dotsweep vs GoDaddy Domains API
A registrar's own availability endpoint, returning whether the name is free and what that registrar will charge for the first term.
| dotsweep | GoDaddy Domains API | |
|---|---|---|
| No key | YesNo key, no account, no signup. curl https://dotsweep.com/check/example.com works from a cold start. |
PartlyThe REST availability endpoint needs a GoDaddy account and an API key. Their MCP server is the exception and they say so: "No GoDaddy account or API credential is required." So the same availability data is key-gated over HTTP and open over MCP. |
| Admits doubt | YesA registry that is throttled, timed out or publishes no RDAP resolves to estimated, never available. A 429 from one registry does not become a confident answer about another one on the same host. |
Not documentedThe documented response carries domain, available and prices. We found no field for a registry that could not be reached, and we did not test it. |
| Renewal + term | YesRegistration and renewal are separate figures, a first-year discount is flagged as a promotion, and an extension the registry sells only in multi-year terms is multiplied out so the leading number is what leaves your account. | PartlyThe availability response carries prices with a term, a period and a currency, so the registration figure is there. Renewals "remain on the v1 API", so the renewal is not in the availability answer. |
| Eligibility | Partly38 extensions have had their registry policy read, 33 of them with an eligibility rule, each citing the registry's own page and the date it was read. An extension that is not in that set asserts nothing. | Not documentedNot documented on the page we read. |
| Free tier | Yes120 requests a minute, counted as requests rather than domains, and a batch endpoint carrying 10 domains each. No daily or monthly ceiling and no credit balance, so the rate is the whole quota. Edge cache hits are not counted at all. | Not documentedNot stated on the page we read. |
| Assistant-ready | YesA remote MCP server at /mcp over the same handlers, addable as one URL with no account and no key, plus /llms.txt so an assistant that only fetches can still call it. |
YesA remote MCP server at https://api.godaddy.com/v1/domains/mcp over streamable HTTP, addable as one URL with no account and no credential. It is read-only, searches and checks availability, and their documentation says it does not return prices. |
Where GoDaddy Domains API is the better choice
Written first because a comparison written by one of the two products is worth nothing if it cannot say this.
- The price comes from a registrar that will actually sell you the name, so the quote and the checkout cannot disagree. Ours comes from a wholesale feed.
- Availability, price and purchase happen through one vendor and one account.
- If you are already a GoDaddy customer there is nothing new to integrate.
- A remote MCP server that needs no account and no credential, which is the same position we occupy on the one column we expected to hold alone, from a registrar with a name a buyer already trusts.
Where dotsweep is different
- No key, no account, no signup.
curl https://dotsweep.com/check/example.comworks from a cold start. - A registry that is throttled, timed out or publishes no RDAP resolves to
estimated, neveravailable. A 429 from one registry does not become a confident answer about another one on the same host. - Registration and renewal are separate figures, a first-year discount is flagged as a promotion, and an extension the registry sells only in multi-year terms is multiplied out so the leading number is what leaves your account.
- 38 extensions have had their registry policy read, 33 of them with an eligibility rule, each citing the registry's own page and the date it was read. An extension that is not in that set asserts nothing.
- A remote MCP server at
/mcpover the same handlers, addable as one URL with no account and no key, plus/llms.txtso an assistant that only fetches can still call it.
The unconfirmed-rather-than-available rule is the one worth explaining,
because it is the only wrong answer in this category that costs somebody money.
A registry that is rate-limiting you often phrases the refusal in words a parser
reads as "no such domain", so the naive result of a throttled lookup is a
confident "available" for a name somebody already owns. dotsweep asserts this in
its test suite in both engines, and marks the answer estimated
instead.
Is dotsweep better than GoDaddy Domains API?
Not at everything, and not for every job. GoDaddy Domains API does this better: The price comes from a registrar that will actually sell you the name, so the quote and the checkout cannot disagree. Ours comes from a wholesale feed. dotsweep answers a different question: it needs no key or account, it returns the renewal price and the minimum term rather than the advertised first-year figure, it says who is allowed to register the extension, and it reports a throttled or unreachable registry as unconfirmed rather than available.
What GoDaddy Domains API documents
- https://developer.godaddy.com/doc/endpoint/domains, read 2026-07-30
- https://developer.godaddy.com/en/docs/api-users/mcp, read 2026-07-31
How we know this, and what we did not do
Every claim about another product here was read from that vendor's own documentation, and each one is listed with the page and the date it was read. No figure comes from a review, a listicle or another comparison.
We did not benchmark any of these services. Nothing on this page reports a measurement, and where a row says "not documented" it means their documentation did not answer the question and we did not test it. It is not a quiet way of saying no. Getting that distinction wrong is how the rest of a comparison table stops being worth reading, and it is the same rule the rest of this site follows about extensions whose registry policy nobody has read.
If something here is out of date or wrong, the date next to it is there so you can tell which, and support@dotsweep.com reaches a person.
The one claim here that is measured rather than cited
Every row above comes from a vendor's own documentation. One thing does not, because no vendor documents it: what a checker concludes when the registry refuses to answer. That is testable, and the test is published with its method and a way to run it against your own — including why the obvious version of the experiment, waiting for a real rate limit and asking everyone at once, cannot work.
Check a name without signing up for anything
curl https://dotsweep.com/check/example.com