Buy-now page

Shows the price and a checkout button, so the buyer can pay and start the transfer in minutes without talking to anyone. It suits names priced for a quick decision. GoDaddy recommends its Buy-Now lander for lower-value domains.

Make-offer or request-price page

Says the name is for sale and asks for an offer or contact details. On Afternic’s Request Price lander, GoDaddy’s sales team can follow up with the buyer. Use it for higher-value names, or when you’d rather hear a number before naming yours.

Lease-to-own

Lets the buyer pay monthly while using the domain, with ownership passing at the end. It brings in buyers who can’t pay a large sum at once. Afternic’s Custom Lander shows lease-to-own next to the buy-now price.

Dan.com, the marketplace that made lease-to-own popular, closed on June 27, 2025, after its features moved into GoDaddy’s aftermarket. If an old guide tells you to use a Dan lander, that advice is out of date.

Parking page

Shows ads, earns a little when visitors click them, and carries a for-sale banner at the top. GoDaddy suggests it for domains with high organic traffic. For most investment names the ad income is pennies, and the ads can bury the fact that the name is for sale.

Your own page

A simple page on your own site that says the name is for sale and how to reach you. You keep full control and pay no marketplace commission on direct deals, but you handle the negotiation, payment and transfer yourself, usually through an escrow service. Some buyers also trust a marketplace they know more than a page they’ve never seen.

The setting that changes your commission

If you list with Afternic, where the domain points matters. A domain using GoDaddy’s aftermarket nameservers, NS1.AFTERNIC.COM and NS2.AFTERNIC.COM, at the time of sale pays 15% commission. One that doesn’t pays 25%. Switching nameservers takes a few minutes and puts the for-sale page on the domain for you.

Picking one

Whatever you choose, test it the way a buyer would. Open the domain in a private window on your phone and check that the price, the button and the contact details all work.

1. Pick names with clear buyers

Outbound works for names that describe a business: a service and a city, a product, a trade. Before writing to anyone, check two things.

• There are enough buyers. Search Google Maps for the keyword and the area. If you can’t find at least ten businesses that could use the name, outbound will be slow going.
• The name isn’t someone’s brand. Domain disputes are decided under the UDRP, and offering a name to a trademark owner for more than your costs is listed there as evidence of bad faith. A company can take the domain from you that way. Stick to generic words.

2. Build a short list

For each name, collect 10 to 30 businesses in a spreadsheet: the business, its website, the person who decides (often the owner), a contact email from their site, and one line on why the name fits them.

Good places to look are Google Maps, the businesses’ own websites, LinkedIn for owner names, and local directories. Your best leads already use the exact words in their business name, or run their website on the .net, .ca or .co version of your .com.

3. Write one short email

Four or five sentences is enough. Say who you are, name the domain, say why it fits them, give a price or invite an offer, and explain how payment works. Only say things that are true.

Leave out fake deadlines, claims that a competitor is interested, and any hint that they will lose customers if someone else buys the name. It is dishonest, it puts people off, and it is the kind of message that gets quoted in a domain dispute.

4. Follow the email rules

In the United States, commercial email falls under the CAN-SPAM Act, and the FTC says the law “makes no exception for business-to-business email.” The basics:

• Use honest sender details and a subject line that matches the message.
• Make clear that the message is an offer.
• Include a valid postal address.
• Tell people how to opt out, and honor opt-outs within 10 business days.

Other countries have their own rules, such as Canada’s CASL and the GDPR in Europe, so check them before writing to businesses there. This is a summary, not legal advice.

5. Follow up once, then stop

If there’s no reply after five to seven days, send one short follow-up. If there’s still nothing, move on. Two emails is an offer. Five is pestering.

6. Price for a quick yes

The person you contact wasn’t planning to buy a domain, so make the decision easy. Look up similar names on NameBio, then pick a price a small business owner can approve without a meeting. If the replies come back too low, keep the name listed for inbound instead.

7. Keep score

Log every email: the date sent, the follow-up date, any reply, and the price discussed. After a few dozen messages you’ll see which kinds of names get answers, and that tells you more than any appraisal tool.

Inbound: the buyer comes to you

Inbound means listing the name and waiting. You put it on one or more marketplaces, point the domain to a for-sale page, and set a price or invite offers. Buyers reach you in a few ways. They type the domain into a browser and land on your page, they find it in a marketplace search, or a registrar shows it to them as a premium result when they look for a name.

The marketplace takes care of payment and the transfer, and charges commission for it. On Afternic, for example, the rate is 15% when the domain points to its nameservers at the time of sale and 25% when it doesn’t.

The catch is time. A common rule of thumb is that a large portfolio sells about 1% of its names in a year. Some names sell in a month and many never sell, so inbound rewards patience, careful pricing and a portfolio big enough for that 1% to add up.

Outbound: you go to the buyer

Outbound means finding the businesses that could use a name and contacting them yourself, usually by email. Take a name that pairs a service with a place, like carwashcanada.com. You can list the businesses already working in that service and place, and offer it to them.

Outbound deals usually close at lower prices. The person you write to wasn’t shopping for a domain that morning, so you are offering something useful rather than answering a need they already had. In return, a sale can happen in weeks instead of years, and every reply teaches you what real businesses will pay.

It is more work, and there are rules to follow: commercial email laws, and never contacting a company in a way that suggests you registered the name to pressure them. Our guide to outbound for beginners covers both.

A simple test for each name

Before you decide, ask three questions about the domain.

1. Can you name 20 real businesses that would use it? If so, it is a good outbound candidate. If the buyer could be anyone with a new idea, as with a short invented brand, it belongs on inbound.
2. What price do you want? Higher prices usually come from buyers who were already looking. If you want four figures or more, give inbound time.
3. How much time can you spend? Outbound costs hours per name. Inbound costs patience and renewal fees.

Side by side

Using both

The two approaches don’t compete. A practical setup is to list every name for inbound, then add outbound for the names with an obvious group of buyers, such as local service names. The listings keep working in the background while the outreach brings in sales and honest feedback on price.

1. Say it out loud

Read the name to a friend over the phone. If they can type it correctly without asking how it’s spelled, it passes what domain investors call the radio test. Numbers, hyphens and creative spellings usually fail. Was that 4 or four? Kwik or quick?

2. Match the extension to the buyer

.com is still the default for most businesses and the extension buyers trust most. Other extensions sell to narrower groups: .io and .ai mostly to tech companies, country codes mostly to businesses in that country. Ask who would buy the name, then check that those buyers actually use that extension.

3. Count the buyers

You only need one buyer, but the more possible buyers a name has, the better your odds. Two quick checks:

• Search the exact phrase and count the businesses that already use it in their name.
• Look up the other extensions. If the .net, .org, .co and country versions are registered and in use, the .com has a line of possible buyers.

4. Compare real sales, not asking prices

Search NameBio for names with the same keyword, length and extension. Asking prices on marketplaces show what sellers hope for. Reported sales show what buyers paid. If similar names sell for $500, paying $1,000 for yours is a bet that it’s the exception.

5. Check trademarks

Search the USPTO’s trademark database, which replaced the old TESS system in November 2023, and WIPO’s Global Brand Database for the words in the name. Avoid anything that contains a brand. Those names are hard to sell, and the brand owner can take the domain through a UDRP complaint.

6. Check the history

Look the domain up on the Wayback Machine. A name once used for spam, malware or adult content can carry problems with email delivery and search, and careful buyers will check.

7. Do the holding math

A typical large portfolio sells about 1% of its names a year, so the average name waits a long time for its buyer. Say a name renews at $12 a year and you hold it for eight years. That’s $96 before it sells. Sell it for $500 through a marketplace charging 15% and you keep $425, or $329 after renewals. The name pays, but only because the price is several times the holding cost.

The checklist at a glance

A note on appraisal tools

Automated appraisals give you a quick number, but they’re estimates built from patterns, not offers. Use them as one input next to real sales, and never as the price.