is what customers must recall and type into the address bar of browsers to access your website. For this reason, the closer a match to your business name the better as this will improve recall and reassure customers that they’ve landed on your legitimate site.
An exact-match domain — a domain name that is identical to your business name — is best and 77% of consumers say it’s important for a brand to own its exact-match domain. This should be every new business’s first ambition, but very short and strong business names, such as single English words, are hard to match to .com extensions, hence why brands such as Hinge (.co) and Character (.ai) have opted for alternative domains with powerful one-word names.
The alternative to an exact-match domain is to include an add-on word in your domain name, such as gobrand.com, trybrand.com or shopbrand.com. An add-on word retains brand identity and makes a stronger domain name more accessible and affordable, but at the cost of memorability and credibility: the presence of an add-on word in a domain name lessens trust for 78% of customers.
Choosing a business name before you’ve explored your options for a domain name is a recipe for disaster or, at best, a compromised domain name that your customers struggle to remember and trust. Brainstorm a long list of potential business names and integrate domain name considerations when validating a name for use.
In today’s virtual world, where almost 30% of business takes place online, your digital identity plays a huge role in brand building. Whether you opt for an exact match or add-on, .com or alternative extension, is up to you, but make it a strategic choice that balances budget and brand ambition rather than a last-minute compromise.
Further Considerations for Domain Name
Many factors affect the strength of a domain name. Here’s what else you should consider when choosing your domain.
- Shorter domains tend to be stronger, and the popularity of a website correlates to domain length. The average domain in the top 100 websites has 6 characters, while in the top 10,000, it has 8. Aim for under 13 or 14 characters, and longer domains should pair strong, synergistic words.
- Stick to the ABCs: Both numbers and hyphens harm customer trust in domain names. We found that more than one in three customers say they trust websites less when there is a hyphen in the name.
- Customers need to be able to spell, remember and share your domain name. Make sure it’s easy to spell and pronounce.
- Compound names, such as HubSpot.com and Mailchimp.com, and creative but coherent misspellings such as Tumblr.com can help you find short and available domain names.
- Single-English word domains are the gold standard for new startups. 73% of investors say that a single-English-word domain helps significantly or is a major factor in securing funding.
A data-driven combination of creativity and strategy will lead you to the perfect name.
A Piece of Premium Online Real Estate
Domain names are virtual real estate, and your choice of domain is no less important than the location of a physical store. Will customers trust your brand down the back alley of a sketchy alternative domain name? Will they remember where to find you with the addition of multiple add-on words?
Like real estate, a strong domain name is almost always a good investment. Not only does it add substantial value to your brand — and boost your chances of getting funding — but brandable domains with elite extensions hold their value, and can often be sold on without a loss down the line.
Make domain name a core consideration of your business naming strategy and think long-term about your brand identity. Your domain name is your online platform and a foundation for digital growth.
