Sell Domain at Auction: Auction My Domain Name With Your Own Reserve
Put a deadline on a name that has sat at an ask too long. Set the opening bid, a hidden reserve and the end time on the name's own sales page. Check the reserve against real comps first, free, no account.
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.
Everything this estimate is built on is on this card. An account is for selling: your names on the seller board, each with its own sales page.
The short answer
You can no longer auction your own domain on GoDaddy. It stopped accepting member to member listings, including 7 day public auctions, on 29 April 2024 and moved sellers to Afternic, which sells at a fixed price or by offer. The self-serve places that still let a seller start a bid-style auction are Sedo (a 7 day Direct Auction from $59 plus 15 percent), Dynadot (a 7 day user auction at 10 percent) and a scheduled auction on the name's own sales page here, which comes with the Pro Broker plan at $199 a month billed annually plus 8 percent.
For one name with no buyers of your own, Dynadot or Sedo is cheaper and brings its own bidders. Our plan only beats Sedo on fees once your auction and offer sales pass about $34,000 a year, and the table below shows it. It suits the seller who already has inquiries and a buyer list and wants to put them in one room with a date on it.
GoDaddy change from GoDaddy's announcement of 15 April 2024; current GoDaddy listing types from its help page captured 16 March 2026 (godaddy.com blocks automated requests). Sedo terms from sedo.com/us/sell-domains/domain-auction. Dynadot terms from its domain auction guide. Our own terms from the pricing page and the auction code that runs them.
Where a seller can still start one
Domain auction sites for sellers, compared on fee, length and reserve
Most lists of domain auction sites are written for buyers hunting expired names. Seen from the seller's side the list is much shorter, because several of the famous names no longer take your listing at all.
| Venue | Can a seller start an auction? | Fee | Length | Reserve and opening bid | Who bids |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GoDaddy Auctions | No. Member listings closed 29 April 2024; list on Afternic and it is syndicated back as fixed price or offer | Afternic 15% with its nameservers, 25% without, $15 minimum | Not applicable to sellers. Its own Value Priced auctions run 15 days, expired auctions 10 | Not applicable | The largest aftermarket audience, reached through Afternic listings |
| Sedo Direct Auction | Yes | From $59 to start, plus 15% of the final price | 7 days, shown on Sedo's homepage and search | You set the minimum bid | Sedo's investor and end user base. Parent IONOS announced in November 2025 it plans to sell Sedo |
| Sedo GreatDomains | By application: up to five names, reviewed in about 3 to 5 days | 15% | Themed auctions every two months | Curated by Sedo brokers; Sedo may keep marketing the name for up to 60 days after | Premium buyers, for names that pass the curation |
| Dynadot user auction | Yes, for names at Dynadot | 10% | 7 days | You set the starting price; the listing cannot be edited once live, only cancelled before the first bid | Dynadot's auction regulars, mostly investors |
| Namecheap Market | No. Sellers list at a fixed Buy Now price | 10% | List period you choose | Not applicable | Namecheap customers browsing the market |
| Flippa | Yes | Success fee plus a listing fee; published listing fees contradict each other, so check at checkout | You choose | Reserve available | Mostly website buyers; a bare domain is a side category there |
| Domainsdealer Pro Broker | Yes, on any verified listing | $199 a month billed annually ($249 monthly) plus 8% of a completed sale | Any start and end time you choose | Opening bid plus an optional hidden reserve; the page shows only met or not met | The buyers you bring, anyone who types the domain, and visitors to the seller board |
Two honest gaps on our side. Bids here close at the exact time you set, with no automatic extension for a last minute bid, and there is no proxy bidding: each bid is a single confirmed amount. Dynadot extends expired auctions when a bid lands in the final five minutes, and its guide does not say whether user auctions get the same rule. The venue-by-venue fee picture for fixed price sales is in our domain selling fees comparison.
The whole process
How do I auction my domain name?
Four steps. The first decides whether an auction is the right tool at all, and the last decides whether it works.
01
Price it against comps
Run the name through the appraisal at the top of the page and read the comparable sales. They give you the reserve. If the comps are thin, the name probably lacks the buyers to make an auction competitive, and a fixed price with a domain for sale landing page will serve it better.
02
List and verify the name
On Pro Broker, add the domain in the seller panel and put the listing code in a DNS TXT record. The name goes live on its own sales page once the record is found. Your nameservers do not move.
03
Schedule the auction
Set the opening bid, the reserve and the end time. The sales page switches to a live auction showing the leading confirmed bid, the bid count, the time left and whether the reserve is met.
04
Bring bidders, then close
Email past inquiries and matching companies the page. Every confirmed bid reaches your inbox with the bidder as reply-to. At the end time the auction closes on its own and you and the winner are both told. The deal settles through third party domain escrow.
What you get on the sales page
An auction built for the seller who already has interest
Only confirmed bids count
Every bid is confirmed with a four digit code sent to the bidder's email, valid for 30 minutes. An unconfirmed bid never leads, so the price on the page is somebody's word, not a typo from a stranger.
A reserve nobody can see
The reserve amount stays private. Bidders see only that one exists and whether it has been met, which is the signal that keeps them bidding without anchoring them to your floor.
Bids straight to your inbox
Each confirmed bid is emailed to you, or to the teammate lead routing assigns by bid size, with the amount, the reserve status and the bidder as reply-to. No marketplace inbox to check.
A close that actually happens
The auction ends on the server clock at the time you set, not when somebody reloads the page, and both you and the leading bidder get the result by email, reserve met or not.
No membership to bid
Bidders need a name, an email and an amount. There is no account wall between a company that wants your name and its first bid, which matters when the bidder is an end user rather than an investor.
Early closes stay honest
Cancel before anyone bids and the auction simply disappears. Cancel after confirmed bids and it closes early, and the bidders are told. A bid is a commitment on both sides, and the system treats it that way.
Where the other venues win
How much does it cost to sell a domain at auction? The yearly arithmetic
Total fees for a year at three levels of auction and offer sales. Sedo is shown without its $59 per Direct Auction, so add that for every auction you start. Afternic is included as the fixed price baseline most sellers compare against, since GoDaddy no longer takes seller auctions.
| Sales in a year | Dynadot, 10% | Sedo, 15% | Afternic, 15% | Afternic, 25% | Pro Broker, $2,388 + 8% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10,000 | $1,000 | $1,500 | $1,500 | $2,500 | $3,188 |
| $35,000 | $3,500 | $5,250 | $5,250 | $8,750 | $5,188 |
| $120,000 | $12,000 | $18,000 | $18,000 | $30,000 | $11,988 |
Pro Broker beats the 25 percent Afternic rate above about $14,000 of sales a year, Sedo and the 15 percent Afternic rate above about $34,100, and Dynadot only above about $119,400. If you are auctioning one or two names a year, pay Dynadot or Sedo; the subscription makes no sense for you. The plan earns its fee for a seller moving a book, where the same $2,388 also covers up to 2,500 listings, bulk appraisals, lead routing and three seats.
The column the table cannot show is who turns up. A Dynadot or Sedo auction puts your name in front of investors who bid at investor prices, roughly 40 to 60 percent of what an end user pays. An auction on your own page, fed by your own inquiry list, can put two end users in the same room, and that is the only auction worth running on a name with a real buyer out there. Which buyer sits in which room is set out in who buys domain names.
The question most sellers start with
Can I auction my domain on GoDaddy?
No, not since the spring of 2024. On 15 April 2024 GoDaddy announced that from 29 April it would stop accepting new member to member listings at GoDaddy Auctions: 7 day public auctions, Buy It Now listings and offer and counteroffer listings. Auctions already running were allowed to finish, and the remaining Buy It Now and offer listings came down on 13 May 2024. Sellers were pointed at Afternic, GoDaddy's other aftermarket brand, whose listings are syndicated back onto the GoDaddy Auctions site.
So a name you list through Afternic can still appear on GoDaddy Auctions, but as a fixed price or offer listing, on Afternic's commission of 15 percent with its nameservers or 25 percent without. The bid-style formats GoDaddy's help center still describes are Value Priced auctions of names GoDaddy itself holds, which run 15 days, and expired domain auctions, which begin 26 days after a name lapses and run 10. Neither is a door for a seller. The nameserver rule that decides your Afternic rate is explained in Afternic nameservers and your commission, and what GoDaddy charges on the buyer side in how much GoDaddy Auctions charges.
If fixed price on Afternic suits the name, that is a fine home and the widest distribution in the aftermarket. If the name needs a deadline, you need one of the venues above. Sellers weighing the whole Afternic trade-off can read our Afternic alternative comparison.
The three numbers you set
Opening bid, reserve and end time: how to set each one
Opening bid
Low enough that the first bid comes quickly, because a name with one bid draws more than a name with none. The next bid must beat the leading confirmed one, so the opening number is also the floor of the conversation.
A useful default is the low end of the comps corridor, or half your reserve on a name with several interested parties.
Reserve
The price below which you would rather keep the name. Set it from comparable sales, not from what you paid or what you hoped. A reserve above the comps turns the auction into a public refusal to sell.
Skip it only when you truly want the name gone at any price, which is the right call for names whose renewal now costs more than they will fetch.
End time
Seven to ten days out, closing on a Tuesday to Thursday afternoon US Eastern. Company buyers need time to get sign off and are at their desks midweek. A Sunday night close hands the name to whoever happened to be awake.
Because there is no automatic extension here, tell bidders the close time in your email so nobody misses it.
Auction here if
You have two or more live inquiries on the same name and you are tired of answering each one with a counter.
A name has sat at a fair ask for a year and the people who looked need a date to decide.
You hold a book of 100 names or more and want listings, bulk appraisals, lead routing and auctions under one fee.
Your buyers are companies, not investors, and a membership wall in front of the bid button would lose them.
Use Sedo or Dynadot instead if
You are selling one or two names this year. On fees they are cheaper, and the table above says so.
You have no inquiries and no list, and you need a venue whose bidders are already there.
You want an investor price fast on a liquid name and are happy to take 40 to 60 percent of retail for speed.
You need proxy bidding or last minute extensions, which we do not offer.
Our interest, stated plainly
We sell the auction tool, so check our numbers
Auction scheduling is part of Pro Broker, which costs $199 a month billed annually or $249 monthly, plus 8 percent when a name sells. The Investor plan at $39 a month does not include auctions. If you list here, we make money, which is why the arithmetic above uses our published prices and shows Dynadot and Sedo cheaper for anyone selling less than about $34,000 a year.
We also do not run a drop-catch network or an expired domain auction, and we do not hold funds: the winning bid settles through third party escrow. What we do is put a defensible reserve on the name from real comps, give it a sales page that can switch from offers to a timed auction, and send every confirmed bid to your inbox. The appraisal at the top of this page is free and needs no account. If the number comes back below what you hoped, you have learned it before paying for a plan.
Questions people ask
Selling a domain at auction, answered
How do I auction my domain name?
Pick a venue that still lets sellers start an auction, price the name against comparable sales, then set three numbers: the opening bid, a reserve if you need one, and the end time. Here that is a form in the Pro Broker seller panel on a name you have already verified by DNS TXT record. At Sedo it is a Direct Auction from $59, and at Dynadot a 7 day user auction. Then send your inquiry list to the page, because an auction with two bidders is a negotiation with a clock.
Can I auction my domain on GoDaddy?
Not any more. GoDaddy stopped accepting new member to member listings on 29 April 2024, and that included 7 day public auctions, Buy It Now and offer listings. GoDaddy told sellers to list on Afternic instead, which syndicates names back to GoDaddy Auctions as fixed price or offer listings, not as seller-run auctions. The bid-style auctions left on GoDaddy are its own Value Priced and expired domain auctions.
What is the best place to auction domain names?
For a single name with no buyers of your own, Sedo or Dynadot, because their auction pages sit in front of an existing bidder pool; Dynadot is cheaper at 10 percent, Sedo reaches more investors at 15 percent plus $59. For a portfolio seller with inquiries and a buyer list, an auction on your own sales page with a hidden reserve, which is what Pro Broker does here at 8 percent.
How long does a domain auction last?
Sedo Direct Auctions and Dynadot user auctions run 7 days. GoDaddy expired domain auctions run 10 days and its Value Priced auctions 15. Here you pick the end time yourself, from a two day flash sale to three weeks. Seven to ten days is the useful range for most names: long enough for a buyer to get budget sign off, short enough that the deadline still means something.
Should I set a reserve price on a domain auction?
Set one if there is a number below which you would rather keep the name, and keep it at or under your comps-based floor. A reserve protects you from a thin room. A high reserve with a low opening bid pulls bidders in and then lets them down, which is worse than a higher opening bid. Here the reserve amount stays hidden and the page shows only whether it has been met.
How much does it cost to sell a domain at auction?
Dynadot charges 10 percent of the sale. Sedo charges 15 percent, plus $59 to start a Direct Auction. Pro Broker here is $199 a month billed annually plus 8 percent, which only pays for itself once auction and offer sales pass about $34,000 a year against Sedo. Add escrow if the venue does not include it: Escrow.com charges 2.6 percent under $5,000 with a $50 minimum.
Is it better to auction a domain or sell it at a fixed price?
Fixed price works when buyers find the name on their own and the number is fair. An auction works when two or more people are interested at once, or when a name has sat at an ask for a year and needs a date to force a decision. If your inbox holds several live inquiries for the same name, an auction usually beats replying to each with a counteroffer.
What happens if my domain auction does not meet the reserve?
The name does not sell and nobody is obliged to pay. Here the server closes the auction at the end time and emails you and the leading bidder with the result, reserve met or not. You then have that bidder in your inbox and can open a direct negotiation, relist with a lower reserve, or put the name back at a fixed price.
Do bidders need an account to bid?
Not here. A bidder enters a name, an email and an amount, then confirms the bid with a four digit code sent to that email within 30 minutes. Unconfirmed bids never lead the auction. GoDaddy Auctions requires a paid membership to bid, about $4.99 a year, and Sedo and Dynadot require an account with them.
How do I get bidders to my domain auction?
Start with everyone who has ever asked about the name and every company whose name or product matches it, then set the end time so the email lands at least five days before the close. A registrar forward sends anyone who types the domain to its auction page. The auction does not create demand. It turns interest you already have into a price by a date.
Keep reading
Best domain auction sites for sellers
Every auction venue ranked by the kind of name and the kind of seller it suits.
GoDaddy Auctions alternative
What changed for sellers in 2024 and where GoDaddy's reach is still worth the cut.
Sedo alternative
Sedo's 10, 15 and 20 percent routes, and the IONOS sale sellers should watch.
Domain auctions
The buyer's side: how bidding, reserves and proxy bids work across venues.
Set the reserve from comps, then set the date.
A free appraisal with the comparable sales behind it, no account needed. If the number holds, list the name on Pro Broker and schedule the auction from the seller panel.