Approximated alternative in 2026: cheaper to start, and where they win at scale
Approximated and Domainee both list $0.20 per domain per month, both discount to $0.10 at scale, and both charge $0.05/GB for bandwidth overage. Three things differ. Approximated has a $20/mo minimum and a 7-day trial, while Domainee's first 20 domains and 100 GB are free, forever. Approximated includes 400 GB of bandwidth a month before overage starts, against Domainee's 100 GB. And Approximated's volume discount comes off the whole bill, while Domainee's cheaper rates apply only to the domains past each 1,000, so from 1,000 domains up Approximated's domain line is the smaller one.
That makes this an unusual comparison post to write, because the answer flips with size. There's no scary pricing cliff to warn you about, no request cap that punishes a viral day. Below 100 domains Domainee is cheaper, by up to $20 a month. Between 100 and 1,000 domains the domain lines sit within $4 of each other, and bandwidth can tip it either way: at 500 domains, moving to Domainee saves about $4 on domains but costs up to $15 more once traffic passes 100 GB. From 1,000 domains up Approximated is cheaper, and the gap widens: $146 a month at 5,000 domains, $546 at 10,000.
So instead of pretending there's a dramatic gap, this post does the actual arithmetic on where the $20 floor matters, where it stops mattering, and where Approximated's volume discount and bigger bandwidth allowance win. I build Domainee, so read it the way you'd read any vendor writing about a competitor. Every Approximated number below comes from their published pricing, and the section on where they win is real.
Why people search for an Approximated alternative
Three reasons show up consistently:
- The $20/mo minimum starts on day one. Approximated's only free path is a 7-day trial. After that you pay $20 a month whether you have one customer hostname in production or ninety. For a launched SaaS with real revenue, that's nothing. For a side project, a pre-launch product, or a staging environment, it's $240 a year for infrastructure you're barely using.
- The trial is a deadline. Seven days is enough to verify the product works. It's not enough to build your integration, ship the feature, onboard your first customers, and find out what your real domain count looks like. Plenty of people hit day 8 with three domains connected and a card form in front of them.
- No agent surface. Approximated has a solid REST API and nothing on top of it. No MCP server. If you want an AI agent registering hostnames or checking SSL status, you write that glue yourself.
Notice what's not on the list: pricing complaints at scale. Approximated's unit economics are fair, which is exactly why the comparison is worth doing carefully.
What Approximated actually charges
The published numbers:
| Plan | Price | Domains | Bandwidth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trial | $0 for 7 days | Full product, then it expires | Trial use |
| Pay as you go | $20/mo minimum | Covers up to 100, then $0.20/domain | 400 GB included, $0.05/GB after |
| Volume | Whole-bill discount | 5% off per 1,000 domains, up to 50% at 10,000 (1,000 domains: $190) | Same metering |
To their credit, all of it is public. No sales call, no "contact us" tier hiding the real price. The full side-by-side is at /alternatives/approximated.
The break-even math
Domainee's rates: first 20 domains and 100 GB free, then $0.20 per domain per month with graduated discounts down to $0.10, and $0.05/GB past 100 GB. Same list rate and the same overage rate, but Approximated includes 300 GB more bandwidth, and its discount works differently: it takes 5% off the whole bill for every 1,000 domains, where Domainee's cheaper rates apply only to the domains past each 1,000. With traffic under 100 GB a month, the domain line is the whole comparison:
| Your domain count | Approximated | Domainee |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $20 | $0 |
| 25 | $20 | $1 |
| 50 | $20 | $6 |
| 75 | $20 | $11 |
| 100 | $20 | $16 |
| 150 | $30 | $26 |
| 250 | $50 | $46 |
| 500 | $100 | $96 |
| 1,000 | $190 | $196 |
| 2,000 | $360 | $386 |
| 5,000 | $750 | $896 |
| 10,000 | $1,000 | $1,546 |
Three things fall out of that table.
Below 100 domains, and under 100 GB of traffic, Approximated bills you $20 regardless, and Domainee bills you somewhere between nothing and $16. Over a year that's $240 against $0 for an early product still inside the free tier. The early work fits inside 20 free domains: validating the feature, onboarding the first dozen customers, running a staging environment.
Between 100 and 1,000 domains, the domain gap freezes at roughly $4 a month, because Domainee's free 20 stay free while everything past them bills at the same rate Approximated charges. Bandwidth pulls the other way: between 100 GB and 400 GB, Domainee bills $0.05/GB that Approximated doesn't, up to $15 a month, which wipes out the $4 once traffic passes 180 GB. Nobody should migrate infrastructure over a gap that size, in either direction.
From 1,000 domains up, Approximated is cheaper, and not by a rounding error. Their discount comes off the whole bill in 5% steps, so at 1,000 domains every domain drops to $0.19; ours charges $0.19 only from domain 1,001 onward. At 5,000 domains that's $750 against $896, and at 10,000 it's $1,000 against $1,546, before bandwidth, which widens it further. At 1,000 domains and 500 GB, Domainee is $196 + $20 = $216 against Approximated's $190 + $5 = $195.
Which is the honest conclusion of the math: the pricing argument for Domainee is strong before you scale, and at scale Approximated's bill is lower, by a margin that grows with your fleet. If you're choosing a provider today, starting free matters. If you're already big on Approximated, the reasons to look at Domainee are the free tier for your non-production environments, the MCP server, and the Buy-a-Domain API, not the invoice.
If you want to model your own numbers against any provider, the custom domain cost calculator does this arithmetic for you.
Meet Domainee
Domainee is a custom domains API for SaaS with a native MCP server, 20 domains and 100 GB free.
Your user brings their domain, you call one endpoint (or click once in the dashboard), and Domainee returns the CNAME target and handles SSL issuance and renewal from then on, with DNS health monitoring and webhooks on every state change. The domain points at whatever HTTPS origin serves your app.
The side-by-side:
| Approximated | Domainee | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 7-day trial | 20 domains + 100 GB/mo, forever |
| Monthly minimum | $20 | None |
| Per-domain rate | $0.20; 5% off the whole bill per 1,000 domains, to 50% | $0.20; graduated, cheaper rates only past each 1,000, to $0.10 |
| Bandwidth | 400 GB included, $0.05/GB after | 100 GB/mo included, then $0.05/GB |
| REST API | Yes | Yes |
| AI agents | No | MCP server |
| In-app domain sales | No | Buy-a-Domain API, 500+ TLDs, $1 flat fee |
| SSL | Automatic | Let's Encrypt, issued and renewed automatically |
Every number is published at /pricing. The developer experience is Stripe-shaped: Bearer keys, idempotency, HMAC-signed webhooks, and an MCP server so an AI agent can register a customer hostname from a chat session.
Where Approximated is genuinely better
Three honest cases.
If operational track record is your deciding factor, Approximated has years of production mileage across a lot of edge cases, and it shows in their docs. Their framework guides for Phoenix, Laravel, Rails, and Next.js read like they were written by someone who has debugged real customer setups on each stack, because they were.
If you're already running at scale on Approximated, the math above says switching costs you money. Under 1,000 domains it saves at most $4 a month on domains, and past 180 GB of monthly traffic it costs you more, because their 400 GB bandwidth allowance is four times ours. Past 1,000 domains their whole-bill discount makes them cheaper outright. Move for the free tier on secondary environments or the agent tooling, or don't move at all.
And if you build on Phoenix/LiveView specifically, their first-class docs for that stack are the best in this market. Domainee works fine with Phoenix (it's a CNAME and an HTTPS origin, same as any stack), but Approximated has written more words about it.
Switching from Approximated
If the math says move, the migration is deliberately boring:
- Sign up at /sign-up. The free tier covers 20 domains. You add a card with the first one, but it's charged $0 until you pass the free tier.
- Add each hostname via the dashboard or
POST /v1/domains. Domainee returns the CNAME target. - Update the CNAME at the customer's DNS. The record is one line, and you can move hostnames one at a time.
- SSL issues automatically once DNS points at the edge, and monitoring starts on its own.
- Remove the domain from Approximated after the cutover.
The quickstart has the copy-paste version. Both products use standard CNAME-based routing, so there's no proprietary lock-in on either side. One more thing to like about this corner of the market.
FAQ
Is Domainee's pricing really the same as Approximated's? Only between 100 and 1,000 domains, where the domain lines are within $4 of each other. Below 100, Domainee is cheaper: no $20/mo minimum, and 20 domains plus 100 GB free, permanently. From 1,000 up, Approximated is cheaper, because its volume discount comes off the whole bill ($1,000 against $1,546 at 10,000 domains). On bandwidth both charge $0.05/GB, but Approximated includes 400 GB a month and Domainee 100 GB, so heavy traffic costs up to $15 a month more on Domainee.
What happens when Approximated's 7-day trial ends? You subscribe at the $20/mo minimum or your domains stop being served. Domainee's free tier is not a trial: it doesn't expire, and your card is charged $0 until you cross 20 domains or 100 GB.
Can I run both providers during a migration? Yes. Each hostname routes independently via its CNAME, so you can cut over one domain at a time and leave the rest on Approximated until you're done.
Does Domainee support apex domains and wildcards? Yes, both. Apex domains work via A/ALIAS records, and wildcard subdomains are included without tier gating.
What to do next
If the $20 floor is the reason you searched "Approximated alternative": start on the free tier and see how far 20 domains gets you. For a new product, that's enough to validate the feature with real customers before the bill starts. If you're still comparing the whole field, the full roundup is at /blog/best-custom-domain-apis, the provider list is at /alternatives, and the same treatment of Entri's, CoAlias's, SaaS Custom Domains', and SaaSKevin's pricing is at /blog/entri-alternative-2026, /blog/coalias-alternatives-2026, /blog/saas-custom-domains-alternatives-2026, and /blog/saaskevin-alternatives-2026.