Selling a domain name takes five steps: set a realistic price, list the name where buyers already search, answer offers quickly, collect payment through escrow and transfer the domain only after the money is secured. Most sales go through a marketplace such as Afternic or Sedo, which charge a commission of 10% to 25% of the sale price. A private sale through Escrow.com costs 2.6% on deals under $5,000. This guide walks through each step, what it costs and where sellers lose money.
Decide Whether to Sell Now
Before you list a name, be clear about why you are selling. Some owners have a domain left over from a project that never launched. Others bought names as investments and want to turn a few of them into cash. A few receive an unsolicited offer and wonder whether it is fair.
The reason shapes your price. If the name costs you renewal fees every year and you have no use for it, a quick sale at a modest price may beat holding it for years. If the name is short, easy to say and matches a real business need, patience usually pays more than speed. End-user buyers, the businesses that want the name for their own brand, appear on their own schedule, and many good names wait years for the right one.
Also check that you can sell it. The domain must be registered in your name or your company’s name, the registration must be paid up, and the name should not infringe a trademark. A name built on someone else’s brand can be lost in a dispute, and listing it for sale can count as evidence of bad faith.
Work Out What the Domain Is Worth
Domain value has no single correct figure. It depends on who is buying, so it helps to think in two numbers.
End-User Value and Investor Value
End-user value is what a business that wants the name for its own use might pay. Investor value, sometimes called wholesale value, is what another domain investor would pay to resell it later. Investor offers are always far lower, because the investor needs room for profit and may hold the name for years before it sells. Domibot shows both figures on every appraisal, and our model puts investor value at roughly one eighth of end-user value.
If you need money this week, investor value is the realistic number. If you can wait for an end user, list closer to end-user value and expect the sale to take longer.
What Drives the Price
A few factors account for most of a domain’s value:
- Extension: a .com almost always sells for more than the same word on .net, .org or a newer extension
- Length and clarity: shorter names that are easy to say, spell and remember sell for more
- Commercial meaning: a word that matches a product, service or industry with paying customers has more buyers
- Exact words: real dictionary words and common two-word phrases outsell invented spellings, hyphens and numbers
- Demand across extensions: if the same name is registered in many other extensions, more businesses want it
Age helps a little but matters less than most sellers think. A ten-year-old name with no clear meaning is still hard to sell.
Check Comparable Sales
The best evidence of value is what similar names have sold for. NameBio keeps a searchable database of reported domain sales, and DNJournal publishes weekly sales charts. Look for names with the same extension, a similar length and a similar type of word. A single sale is an anecdote; several sales in the same range give you a working price band.
Choose How to Sell
There are four main ways to sell a domain. Many owners use more than one at the same time, listing on a marketplace while also answering direct inquiries.
List on a Domain Marketplace
A marketplace listing puts your name in front of buyers who are already searching. Afternic, owned by GoDaddy, shows its listings in search results on more than 100 registrar and reseller sites, so a buyer searching for your name at a registrar may see it offered for sale. Sedo runs a large marketplace of its own and a partner network called SedoMLS. Listing is free on both; you pay a commission only when the name sells.
Sell Directly to a Buyer
Some sales start with an email from someone who wants the name. Others start with outreach, where the owner contacts businesses that might want it. Direct sales avoid marketplace commission, but you handle the negotiation, paperwork and escrow yourself. Outreach takes time and has a low reply rate, so it works best for names with an obvious set of likely buyers.
Use a Domain Broker
A broker finds buyers and negotiates for you in exchange for a commission. Brokers make sense for valuable names, where an experienced negotiator can add more to the price than the fee takes away. For most names under a few thousand dollars, a marketplace listing does the same job for less.
Sell at Auction or to Investors
Auctions and investor forums are the fastest route to cash, but they pay investor value, not end-user value. They suit names you want gone quickly, or a batch of names you are clearing out together.
What Marketplaces Charge
Commission is the biggest cost in most domain sales, and the rate depends on how the sale happens. The table below shows the published seller rates for the two largest marketplaces as of October 14, 2026.
| Marketplace | How the Sale Happens | Seller Commission |
|---|---|---|
| Afternic | Domain uses GoDaddy aftermarket nameservers at the time of sale | 15% ($15 minimum) |
| Afternic | Domain uses any other nameservers | 25% ($15 minimum) |
| Afternic | Afternic Boost active on the account at the time of sale | Extra 5% on top of the rate above |
| Afternic | Buy Now sale through your own custom checkout link | 5% ($15 minimum) |
| Sedo | Buy Now price, domain parked at Sedo, buyer comes through Sedo | 10% |
| Sedo | Make Offer or auction sale on the Sedo marketplace | 15% |
| Sedo | Sale completed through a SedoMLS partner site | 20% |
| Sedo | You found the buyer and use Sedo only for the transfer | 3% |
Two details are easy to miss. On Afternic, pointing your domain at GoDaddy’s aftermarket nameservers cuts the commission from 25% to 15%, which is the cheapest single change most sellers can make. On Sedo, the 10% rate applies only when the name is parked with Sedo and has a fixed price. Dan.com, once a popular choice, closed on June 27, 2025, and its listings moved to Afternic.
A Worked Example
Say a buyer pays $3,000 for your domain. Through Afternic with GoDaddy aftermarket nameservers, the 15% commission is $450 and you receive $2,550. On other nameservers, the 25% commission is $750 and you receive $2,250. Through a Sedo Make Offer sale, the 15% commission is $450. In a direct sale through Escrow.com where you pay the whole escrow fee, the fee is $78 and you keep $2,922.
Set Up a For-Sale Page
Many buyers find a domain by typing it into a browser. If the name shows a blank page or an error, that buyer leaves. A for-sale landing page tells visitors the name is available and gives them a way to buy or make an offer.
Afternic and Sedo both offer free landing pages that connect to their checkout. A page with a Buy Now button converts better than one that only says the name is for sale, because buyers can act at once instead of starting a negotiation. If you also sell names through your own site, a simple page with the price and a contact form does the same job.
Pick a Pricing Model
How you price the listing matters as much as the number itself.
Buy Now
A fixed Buy Now price lets a buyer purchase immediately. It suits most names under $10,000 and qualifies for lower commission on some marketplaces. Set it at a price you would be glad to accept, since a buyer can pay it without contacting you.
Make Offer
Make Offer listings invite buyers to propose a price. They suit rare names where you have no good comparable sales, but they slow things down and many buyers never send an offer when no price is shown. On Afternic, a floor price, the lowest offer you will accept, is binding, so set it carefully.
Lease to Own
Lease to own lets a buyer pay in monthly installments and take ownership after the last payment. It widens your pool of buyers, since small businesses that cannot pay $5,000 at once can often pay a few hundred dollars a month. Afternic reduces commission on longer lease terms: by 5 percentage points for 13 to 24 months, 10 points for 25 to 36 months and 15 points for 37 to 60 months.
Handle Inquiries and Negotiate
When an inquiry arrives, reply within a day. Interest fades fast, and a buyer who hears nothing often registers a different name instead.
Start with a price that leaves room to negotiate but stays within your comparable sales range. A first offer of $100 on a name you value at $5,000 is common, and it usually means the buyer has not checked what similar names cost. A short, polite reply with your price and one reason for it, such as a comparable sale, moves the conversation forward better than an argument.
Be wary of anyone who asks you to pay for an appraisal, a certificate or a listing service before they will buy. Those requests are a common scam. A real buyer pays you; you do not pay them.
Get Paid Safely with Escrow
Never transfer a domain before the payment is secure. Escrow solves the problem of trust between strangers: the buyer pays the escrow service, the seller transfers the domain, the buyer confirms receipt and the service releases the money to the seller. Marketplaces build this into their checkout. For direct sales, Escrow.com is the most widely used service.
Escrow.com’s standard fees for domain transactions are tiered by price:
| Sale Price | Escrow Fee | Minimum Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Up to $5,000 | 2.6% | $50 |
| $5,000.01 to $50,000 | 2.4% | $130 |
| $50,000.01 to $200,000 | 1.9% | $1,200 |
Buyer and seller agree who pays the fee; splitting it evenly is common. Card payments add processing charges on top. Avoid payment methods that can be reversed after the domain changes hands, since a reversed payment leaves you without the money and without the name.
Transfer the Domain
Once escrow confirms the buyer’s payment, you hand over the domain. There are two ways to do it, and the buyer usually chooses.
A push, or account change, moves the domain to the buyer’s account at the same registrar. It is fast, often finished within minutes, and works when both of you use the same registrar.
A registrar transfer moves the domain to a different registrar. You unlock the domain, request the authorization code (also called the EPP code) and give it to the buyer, who starts the transfer at their registrar. Transfers between registrars usually finish within five days.
Check for transfer locks before you agree to a closing date. Many registrars block transfers for 60 days after a domain is registered or moved to a new registrar, and some apply a lock after the owner’s contact details change. ICANN’s policy council approved changes in March 2025 that will standardize the post-registration and post-transfer lock at 30 days once implemented, so confirm your registrar’s current rule.
Keep Records for Tax Time
A domain sale can create a taxable gain. Keep the original purchase price, every renewal invoice, the sale agreement, the escrow statement and the commission you paid. Together these show what you spent and what you received. How the gain is taxed depends on your country and whether you sell domains as a business, so an accountant is the right person to ask.
Common Mistakes Sellers Make
Most lost value comes from a handful of avoidable errors:
- Pricing from hope instead of comparable sales, which leaves the name listed for years without an offer
- Leaving the domain on a blank page, so type-in buyers never learn it is for sale
- Skipping GoDaddy’s aftermarket nameservers on Afternic and paying 25% instead of 15%
- Replying to inquiries days later, after the buyer has moved on
- Transferring the name before the escrow service confirms payment
- Letting the registration lapse while the name is listed, which ends the listing and can lose the domain
Check What Your Domain Is Worth
The first step in selling a domain is a realistic price. Domibot’s free domain appraisal gives you an end-user value range, an investor value range and the reasoning behind both, including how the name was read, how its extension affects the price and which factors help or hurt it. It also shows which other extensions of the same name are taken, a signal of demand you can use in negotiation. Enter your domain on the Domibot homepage to get started. If you would rather have a person look at it, the appraisal result includes a form to request a hand appraisal.
Check What Your Domain Is Worth
Get an end-user and investor value range with every factor explained.