Domain Worth Calculator: How Much Is My Domain Name Worth?
Type any domain and get a value estimate built from comparable sales, with the signals behind the number shown rather than hidden. Read the range, not the digit.
Every estimate shows its work: the comparable sales and the signal breakdown it was built from, then the names like it you can buy right now.
The appraisal desk is open
Type a domain like sunsetcapital.com or a keyword like capital to see its estimated value, the sales that prove it, and matching names for sale.
Automated estimate for informational purposes only. Not financial or investment advice, and not a guarantee of sale price.
The short answer
Most registered domains are worth roughly their renewal fee, because domain value is concentrated in a small minority of names. A domain is worth real money when it is short, an exact commercial term, and in a strong extension, and the way to price one is comparable sales of the same shape rather than a single algorithmic figure. The part almost every calculator hides is that your domain has more than one correct price at the same moment: a retail price an end user might pay after months of exposure, and a wholesale price another investor would pay this week, conventionally around 40 to 60 percent of retail. Knowing which number you are quoting is the difference between a sale and a listing that sits for three years.
Last updated August 2026 · Valuation factors and appraisal-tool accuracy re-checked this month
Your domain has three prices, not one
This is the single most useful thing to understand before you look at any estimate, and it explains almost every argument about whether an appraisal was too high. All three numbers below can be correct for the same name on the same day.
| Price | Who is buying | Rough share of retail | How long it takes to get it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retail | An end user who wants this exact name for a business they are building | 100% | Months to years of patient exposure, and it may never arrive |
| Wholesale | Another investor buying to resell later at retail | About 40% to 60% | Days to a few weeks on an investor-facing venue |
| Liquid or quick sale | A buyer taking the name off your hands quickly, often in bulk | Commonly cited near 20% to 30% | Same week, at the cost of most of the upside |
Those percentages are industry convention rather than a published standard, and different investors draw the lines in different places. Treat them as the shape of the market, not as arithmetic. What matters is the principle underneath: an automated appraisal is almost always estimating the retail number, while the offers that arrive unsolicited in your inbox almost always come from the wholesale end. A large gap between the two is the normal condition of this market, not a sign that somebody is wrong.
What makes a domain name valuable
Five factors carry nearly all the weight. Everything else people argue about on forums moves the number far less than any one of these.
| Factor | What lifts the value | What cuts it | How much it moves the number |
|---|---|---|---|
| Extension | .com anywhere; .ai in artificial intelligence; .io in developer tools | Extensions with no category meaning, and country codes used outside their country | The largest single factor. The same string can differ by an order of magnitude across extensions |
| Length | One or two words, or short letter strings in .com | Three or more words, and anything you would not want to read over the phone | Steep. Each extra word shrinks the pool of buyers who would want that exact name |
| Commercial meaning | An exact term buyers already search for, in a category that spends money | Invented strings with no meaning and no existing search demand | Large, and it is why identical-length names differ so widely in price |
| Clean spelling | Survives being said out loud once and typed correctly from memory | Hyphens, digits, doubled letters, and deliberate misspellings | A hyphen or a digit typically moves a name into a much lower price band |
| Comparable sales | Recent sales of names with the same shape, which make your price defensible | No comparable sales at all, which means the market has not priced this shape | Decides whether a number is a valuation or an opinion |
Two things routinely assumed to matter do not, at least not on their own. Registration age adds nothing without a business, backlinks or traffic attached to it, so a 1998 date on a dormant name is a talking point rather than a premium. And search volume for the words in your domain is a weak proxy at best, because buyers pay for a brand they can own rather than for the keyword. If the name carries genuine type-in traffic, that is different, and you should document it before you ever mention it in a negotiation.
How to find out how much your domain name is worth
Five steps. Step two is the one most sellers skip, and skipping it is why so many good names sit unsold at a number nobody was ever going to pay.
Pull comparable sales of the same shape
A comparable is a name with the same extension, roughly the same length and the same structure, not a name in the same industry. Two one-word .com names of similar length are comparable even if one is a flower and the other is a financial term, because buyers are paying for the shape. Work through the domain sales history and write down the range rather than the highest number you find.
Decide whether you are quoting retail or wholesale
Before you look at any estimate, decide which sale you are actually willing to wait for. Quoting the retail number to an investor who approached you gets a polite exit, and quoting the wholesale number to a funded startup leaves most of the value on the table. The mistake is not picking the wrong price, it is not knowing which one you just quoted.
Run more than one appraisal and read the spread
Automated tools disagree with each other constantly, so the spread carries more information than any single figure. Three tools landing inside the same order of magnitude gives you a usable band. Three tools disagreeing tenfold is the tools telling you the name is hard to price, which is itself worth knowing. Our comparison of domain appraisal tools covers what each one is actually good at.
Discount for the things buyers penalize
Automated estimates are generous about hyphens, digits and awkward spelling, and silent about trademark exposure. A name that reads as somebody else's brand is not an asset, it is a liability with a renewal fee. Check the history too, because a domain that previously hosted spam carries that past with it and is worth less than an equivalent clean string.
Price for the sale you are willing to wait for
Retail pricing is a bet on patience: broad exposure over months or years, with a low chance of a sale in any given quarter. Quick-sale pricing trades most of the upside for liquidity. Both are respectable strategies and the failure mode is doing neither, which looks like pricing at retail and then quietly hoping. If you want the retail outcome, compare venues on where to sell domain names before you list.
How accurate are domain value calculators?
Accurate enough for order of magnitude, unreliable for a precise figure. Here is what the main tools actually do, so you know what you are reading when they disagree.
| Tool | Cost | Shows comparable sales? | What it is useful for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domainsdealer | No charge, no account | Yes, with the signal breakdown behind the number | A first read you can argue with, because you can see what drove it |
| GoDaddy | No charge | Yes | The most widely quoted number, which makes it the one buyers will cite at you |
| Estibot | $29.95 to $149.95 per month | Yes | Bulk work across a portfolio rather than a single name |
| Atom | No charge | Yes | Brandable invented names, which comps-driven models handle badly |
| HumbleWorth | No charge, bulk to 2,000 | No | Fast triage of a large list; thin as a basis for pricing any one name |
The most useful public work on this is Domain Name Wire's 2026 review, which ran 15 appraisal tools against real but undisclosed sales, including names that had sold for $15,000 and $5,000, so the tools could not have known the answer. Their standard is the one worth adopting: they did not expect pinpoint accuracy, and what mattered was getting the order of magnitude right. A name worth around $5,000 should not come back at $0 or at $50,000.
Their other conclusions are just as practical. Excessive specificity is a warning sign, because an appraisal quoted as $158,328 is presenting a modelled guess as a measurement. Tools should say plainly where they are weak, which for most of them is anything that is not a .com. Rankings can be useful even when the absolute values disagree, since knowing which of your names is the strongest is often the decision you actually need. And an appraisal that shows its comparable sales is worth far more than one that shows a number alone, because comps are the part you can check.
You will also see claims that appraisal tools are 75 to 85 percent accurate. Be careful with those, because the figure is rarely defined: accurate within what band, against which sales, over what period. We have not found a methodology behind it that holds up, and we would rather tell you that than repeat it. If you want the longer version on individual tools, we have written up how accurate GoDaddy's domain appraisal is and whether HumbleWorth is accurate.
What a valuation is, and what it is not
What the number gives you
- §An order of magnitude, which is usually the decision you need.
- §A ranking across your portfolio, so you know where to spend renewal money.
- §A defensible opening position, if the comps behind it are real.
- §A ceiling to bid to, which is what it is for on the buying side.
- §A reason to walk away, which is the use most sellers never make of it.
What it is not
- §An offer. Nobody is obliged to pay an algorithm's number.
- §A floor. Holding out for the appraisal is how names sit unsold for years.
- §A market for your name. A price with no buyer is not a price.
- §A trademark check. That is a separate and much more expensive problem.
- §A promise from us. We appraise names, we do not guarantee sale prices.
We should be direct about our own interest, since we sell to both sides of this market. We would like you to list with us, and our seller plans start at 8% to 12% commission against the 15% to 25% the largest marketplaces charge. None of that changes what your name is worth. If the honest answer is that a domain is worth its renewal fee, the useful advice is to drop it rather than to list it, and we would rather say so than take a listing that will never sell. If it is worth real money, selling your domain is a question of choosing the venue and the price band deliberately.
Questions people ask about domain value
How much is my domain worth?
Most registered domains are worth close to their renewal cost, because the value sits in a small minority of names. A domain is worth real money when it is short, an exact commercial term, and in a strong extension. The honest answer for any specific name comes from comparable sales of the same extension, length and structure, not from a single algorithmic number.
How do I find out how much my domain name is worth?
Start with comparable sales rather than a calculator. Find names of the same extension, length and word structure that have actually sold, and note the range. Then run two or three appraisal tools and see whether they agree with that range. Where the comps and the tools converge is your usable estimate; where they diverge, trust the comps.
How accurate are domain value calculators?
Accurate enough for order of magnitude, unreliable for a precise figure. Domain Name Wire tested 15 appraisal tools in 2026 against real but undisclosed sales and framed the standard plainly: they did not expect pinpoint accuracy, what matters is getting the order of magnitude right. Treat any appraisal that quotes an exact figure to the dollar as false precision.
What makes a domain name valuable?
Five things, in rough order of impact: the extension, with .com far ahead of everything else; length, since each extra character cuts the buyer pool; whether the name is an exact commercial term someone is already searching for; how easily it survives being said out loud; and how many comparable names have sold recently, which is what makes the price defensible.
Can I sell my domain for the appraised value?
Usually not, and this is the most expensive misunderstanding in the market. An appraisal is an estimate of retail value, meaning what a motivated end user might eventually pay. It is not an offer, a guarantee or a floor. Most names priced at their full automated appraisal sit unsold for years, because no buyer is obliged to agree with the algorithm.
Why does GoDaddy say my domain is worth more than anyone will pay?
Because it is estimating retail value against a broad model, not quoting a bid. Automated appraisals reflect what a name of that shape has sold for at the top of the market, while the offers you receive come from the wholesale end where investors buy to resell. A gap between the appraisal and your inbox is normal, not evidence that either side is wrong.
How much is a .com domain worth compared to .io or .ai?
A .com is worth more than the same string in almost any other extension, and the gap is widest for generic commercial words. The exceptions are narrow and real: .ai domains and .io domains carry genuine premiums inside artificial intelligence and developer tooling, where the extension reads as a category signal rather than a compromise. Outside those niches the premium mostly disappears.
Does traffic or domain age make my domain worth more?
Type-in traffic does, measurably, because it is revenue you can underwrite. Age on its own does not. A 1998 registration date with no traffic, no backlinks and no brand behind it is worth what the string is worth. What buyers pay for is the asset attached to the name, so document any real traffic before you use it as an argument.
What is my website worth versus what is my domain worth?
They are different valuations and mixing them up costs sellers money. A website is valued as a business, usually on a multiple of monthly profit. A domain is valued as a naming asset on comparable sales of similar strings. If your site earns, sell it as a business; if it does not, you are selling a domain and the earnings model does not apply.
How much is a 3 letter domain worth?
Three-letter .com names are the most liquid category in the market and trade as a recognized asset class with a fairly tight price band, because there are only 17,576 possible combinations and none sit unregistered. Three-letter names in other extensions vary enormously, with 3 letter .ai domains and .io the strongest outside .com and most other extensions far behind.
Should I pay for a professional domain appraisal?
Only when the number has to survive scrutiny from someone other than a buyer, such as an estate, a divorce, a company sale or a tax filing. For ordinary pricing decisions a paid certificate adds no leverage, because the buyer across the table will discount it as something you commissioned. Comparable sales persuade buyers; certificates persuade accountants.
How do I value a whole portfolio rather than one name?
Rank rather than price. Across hundreds of names the useful question is which ones justify their renewal fee, and for that a consistent ordering beats an accurate figure on any single name. Run the list through a bulk domain appraisal, sort it, and spend your attention on the top of the list and your delete key on the bottom.
Once you have a number
Check it against the comps in the domain sales history, then read how to value a domain name for the longer method and how much a premium domain costs for what the top of the market actually pays. If you are selling, where to sell domain names compares what each venue takes on the way out, and what happened to Dan.com explains why the venue list changed. If you are buying, a full domain appraisal sets the ceiling before you bid, and premium domains shows what is currently listed at each price tier.
Find out what your domain is actually worth.
Comparable sales, the signals behind the number, and no account required.