Domain Sales

I received a strong offer on one of my one word .com domain names last week. I declined, but in the process of doing so, I went back through prior offers to reconnect with those prospects to see if they might be still interested in doing a deal. I don’t do a great job of rekindling old negotiations, but perhaps my domain name dropped off their radar and a quick touchbase will restart a discussion.

One of the previous prospects made an offer in 2021 and we last exchanged emails in 2023. That prospect maxed out at $15,000, but I figured I would reach back to them to see if the brand matching .com might be able to help them grow. This business operated on a non .com domain name, so I figured they would have had a few years to grow into the budget required to secure my domain name.

For many years, I kept my portfolio at around 500 domain names. It was easy to manage those domain names on the sales platforms I used. During the past several years, I made a conscious effort to grow my portfolio, which gives me more consistent sales. The downside is that it is a bit more work to manage my 2,500-strong portfolio of domain names.

Because many of the inventory-quality domain names I buy are essentially lottery tickets, I have been letting more of these domain names expire. If I have owned a domain name for many years without any inquiries and the metrics don’t look nearly as good as when I bought it, there’s a good chance I will let it expire. Those domain names will be replaced by better domain names.

Swetha Yenugula recently reported the $50,000 sale of Surge.xyz. In her post about the sale, Swetha shared a screenshot of the Escrow.com closing statement, likely because of the flack she has received regarding previous .XYZ domain name sales. Swetha also mentioned the transaction was brokered by Domain Agents, a platform that represents buyers who want to acquire domain names anonymously.

https://t.co/emskfFQgLj sold for $50,000 @Escrow_com
Via @TheDomainAgents
Congrats to the buyer. pic.twitter.com/Lt9NKNztgr

— swetha (@swethayenugula) October 25, 2025

Nearly a year and a half ago, I wrote about the $400,000 acquisition of Somewhere.com, which was one of the largest one word .com domain name sales last year. Somewhere.com was acquired by Nick Huber, and the domain name was used to brand Support Shepherd.

In a LinkedIn video posted yesterday, Nick Huber discussed why he bought the domain name. In the video, Nick remarked that he has gotten more value from the domain name than he paid for it. Notably, while the sale was reported at $400,000, the host referenced a $450,000 acquisition price and the acquisition cost is noted as “over $400,000.” I asked Nick why there is a discrepancy on the purchase price, and I will update the sale references if necessary.

Atom.com is holding its Black Friday sale beginning on November 28th. The deep sale prices may be good for buyers, but they may not be great for sellers who will still have to pay the (relatively high) commission rate on a successful sale.

Sellers are able to opt-in or opt-out of offering Black Friday sale prices for their domain names in their account settings. In fact, there is currently a dashboard-side banner advising sellers about the upcoming sale so they aren’t caught off-guard:

“Atom’s Black Friday Domain Sale is coming! Visit your settings to opt in or out.”

I don’t do a ton of outbound marketing to sell my domain names. Not only can outbound be a bit disheartening, but it’s also generally not the best way to get top dollar for domain names. Obviously, I prefer to negotiate with prospects who have expressed an interest in my domain names.

That being said, I used Grok and ChatGPT to help me sell a descriptive domain name a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to share the prompts that I used to find buyers, contact information, and to craft an email.