Which domain registrars include free WHOIS privacy?

Namecheap has included it free for as long as I can remember, at least on .com/.net/.org. I've never seen a separate line item for it. That said I stopped assuming—check the cart before you pay, because it varies by TLD.

Porkbun. Registration price in the cart equals the renewal price, privacy included, and they don't upsell you on five things at checkout. Boring in the best way.

Careful with the "free privacy" thing—at some registrars it's free because they're the ones acting as registrant proxy, so you're renting a layer of separation they control. Read the fine print on what happens to your listing if you ever transfer out or the service changes. Cheap isn't the only axis.

Cloudflare doesn't offer WHOIS privacy as a product because they redact it themselves on the domains they register. Doesn't help if you need to transfer later, but as a registrar they do the redaction by default. Worth a mention since it's confusing.

halfpinthero that's actually the kind of nuance I was after. So with Cloudflare it's not a toggle, it's just their default? Does anything show up at all in the public record beyond the registrar?

Pretty much. Registrar, dates, name servers. Your name and address are redacted unless the registry/ICANN process forces disclosure. But again, that's their policy, not a slider you control

i've used Dynadot for a while and the privacy has been free on the gTLDs I own. Small caveat: they have a separate product for some ccTLDs where it costs money, so "free" really depends on the extension. Nothing is universal.

This. Everyone keeps asking "which registrar" when the real answer is "which registrar for which TLD." .com and .net are the easy ones. Try that with certain ccTLDs and the privacy either doesn't exist or you're paying yearly for it.

Also don't forget the privacy is only as good as the contact email you give. Half these "leaks" people post about are just an old address from years ago that nobody scrubbed. The registrar can redact all it wants.

FWIW Gandi used to include it on some TLDs and now charges on others. I moved most of my stuff off them, not because of privacy specifically, but the price creep made the whole thing annoying. YMMV.

Does anyone actually trust the free privacy as a real privacy layer, or is it more damage control for the obvious stuff? Genuinely asking, because I've always treated it as the minimum, not the finish line ngl.