Best Domain Extensions for Designers, Studios and Portfolios
14 extensions considered, 14 with a verified renewal price fetched from the registrar's own pricing page. Sorted by renewal, because that is what you pay every year after the first.
For a portfolio or a creative practice, the extension is part of the work, and the descriptive namespaces genuinely earn their place here in a way they do not for a general business. A studio name plus .studio, a designer plus .design, a photographer plus .photography all read as intentional rather than as a compromise. The practical constraint is cost: several of the most attractive creative extensions renew well above the generic tier, and a portfolio site is exactly the kind of project that quietly runs for a decade. Choose on renewal price, then on how the name sounds when you say it out loud.
Safe default: .studio
Verified renewal prices in this category
| Extension | Cheapest verified renewal | At | First year | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| .pictures | $12.87 |  Porkbun | $8.24 | 2026-08-19 |
| .graphics | $19.05 | Porkbun | $19.05 | 2026-08-19 |
| .art | $21.11 | Porkbun | $3.60 | 2026-08-19 |
| .gallery | $23.17 | Porkbun | $23.17 | 2026-08-19 |
| .photos | $24.20 | Porkbun | $8.24 | 2026-08-19 |
| .photo | $26.26 | Porkbun | $26.26 | 2026-08-19 |
| .ink | $26.26 | Porkbun | $2.06 | 2026-08-19 |
| .fashion | $26.26 | Porkbun | $26.26 | 2026-08-19 |
| .photography | $29.35 | Porkbun | $5.66 | 2026-08-19 |
| .style | $31.41 | Porkbun | $7.21 | 2026-08-19 |
| .studio | $32.44 | Porkbun | $11.84 | 2026-08-19 |
| .productions | $32.44 | Porkbun | $8.24 | 2026-08-19 |
| .media | $36.56 | Porkbun | $4.63 | 2026-08-19 |
| .design | $46.86 | Porkbun | $10.81 | 2026-08-19 |
Cheapest verified renewal across the registrars we price-verify, fetched from each registrar's own pricing page on the date shown. Sample and unverified prices are excluded from this table entirely. See the methodology.
Descriptive works here because the audience is not typing blind
The usual argument against a non-.com extension is that customers will mistype it. Creative work is mostly discovered through a link, a portfolio platform, a business card or a referral, not through someone guessing a URL. That changes the calculus: the recognition premium you pay for .com buys you less here, and the descriptive extension does more.
The cost profile is different from the tech tier
Several creative extensions sit in a genuinely premium band. That is a registry pricing decision, not a quality difference. Because a portfolio outlives most companies, model the ten-year cost rather than the first year before committing. The cost calculator on this site does that arithmetic against verified prices.
Where the name matters more than the extension
A clean personal name on a mid-tier extension beats a clever construction on a premium one almost every time. The strongest portfolio domains are usually the practitioner's own name plus something plain. Reach for the more expressive extensions when the studio has a brand name worth reinforcing, not when you are trying to rescue an unavailable one.