How Price Sensitive Are Domain Name Buyers?

Pricing domain names is challenging. The domain name market is dynamic. Domain name values can fluctuate based on many factors related to the domain name and the seller. If the price is too high, buyers may ignore the domain name. If it is too low, money can be left on the table.

One aspect of Atom.com that I find helpful is that it will help price domain names. Upon premium acceptance, Atom.com provides a suggested price with bracketed prices that are higher and lower by a percentage based on the membership tier of the seller.

In general, I will price my domain names at the suggested price point, assuming the platform is using its ML and AI to figure out a price that will be fair for both parties. Over time, I will manually adjust my pricing as necessary or as desired based on my own market observations and needs.

One thing I have been curious about is how pricing impacts sell through rate. Because of the way Atom.com provides pricing guidance and price bracketing, the platform is in a unique position to be able to offer insights about how price deviation from its suggested retail price impacts sell through rate. It would also be neat to understand how closely sale prices on the platform align with the Atom.com appraised value prior to the sale.

Domain registrants can price their domain names as high or as low as they want. I am sure the asking price plays a role in the STR, and it would be great to understand how price sensitive domain name buyers are. Perhaps Atom CEO Darpan Munjal can share some platform data on price sensitivity based on list price deviation from suggested pricing.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

8 COMMENTS

  1. While I like somethings about Atom and currently starting adding names there, simply as Plus listing as I refuse to pay a commission of 25% to 30%. I find their seach engine extremely bad. I am literally on Atom as I am typing this looking up names. Could possibly one of the worst search results in the business and I Ilke them so that is saying a lot, I hope they improve. Also not allowing Standard plus to be seen in the top search results because someone doesn’t want to pay 30% for a listing. You could put the search result for Cat and it can start showing you car or homes domains. What? I know this is a rant but we need a good source for listing our names with a good search engine that matches the best names. They should do a thumbs up or thumbs down on the separte names listed powdered by ai to improve the search results. Lastly need the make offer spot built in the pricing area, most people won’t scroll down once they see the price.

  2. “Upon premium acceptance, Atom.com provides a suggested price with bracketed prices…
    ….
    …Domain registrants can price their domain names as high or as low as they want.”

    I’m pretty sure in order to be accepted for Premium, your price cannot go above the high end of their suggested price. It’s not really a “suggestion”, unless you are high enough in the member tier and are granted that liberty by having so many premium listings already, but I forgot the number. Can anyone confirm?

  3. “pay a commission of 25% to 30%.” what a crime….a backstabbing

    and you have to buy coins to get your domains listed……why???

    rip offs

    • Yep! I just listed a few hundred domains, let’s see what happens. Worse part is how much they charge and how bad their search engine is. Without making phone calls and emails and without truly brokering a domain, trying to charge 30% or a domain is almost a crime. (Satire only!) Not a legal crime but a moral crime.

  4. There’s so much more art and finesse in pricing
    I can’t say I’m an expert in this area
    I’m fine with the suggested ATOM pricing for my .com domains and single word .io and .org domains, but not my single word .ai domains
    I’ve spoken to people at afternic/GD and other domain marketplaces and the consensus is that buyers don’t really care about or even know what the appraisals are for the domains they’re seeking. (maybe they’re right, and maybe I’m too data-driven as I follow comps and appraisals for everything i buy — real estate, art, collectibles)

  5. Does ATOM price in the relevant industries applicable to a particular domain name and the projected growth rate of those industries? The level of applicability for those specific industries? The number of startups and amount of startup funding in that industry that would shed light on potential name upgrade demand at a certain point? The net present value calculations involved based upon projected industry disruption in light of a decreasing supply of suitable premium available .com names?

    A good bit of due diligence probably would render those ATOM pricing estimates as scattershots on the primary inventory I am dealing with.

    I make it sound like I know what I am doing here but honestly I’m just a ‘let the game come to me’ kind of person that gradually gains new perspectives every week.

  6. Great insights, Elliot. Pricing domains truly is a balancing act — too high and you lose interest, too low and you risk leaving value on the table. I agree that Atom’s suggested pricing system is a valuable tool, especially for sellers managing large portfolios who rely on data-driven guidance to set competitive prices.

    Your point about sell-through rate (STR) in relation to pricing deviation is a key one. It would be incredibly insightful to see aggregated data on how closely list prices aligned with Atom’s suggested range perform versus those that deviate significantly. Understanding where the “sweet spot” lies in terms of pricing could help sellers optimize not just for individual sales, but for overall portfolio turnover.

    It would definitely be great if Darpan or someone from the Atom team could share anonymized platform-wide data showing how STR correlates with pricing bands. That kind of transparency would help sellers calibrate better and also validate the power of Atom’s pricing engine.

    Looking forward to seeing if any insights on this are shared — I think it would be a game changer.

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