Free instant check · No signup
Is my business name taken?
Brand Cleared’s free name checker runs an instant availability check on any business or brand name: .com and domain availability via RDAP, Apple App Store and Google Play conflicts, seven social platforms, and a Wikidata famous-entity check — in seconds, with no signup. A preliminary signal, not legal advice.
Four live checks, one verdict
What the free check actually looks at.
Domain availability. RDAP and DNS reads on the .com first, then other TLDs — honest about “registered,” “available,” and “couldn’t confirm,” never a misleading guess.
App stores + social handles. Apple App Store and Google Play conflict scans, plus seven social platforms — Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Bluesky, Threads, LinkedIn.
Famous-name collisions. A Wikidata check for a well-known company, person, or product that already owns the name in the public mind.
The free check is a preliminary signal— a fast first read, not a clearance. The full $149 Brand Cleared report goes deeper: five creative AI agencies generate roughly 100 candidates (or screen the one name you bring), with domain checks across every relevant TLD, a common-law SERP sweep, brand and growth scoring, and a four-panel expert audit. Research, not legal advice — take any real name to a trademark attorney before you file.
Reading your result
The domain is free but the handle is taken. Is that bad?
Usually not. These four systems disagree with each other constantly, and the disagreements matter in very different amounts. Here is how to weigh the combinations you are most likely to see.
The .com is registered, everything else is clear. This is the result founders abandon good names over, and they usually shouldn’t. A registered domain is most often an investor holding it to resell — nobody trades under it, nobody holds rights in it, and your business name does not have to match your domain. Treat it as a price to negotiate or route around (get, use and try prefixes, .io, .app), not as a name that is taken.
The handles are taken, the domain is free. Almost always survivable. Handles are first-come and abundant — an inactive Instagram account squatting the exact string costs you a suffix, not a brand. It matters more if the platform is where your customers actually live: a consumer product losing TikTok is a real cost; a B2B infrastructure company losing it is not.
There is an app-store conflict. Weigh this heavily if you are shipping software. Apple and Google both reject listings that are confusingly similar to an existing app, so a collision here is not reputational — it can block the launch itself.
A famous entity already owns the name. This is the expensive one, and the one to take seriously even when every other check is green. If a well-known company, person or product already owns the name in the public mind, you are not naming a business — you are buying a fight over an association you will never win, and spending your marketing budget teaching people you are the other one.
Everything came back clear. A promising start, and not a clearance. Every check above looks at whether a name is occupied in a public system. None of them looks at whether someone holds legal rights in it — which is a different question, answered below.
The honest limits
What this free check cannot tell you.
Three layers decide whether a name is legally yours, and the check above reads none of them. That is worth knowing before you build on a green result.
Federal trademarks. The free check does not search the USPTO register. A name can be free on every domain and platform above and still be blocked by a registered mark in your class. Run a knockout search on the register yourself — it is free and it is the highest-value filter there is — and take anything serious to a trademark attorney.
Common-law rights. In the United States, rights come from using a name in commerce, not from registering it. A business with no filing at all can still hold rights that block you, and it will not appear on any register. Finding these means reading the open web, which is slow by hand.
State business registries. Your Secretary of State keeps its own list of entity names, and it is separate from all of the above. A name can clear federally and still be refused at formation in your state — or be free in your state and taken in the next one.
Common questions
Checking a business name — answered.
How do I check if a business name is taken?
Type the name into the checker above. Brand Cleared instantly runs four live availability checks: .com and other-TLD domain availability via RDAP, Apple App Store and Google Play conflicts, seven social-handle probes (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Bluesky, Threads, LinkedIn), and a Wikidata famous-entity collision. You get a preliminary verdict — clear, caution, or conflict — in seconds, with no signup. Availability is the first filter; a formal trademark clearance with an attorney is the last word before you commit.
Is the business name checker free?
Yes. The instant checker is free with no signup and no credit card — up to ten checks per day. It exists so you can stress-test a shortlist before committing. The paid $149 Brand Cleared report is the deeper layer: five creative AI agencies generate roughly 100 candidates (or screen the one name you bring), with domain checks across every relevant TLD, a common-law SERP sweep, brand and growth scoring, and a four-panel expert audit.
What is a USPTO knockout search?
A USPTO knockout search is a fast, preliminary scan of the United States Patent and Trademark Office's federal register for marks that are identical or confusingly similar to your proposed name. It is the cheapest, highest-value first filter in trademark research — it surfaces the obvious federal conflicts that would block a registration or trigger a cease-and-desist. A knockout is research, not legal advice: a licensed trademark attorney does the formal clearance and the filing. The free checker above focuses on domain, app-store, social, and famous-name availability; for trademark questions, take your shortlist to an attorney.
Does an available .com mean my business name is clear?
No. Domain availability and legal clearance are different things. A name can have a wide-open .com and still collide with a live trademark, a famous company, or a common-law user — any of which can force a rebrand later. That is exactly why this checker looks at app stores, social handles, and famous entities alongside the domain, instead of only telling you whether the .com is free — and why a trademark attorney is the right next step before you commit.
Is this trademark legal advice?
No. Brand Cleared is a research tool, not a law firm, and nothing here is legal advice. The free check is a preliminary availability signal and the paid report is thorough research — but before you file a trademark or bet a company on a name, take the findings to a licensed trademark attorney. Brand Cleared has no referral relationship with any law firm, so when we say 'hire an attorney,' it is the workflow, not an upsell.
What does the full $149 report add over the free check?
The free checker runs a live availability snapshot on one name. The $149 report goes far deeper: five creative AI agencies generate roughly 100 candidates (or screen a name you bring), with domain checks across every relevant TLD, a Brave-powered common-law SERP sweep analyzed by Claude, seven-dimension brand scoring, five-dimension growth scoring, and a four-panel expert audit. Delivered as a private shareable report in about 10–15 minutes.
Found a name you love? Make sure you can keep it.
The free check is the first filter. Brand Cleared runs every check on roughly 100 candidates — or on the one name you bring — with USPTO coordinated-class knockout, common-law SERP, brand + growth scoring, and a four-panel audit. About 10–15 minutes. $149.
One-time · No subscription · Refund if our system fails