Automating Bulk Domain Registration with Route 53

Registering domains one by one through the AWS Console is tedious — especially when you're managing multiple clients across different AWS accounts. To solve this, I built a Bash script that automates the entire process: checking availability, validating pricing, and registering domains in bulk via the Route 53 Domains API.

What the script does

The Route 53 Express Domain Buyer iterates through a list of desired domain name variants, checks their availability, validates the registration price against a configurable cap, and optionally registers the first affordable available variant for each entry — all from the command line.

How to use it

bash
./express-buyer.sh            # Dry-run — checks and logs, no purchases
./express-buyer.sh --execute  # Live run — registers domains for real

Always run a dry-run first to verify what the script intends to register before committing to any purchases.

Configuration

Before running the script, edit the following variables at the top of the file:

• MAX_PRICE — maximum registration price in USD (default 15)
• PAUSE — seconds to sleep between API calls, to avoid throttling (default 1)
• CONTACT_JSON — registrant contact details sent to Route 53
• DOMAINS — pipe-delimited rows of domain name variants to try

Contact details — update this block with the real registrant information:

json
CONTACT_JSON='{
  "FirstName": "Michael",
  "LastName": "Jackson",
  "ContactType": "COMPANY",
  "OrganizationName": "Amazon Web Services",
  "AddressLine1": "123 Cloud St",
  "City": "Seattle",
  "CountryCode": "US",
  "ZipCode": "98101",
  "PhoneNumber": "+1.2065551234",
  "Email": "michael.jackson@amazon.com"
}'

Domain list — each row follows the format "row|name1|name2|name3". The script tries each name variant with .com first, then .org, and stops as soon as it finds one that is available and within the price cap:

bash
declare -a DOMAINS=(
  "1|google|googlehub|googleng"
  "2|facebook|facebookhub|facebookng"
  "3|amazon|amazonhub|amazonng"
)

What happens at runtime

For each row in the domains list, the script:

• Checks domain availability via route53domains:CheckDomainAvailability
• Looks up the registration price via route53domains:ListPrices
• Skips any domain priced above MAX_PRICE
• In dry-run mode, logs what it would register
• In execute mode, calls route53domains:RegisterDomain with privacy protection enabled on all three contact types (admin, registrant, tech)

Duplicate domain entries are detected and skipped automatically.

Output files

• domain-bought.txt — full timestamped log and structured result lines for every domain processed
• domain-errors.txt — errors only: API failures, unsupported TLDs, registration failures

Result lines in domain-bought.txt follow a structured format, making them easy to parse or pipe into other tools:

text
REGISTERED|1|google.com|$12.00|op-xxxxxxxx
DRY_RUN|2|facebookhub.org|$9.99|-
ERROR|3|amazon|all_variants_failed|-

Sample output

text
================================================
 Route53 Domain Registration
 Mode    : DRY-RUN
 Max     : $15
 Started : 2025-01-15 10:32:01
================================================
[Row 1] Trying: google / googlehub / googleng
  [.com] unavailable (registered)
  [.org] unavailable (registered)
  [.com] unavailable (registered)
  [.org] AVAILABLE @ $9.99 ✓
  >>> [DRY-RUN] Would register: googlehub.org @ $9.99
[Row 2] Trying: facebook / facebookhub / facebookng
  [.com] unavailable (registered)
  [.org] available @ $18.00 — over $15 limit
  [.com] AVAILABLE @ $12.00 ✓
  >>> [DRY-RUN] Would register: facebookhub.com @ $12.00
================================================
 Done         : 2025-01-15 10:32:14
 Registered   : 0
 Failed       : 0
 Dupes skipped: 0
 Log file     : domain-bought.txt
 Error log    : domain-errors.txt
================================================

Prerequisites

Before running the script, ensure you have:

• AWS CLI installed and configured
• An IAM user or role with route53domains:CheckDomainAvailability, route53domains:ListPrices, and route53domains:RegisterDomain permissions

Domain registration costs are charged directly to the AWS account and cannot be easily reversed. Always validate with a dry-run before executing.

Conclusion

What would otherwise require manually checking availability, comparing prices, and filling out registration forms for dozens of domains one at a time is reduced to a single command. The script handles the logic, respects your budget cap, and gives you a clean audit trail of everything it did.