If you have been building software or managing websites for more than a couple of years, you almost certainly own domains across multiple registrars. It starts innocently enough. You moved your personal domains to Cloudflare for at-cost renewals. A client registered their domain on GoDaddy before you got involved. Your agency has a batch of older domains on Namecheap from before Cloudflare offered registration. A co-founder bought a speculative domain on Porkbun because it was cheapest there.
Before long, you are managing domains across three, four, or five registrar accounts. Each has its own dashboard, its own credentials, its own renewal cycle, and its own way of handling DNS. None of them talk to each other. And that is where the problems start.
The problems with multi-registrar management
The most obvious issue is scattered renewal dates. When your domains are spread across four registrars, there is no single calendar view of what is expiring when. Renewal notifications go to whichever email address you used when you created each account, which might be a personal address you no longer check, a former colleague's inbox, or a shared mailbox that nobody monitors closely.
DNS management becomes inconsistent too. Some registrars have excellent DNS interfaces. Others make you squint at a cluttered table of records with no search or filtering. When you need to update a TXT record for email verification or add a CNAME for a new service, you first have to remember which registrar hosts that domain and then navigate to the right dashboard.
Credential sprawl is another quiet risk. Each registrar account is a potential attack surface. If any one of them is compromised, the attacker can modify DNS records, redirect traffic, or transfer domains away. Managing security across multiple accounts, each with its own password and two-factor authentication setup, is tedious but essential.
Finally, there is no single view of costs. You cannot easily answer the question "how much are we spending on domain renewals this year?" without logging into each registrar and adding up the numbers. For agencies billing clients for renewals, this makes accurate invoicing unnecessarily difficult.
Option 1: The spreadsheet approach
The first solution most people reach for is a spreadsheet. You create columns for domain name, registrar, expiry date, auto-renewal status, associated project, and maybe a notes field. You fill it in manually by visiting each registrar dashboard. For a while, it works.
The problem is maintenance. Spreadsheets go stale the moment you stop updating them. A new domain gets registered and nobody adds it. An expiry date passes and the spreadsheet still shows last year's renewal date. DNS changes happen and the spreadsheet knows nothing about them. There are no automated alerts, no live DNS visibility, and no access controls. Anyone with the file can edit it, and there is no audit trail.
Spreadsheets are better than nothing, but they break exactly when you need them most: when a domain is about to expire and nobody has looked at the sheet in months.
Option 2: Self-hosted tools
For those who prefer to run their own infrastructure, DomainMOD is the most established open-source option. It gives you a web-based dashboard for tracking domains, registrars, DNS servers, and associated costs. It is free, the code is available for audit, and you control the data.
The trade-offs are real, though. DomainMOD requires a PHP and MySQL environment, which means provisioning a server, keeping it updated, and managing backups. Domain data is entered manually rather than synced via API, so you are still responsible for keeping records current. There is no email security analysis, no automated DNS record syncing, and no team-based role access control. For a solo developer managing a handful of domains, self-hosting can work. For a team managing dozens or hundreds of domains, the maintenance burden tends to outweigh the cost savings.
Option 3: SaaS domain management
A purpose-built SaaS tool takes a different approach. Instead of requiring you to enter data manually, it connects to your registrar accounts via API and pulls in every domain, expiry date, and DNS record automatically. Changes at the registrar are detected on the next sync cycle rather than whenever someone remembers to update a spreadsheet.
The practical advantages are significant. You get a single view across every registrar account with consistent formatting. Expiry alerts go to your current email address and can be configured with your preferred lead times. DNS records are viewable in a unified interface regardless of which registrar hosts the domain. Email security records like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC can be analysed across your entire portfolio. Cost tracking and team access controls come built in rather than bolted on.
The trade-off is cost and vendor dependency. You are paying a subscription and trusting a third party with read-only access to your registrar accounts. For most teams, this is a reasonable exchange for the time saved and the risk reduced.
What to look for in a domain management tool
If you decide to move beyond spreadsheets, there are a few capabilities worth prioritising.
API-based sync
Any tool that requires you to manually enter domain data is just a fancier spreadsheet. Look for direct integrations with your registrars that pull data automatically and keep it current. The sync should cover domain names, expiry dates, auto-renewal status, nameservers, and DNS records.
Multi-registrar support
The whole point is unifying a fragmented portfolio. If the tool only supports one or two registrars, you are still logging into other dashboards for the rest. Check that your specific registrars are supported before committing.
Configurable alerts
A generic "your domain expires in 30 days" email is a start, but not all domains are equally important. Look for the ability to set different alert schedules for different domains and to direct notifications to the right people on your team.
Team access controls
If multiple people need visibility into your domain portfolio, you need proper access controls. Not everyone should be able to add or remove registrar connections. Role-based access lets you give developers read access to DNS records while restricting connection management to administrators.
Cost tracking
Being able to see your total renewal costs across all registrars, broken down by domain, registrar, or tag, turns domain management from a maintenance chore into a controllable line item in your budget.
Bringing it together
Managing domains across multiple registrars is not a problem you can solve with discipline alone. The number of accounts, the inconsistency between platforms, and the long intervals between renewals mean that something will eventually slip through a manual process. The question is whether you catch it before or after a domain lapses.
Tidy Names is one option that covers the workflow described here. It connects to registrar accounts via API, syncs domains and DNS records automatically, provides configurable expiry alerts, and gives teams a shared view of their entire portfolio. If you are currently relying on memory or a spreadsheet, it is worth a look.
Stay up to date
Get new posts on domain management, registrar tips, and product updates delivered to your inbox.
No spam. Unsubscribe at any time.