The Price Question

Discussions, debates on Domain Names prices have cropped up every now and then on price rationale of premium domain names, their fair price etc. Very frequently, price comparison between different domain names within a tld (say .Com), or between different tlds, slds, comes up. A buyer is naturally inclined to look for an informed assessment, valuation.  

First Up: Disclaimer: This is Not a Financial advice (NFA). Please Do Your Own Research (DYOR).

This is just my view as an investment professional studying different markets (across asset classes like – financial, businesses, real estate) for four decades across US, EU, Asia, and having observed marketplaces, market players, and market participants. 

Just like other markets, domains also have these actors in place, but the difference is in stage of market.

As a related background, I have been owner of domain names for about fifteen years though I have kept tab from the day internet was launched commercially. Of-course, I have tracked prominent prices, deals, and prominent domain investors from early days but rather from a distance, and silently. 

Pricing tools - What I did

I tried several pricing tools, estimators, new ones from Ai based category as well as legacy ones like those from prominent marketplaces, other service providers. 

Ai Based tools – Being early days for Ai based valuation tools, I observed that many a times, most of them :  

- compare improper past sales figures, or wrongly compare unequals, 

- come up with unrealistic (on either side) estimates with little resemblance to actual sales figures, or worse even their own previous estimates. 

Legacy estimators – of different markets (without naming anyone) etc also leave much to be desired especially in current market realities. Also, their pricing structure focuses on rather past mechanics, leaving out role of subjective criteria, and its potential, which, to my mind, is becoming prominently relevant in current market. 

Where does this leave the Buyer

This flux, or chaos doesn’t really help a buyer new to this asset class. But given the stage of domains market, it’s only natural that this flux/chaos prevails regarding its prices, within a tld, or across tlds/slds. To add to this, the unique structure of this market makes it even more challeging. As I see, there are plenty of opportunities to improve the situation for buyer and seller both.   

My own take is that price of a particular domain can be reasonably assessed by considering factors that go beyond current coverage of different open estimators/tools that I have tried so far. I have not tried proprietary tools due to their limitations of testing, which effectively limits one’s ability to assess it. 

Nonetheless, given the value a domain name brings to a end-user buyer, s/he would do well in investing in appropriate domain name sooner rather than later. 

I’m keeping this very brief, so not putting out any detailed comparisons here. It’s up-to you to agree/disagree!

Comparison with Crypto, Bitcoin, NFT, etc

With recent market and policy developments on Crypto, Bitcoin, and web3, another current interesting discussion revolves around Domain Name vs other digital assets like - Bitcoin, NFTs on their pricing, and investment potential. 

While I stay neutral to this discussion, I do not believe there is any relationship (linear, or otherwise) between prices of different digital asset classes like Domain names, Bitcoin, NFTs. Each is a different animal, imho. They move independent of each other as far as their prices are considered even if they appear to be connected. But that’s just my view. To each, his own. DYOR!

My Ownership

As for me, I own a little domain portfolio with premium .com domain names across - different segments, including much happening Ai, besides financials, real estate, Super Luxury market, Travel, and would consider either selling couple of them to credible companies/buyers, or enter into suitable partnership with them.

And yeah, I do understand a bit of valuations, pricing, market, end-user buyer, and investor, so serious enquiries / discussion would be welcome. You can contact me via twitter/X (at bottom of this page) or through contact forms for each domain name listed above.

Have a great day. Happy investing!

AK