# How Much Is My Domain Worth? How to Value It by Hand > A step-by-step way to answer how much is my domain worth: check the registry record, score the name, find real sales and set a price range. [Skip to content](#main) [](/) [Services](/services)[AI OS](/ai-os)[Training](/training)[Education](/education)[Agents](/agents)[Learn](/learn) … [Book a call ](/book) 1. [Home](/) 2. [Guides](/guides) 3. How Much Is My Domain Worth? How to Value a Domain by Hand # How Much Is My Domain Worth? How to Value a Domain by Hand A step-by-step way to answer how much is my domain worth: check the registry record, score the name, find real sales and set a price range. Updated 5 November 2026 · 9 min read How much is my domain worth? For most owners the honest answer is a few hundred dollars, because that's what most domains sell for. In [Sedo's 2025 sales data](https://domainnamewire.com/2026/03/23/new-report-contains-interesting-aftermarket-domain-name-data/), the median sale was $818 across all extensions, and $595 for .com. Since .com made up 66% of those sales, that $595 figure is the benchmark that fits most domain owners. Anything above that needs a specific buyer who wants that exact name. A domain is worth what a real buyer pays, and no formula can tell you who that buyer is. You can still work out a defensible number by hand, in four steps: check the registry record and the domain's history, score the name itself, find real comparable sales, then set a retail and a wholesale value. Our [free domain appraisal agent](https://koso.ai/agents/domain-appraisal) does that same work in one run: it pulls the live registry record and archive history, scores the name, and digs up comparable sales with prices. Here's the manual version. ## Why Free Appraisal Tools Give Such Different Numbers Take kickers.ai. [Domain Name Wire's test of GoDaddy's appraisal tool](https://domainnamewire.com/2026/05/22/godaddys-domain-appraisal/) got $171 for it. A [separate test of Estibot appraisals](https://domainnamewire.com/2026/05/21/estibot-domain-appraisals/) got $9,300\. The name sold for $8,000, so the two tools were about 54 times apart on the same domain. MakeMatter.com went the other way. GoDaddy said $2,615 and Estibot said $314, and it sold for $15,000. In that test, GoDaddy came in below the sale price on every name with a known sale, and most of its answers landed between $2,000 and $5,000\. It's weakest on .ai and newer extensions. It even put $1,410 on CloudToaster.com, a domain nobody had registered. Estibot handles valuable one-word names well and badly misses multi-word ones. They disagree because each tool learns from different sales data, some of it years old, and each leans toward either keyword names or coined brandables. And no model knows which business wants your exact name, which is what actually sets the price. That limit applies to every automated appraisal, not just these two. Treat any of them as a rough ranking of names, not a price. ## Step 1: Check the Registry Record and the Domain's History Look the name up on [ICANN Lookup](https://lookup.icann.org/en). It returns the RDAP record, which replaced WHOIS for generic extensions on 28 January 2025\. That tells you whether the name is registered, the creation date, the registrar and the expiry date. If it isn't registered, it's worth the registration fee to you, whatever a tool says. If it is, the creation date only covers the current registration. A name can drop and get re-registered, which resets the date. The Wayback Machine usually goes back further and shows what used to run there. A name that spent years as a pharma spam site can carry blacklists a buyer will discount, even if the registry says it's a year old. When you're buying, a parked name close to expiry may have an owner ready to let it go. Check whether a live site runs on the domain now as well. A business on the name has switching costs and rarely sells cheap. If that site is yours, its traffic is website value, not domain value. ## Step 2: Score the Name Itself Now score the string a buyer would actually type. Shorter is better, and hyphens and numbers cost value because a buyer has to remember where they go. Roof-repair-24.com is a much harder sell than roofrepair.com. Say the name out loud to someone once. If they can't spell it back, it loses buyers, and that test rules out most invented spellings like kleanhomes4u.com. A real dictionary word or a common two-word phrase usually beats a coined brandable. Coined names still sell to startups that want something they can own outright, as long as the spelling follows from the sound. What the word sells matters more than raw search volume. A name in law, finance or insurance points at an industry where one customer is worth a lot, so its buyers pay more than buyers in a hobby niche. ### .com vs .ai, .io and Other Extensions The extension shifts the number more than most owners expect. .com still dominates trading: it was 70.6% of orders in [Dynadot's Q2 2026 marketplace report](https://www.dynadot.com/resources/quarterly-intelligence-report-q2-2026). .ai has become a premium extension. The average .ai sold on Sedo in 2025 went for $11,000, up more than 40% on 2024, and law.ai sold for $350,000, according to the [Global Domain Report 2026](https://www.sidn.nl/en/news-and-blogs/global-domain-report-2026-stable-growth-in-the-domain-name-market). .ai also passed 1 million registrations in January 2026. .io also trades above the market at the cheap end: Dynadot's .io median was $61.49 against $18.87 overall, though those low-end prices only rank extensions, not what an end user pays. ### Trademark Conflicts Run the exact term through the [USPTO trademark search](https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/) before you set any price. A domain built on someone else's registered mark is a legal risk, and a legitimate buyer won't pay for it. The search is free and takes a few minutes. ## Step 3: Find Comparable Sales in Your Price Range Now find out what similar names actually sold for. [DN Journal's year-to-date sales charts](https://www.dnjournal.com/ytd-sales-charts.htm) track the biggest reported sales of the year, and its sales report covers each period in detail. NameBio is a searchable database of past sales. Sedo, Afternic, Atom and GoDaddy also announce their own. A true comparable has the same extension, a similar length and the same kind of name, whether that's a dictionary word, a two-word phrase or a coined brandable. It should have sold recently too, because prices move. Top sales set the ceiling, not your benchmark. Mogul.com was reported at $1,300,000, Bot.ai at $1,200,000 and Liquid.org at $300,000 in the 2026 charts. [DN Journal's sales report](https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2026/0204.htm) adds Speed.ai at $165,000, Prism.app at $120,000 and BM.ai at $55,000. Your name most likely sits far below that. [Domain Name Wire's appraisal tests](https://domainnamewire.com/2026/05/29/nameworth-domain-appraisals-based-on-old-data/) list sales like MakeMatter.com at $15,000, MOTG.com at $14,888 and PressBridge.com at $5,000\. The GoDaddy and Estibot tests from earlier add expedite.io at $14,995, kickers.ai at $8,000, voicemail.app at $5,000 and timber.homes at $2,899. Asking prices prove nothing. VJN.com was listed at $39,000 and WaterFilters.com at $3.5 million. Neither one is a sale. Price to the cluster of sales in your band, not to the single best result. ## Step 4: Set a Retail and Wholesale Range, Then Decide The same name sells for very different prices depending on who buys it, so you need two numbers, not one. ### Retail Value vs Wholesale Value Retail value is what an end user pays: a business that wants the name for itself. Wholesale value is what a domain investor pays to add it to inventory. Our domain appraisal agent works on the rule that wholesale sits at 5 to 20 percent of retail, because the investor carries the renewal fees and the wait for a buyer. That ratio is our own heuristic, not a published market figure. Most names sell at a fixed price rather than through haggling: 76% of Sedo's 2025 sales were buy-now. If you want to sell, a clear buy-now price on a marketplace like [Sedo](https://www.sedo.com/us/) is the usual route. ### Buy, Hold or Sell Selling takes longer than owners expect. [NameSilo puts a healthy sell-through rate](https://www.namesilo.com/blog/en/domain-name-search/domain-portfolio-sell-through-rate-str-explained) at 1% to 2% of a portfolio each year. That's a registrar's blog, not audited data, but it means one name can wait years for a buyer. Renewal is what that wait costs you. The [.ai registry price rise](https://domainnamewire.com/2026/02/02/ai-domain-name-prices-going-up-20/) took wholesale from $70 to $80 a year on 5 March 2026, and the two-year minimum makes that $160 per registration or renewal. [Porkbun's .ai renewal price](https://domainoffer.net/tld/ai/porkbun) was $82.70 a year on 5 November 2026\. Check the live price before you decide. Weigh any real offer against that cost. If someone offers $500 for a .ai you renew at about $80 a year, and the name scored poorly in Step 2, take it: six more years of renewals would cost about as much as the offer. Hold when the name scored well and renewal is cheap. Buy as an end user at a fair retail price if the name fits your business. As an investor, buy only near wholesale, or the carrying cost eats your margin. ## Worked Example: Valuing PressBridge.com Here's one real name run through all four steps. We picked PressBridge.com because its sale price is public, so you can check the working. The free tools disagreed on it too: GoDaddy said $4,405, Estibot $110 and NameWorth $14,500. 1. **Step 1:** When we checked the registry record on 5 November 2026, it showed the name registered on 22 November 2016 at GoDaddy. It expires on 22 November 2027\. The Wayback Machine has captures back to 2001, so the name had an earlier life. 2. **Step 2:** Two plain dictionary words, 11 letters, .com, easy to say and spell. A two-word brandable, not a keyword name with search demand. We didn't check trademarks, so run that search before you price it. 3. **Step 3:** Closest comparables are other two-word .coms. One Domain Name Wire author sold 11 of them in 2026 for $2,000 to $10,000 each, and MakeMatter.com went for $15,000\. Sedo's $595 .com median is the floor. 4. **Step 4:** Retail value lands at roughly $2,000 to $10,000\. At our domain appraisal agent's 5 to 20 percent rule, a $5,000 retail value means an investor pays $250 to $1,000. Holding it is cheap. [Verisign's wholesale .com price](https://domainnamewire.com/2026/04/23/breaking-verisign-raising-wholesale-com-prices/) is $10.97 a year from 1 November 2026, plus the registrar's markup, so waiting for a retail buyer costs little. PressBridge.com sold for $5,000, inside that range. ## How Much Is My Domain Worth: FAQ ### How much is my domain worth? Probably a few hundred dollars: Sedo's median .com sale in 2025 was $595\. Yours is worth what a real buyer will pay. Build a range from the registry record, the name and comparable sales. ### Is GoDaddy's domain appraisal accurate? In Domain Name Wire's 2026 test, GoDaddy came in below the sale price on every domain with a known sale. It valued kickers.ai at $171, and the name sold for $8,000\. Use it to sort names from strong to weak, not to set a price. ### What's the difference between a domain's appraisal value and its selling price? An appraisal is one model's estimate built from past sales data. A selling price is what one buyer agreed to pay. Shopify's latest quarterly filing shows $99 million spent on acquired intangibles, which [Domain Name Wire ties to the shop.com purchase](https://domainnamewire.com/2026/11/03/shopify-filing-confirms-99-million-acquisition-of-shop-com-domain-name/), the highest publicly known domain sale. No tool produces that number, because the value came from a buyer who needed that exact name. ### What should I do if someone offers to buy my domain? Work out your range first. Find out who the buyer is, because a business that wants the name usually pays more than an investor. If the offer names a company, our [company research agent](https://koso.ai/agents/company-research) will tell you how big it is and whether it has recently raised money. Ask them to name a number before you do, and close through an escrow service. ### Is it worth renewing a domain I'm not using? Compare the yearly renewal fee against a realistic retail value and a low chance of selling in any given year. A cheap .com that scored well on length and clarity is usually worth keeping. A costly extension with no comparable sales often isn't, since renewals eat the money before a buyer appears. ## Final Thoughts The four steps give you a range you can defend when an offer lands or someone asks you to name a price. Our [domain appraisal agent](https://koso.ai/agents/domain-appraisal) does that work in one run. It pulls the registry record and the Wayback history, checks the same name in other extensions, and scores the name on a 1000-point framework across six categories. Then it researches comparable sales and returns retail and wholesale ranges with a buy, hold or sell verdict. The first run needs no sign-in. After that it asks for a name and email, no password and no credit card. 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