Ninety-nine dollars buys a dropping .io or .co if you are the only one who wants it. If anyone else backordered it too, that $99 is just where the bidding starts. And Park.io never tells you whether the old links are worth anything.
ccTLD auctions
Closes 12:40 ETMasked names and prices from the public board on October 9, 2026.
The short answer
Park.io is a legitimate backorder service for country-code domains like .io, .co, .me and .sh. A backorder costs $99, charged only if Park.io catches the name, with the first registration term included. When two or more people backorder the same name it goes to an auction among them that opens at $99, closes at 12:40 p.m. Eastern and extends by an hour after any late bid. It does not cover .com and it does not vet backlinks, so the SEO check stays with you.
No drop date to wait for and no auction among strangers. These checked listings show Domain Rating, referring domains, age and a fixed price. The name is masked until you open an account.
| Domain | DR | Backlinks | Ref. domains | Age | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
cus*****nce.io
Technology
|
51 | 214 | 164 | 12 years | $1,800 |
|
por*****hub.io
Premium SEO domain
|
42 | 626 | 228 | 7 years | $2,400 |
Park.io does one job that the big .com drop catchers mostly ignore. It watches country-code registries such as .io, .co, .me, .gg, .sh and .ly, and tries to register a name the moment it is deleted. Startups have used those extensions for years, so a lot of short, brandable names with a product history behind them come back on the market through exactly this route.
The pricing is simple. You place a backorder, Park.io tries to register the name when it drops, and your card is charged $99 only if it succeeds. Registration for the first term is part of that price. On some registries that run their own premium pricing, Park.io lets you set a maximum price instead, because the registry holds the name at a reserve that falls day by day until someone pays it.
What Park.io does not do matters just as much for an SEO buyer. It has no .com backorders, no backlink metrics and no history check. If you want a .com with links, the routes are the .com catchers in our domain backorder service comparison, such as the $59 backorder covered in the DropCatch review.
Read from Park.io's home, pricing and support pages in October 2026. The right-hand column is what each rule means when you are the one paying.
| Rule | Park.io | What it means for a buyer |
|---|---|---|
| Backorder price | $99 per domain | Charged only if Park.io registers the name for you and nobody else backordered it. |
| Extensions covered | .io, .co, .us, .to, .gg, .ly, .vc, .me, .sh, .bz, .ag, .sc, .ac, .lc, .je, .mn, .pro, .info, .red | Mostly country codes. No .com backorders; the .com names you see come from partner auctions. |
| Two or more backorders | Auction among the backorder holders, opening at $99 | The $99 becomes a starting bid, not a price. |
| Auction end | 12:40 p.m. Eastern, plus 1 hour after any late bid | A bid in the final hour moves the close to one hour after it. Sniping does not work. |
| Hot auctions | Partner names with a 5-minute extension | Faster and more crowded. This is where the expensive .com names sit. |
| Bids | Proxy bidding, every bid is binding | You cannot cancel a bid. Enter a ceiling you would honestly pay. |
| Cancel a backorder | Delete it before the drop date | Free to change your mind until the name drops. |
| What the price includes | Registration for the first term | Renewal from the next term at the price shown on your order page. |
| Getting the auth code | Instant for established users, 2 weeks for new users | Some registries add a 60-day transfer hold after registration. |
| Refund of account credit | Possible, minus a 10% fee | Fund only what you plan to spend. |
We counted the public auction board on October 9, 2026. One day is a snapshot, not a trend, but it shows how most contested country-code names end up.
Country-code auctions on the board
26
23 of them at $99 to $102. The top three at $185 and $205.
Partner .com auctions
12
From $99 to $1,775, with a transfer fee of about $10 shown on top.
Typical length
About 12 days
One live .io auction opened on September 28 and closes on October 10.
Most country-code auctions on Park.io are two people who happened to backorder the same name, and they close at or near the $99 floor. The few that climb are short or dictionary names on .io and .sh. The expensive end of the board is the partner .com inventory, where one name sat at $1,775 with days still left, and those close on a 5-minute extension instead of an hour.
So for a ccTLD the realistic budget is $99 to a few hundred dollars plus renewal. The real cost is the research, because a cheap price on a name with spammy links is still a bad buy. Our checked listings right now are priced from $1,800 to $2,400 with Ahrefs DR from 42 to 51, each one comes with its backlink report, and the price on the listing is the whole price.
Google treats .io, .co, .me and a handful of other country codes as generic, so a .io site is not stuck ranking only in one country. That is why expired .io names with real links can work for SEO and why they get backordered.
There is one extra risk worth knowing. In 2024 the UK agreed to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, the territory behind .io, to Mauritius, which set off public debate about the extension's long-term future. As of October 2026 .io keeps working and keeps being sold, but if you are buying a name to hold for ten years, a .com carries less of that uncertainty.
Before you backorder a .io for its links
That last check is the one people skip. A caught .io that matches a funded company's name is a dispute waiting to happen, and an attorney with good AI legal research software can tell you in an hour whether the name is safe to build on.
Good fit
If the name is the point and you can wait for the drop, $99 is the cheapest way to get a country-code name back, and most contested ones still close near the floor.
Fit with care
An expired .io with a clean startup history can be a strong base. You do all the vetting, and a new account waits two weeks for the transfer code.
Look elsewhere
Park.io cannot backorder it. It is faster to buy expired domains with the metrics and the price already on the listing.
If you are comparing every place that sells dropped names at auction, our expired domain auction sites page puts GoDaddy, Namecheap, Dynadot, DropCatch, NameJet and Sedo side by side, and the Dynadot backorder review covers the cheapest .com backorder at $24.99. Members of our marketplace who just want to buy SEO domains pay $24.50/mo billed yearly or $49/mo and see every checked name.
Check links, history and trademarks first. Deleting a backorder is free only until the drop date.
Only backorder holders can bid if the name goes to auction, so a late order shuts you out.
Bids are binding and proxy based. Enter the most the name is worth to you, once.
New accounts wait 2 weeks for the auth code and some registries hold names for 60 days. Point nameservers meanwhile.
Yes. Park.io is a long-running backorder and auction service for country-code domains such as .io, .co and .me, operated by humbly, LLC. Its rules on pricing, auctions, transfers and refunds are published on its support page, your card is charged only when it registers a name for you, and its live auction board shows names closing at $99 every day.
Park.io charges $99 per backordered domain, and only if it secures the name for you. Registration for the first term is included, so there is no separate registry fee on top. If another customer backordered the same name, the $99 becomes the opening bid of an auction and the final price is whatever the highest bid reaches.
When two or more customers backorder the same domain and Park.io catches it, the name goes to an auction open only to those backorder holders, opening at $99. Bidding is proxy based, auctions close at 12:40 p.m. Eastern, and any bid in the final hour pushes the close to one hour after that bid. Every bid is a binding contract.
No. Park.io backorders country-code and a few other extensions such as .io, .co, .me, .sh, .pro and .info. The .com names on its auction board are hot auctions sourced from partners, with a 5-minute extension instead of one hour and a transfer fee added on the auction page. For an expiring .com you need a .com drop catcher.
Established users get the transfer authorization code right away from the order page. New users wait 2 weeks, which Park.io says prevents payment fraud. Separately, some registries block transfers for 60 days after a new registration, so a freshly caught name can be stuck for up to two months, although you can update the nameservers and build in the meantime.
It can be, but nothing on Park.io tells you. The service catches and auctions names; it shows no backlink data and makes no claim about history or spam. Whether a caught .io carries useful links depends entirely on its past, so pull referring domains, anchor text and Wayback snapshots yourself before you place a backorder.
Clear pricing, a charge only on success and auctions that mostly close near $99. For a founder who wants a short .io or .co, Park.io is the obvious first stop. For an SEO buyer it sells the catch, not the proof that the links are worth having, and it cannot help with .com at all. Read where to buy expired domains for every route side by side, or start with names that are already checked.