A domain portfolio sell through rate (STR) may be a vanity number that holds little importance to most people. The STR is the percentage of domain names that are sold, and it is usually calculated on an annual basis.
Someone who doesn’t rely on domain name sales for their income might have a very small STR, but someone who sells their domain name for a living might have a high STR. Depending the business needs, a good target STR can vary from person to person.
If a domain investor owns 1,000 domain names and she sells 50 of them in a year, her sell through rate is 5%. That’s a pretty easy calculation to make. However, calculating STR can be challenging for someone who is in acquisition mode. If someone starts the year with 2,000 domain names, sells 150 domain names in the year, and ends the year with 2,500 domain names, the STR is more difficult to calculate. Last week, I asked how people would go about calculating their STR based on this scenario:
If you start the year with 2,000 domain names, sell 150 domain names, and end the year with 2,500 domain names, how do you calculate your annual sell through rate?
— Elliot Silver (@DInvesting) September 30, 2022
There were a number of helpful responses to my question. One I want to highlight today is from Squadhelp founder Darpan Munjal. Darpan gave the two step calculation for figuring out an annualized STR:
First calculate the average holding time of 500 new domains acquired during the year. Let’s say it is 200 days.
In that case your average portfolio age for the year = (365*2000+200*500)/2500 = 332 days
Then Annualized STR = (150/2500)*(365/332) = 6.6% pic.twitter.com/zzrHlVqpvL
— Darpan (@darpanmunjal) September 30, 2022
I don’t do ROI or STR. Domain Percentages is just for show IMO. Dollars and cents is all that matters in the end. But domain portfolio STR average should be 2-3% in the domain Industry IMO. 1-2% is too low. Again, just my opinion.
Agree,all I care is spending my time hand reg domains and reselling for 1000% ROI
EASY PEASY stress free hobby
I wouldn’t call it a vanity number. If you’re a large portfolio holder and your model is selling lots of domains, STR is one of your most critical metrics. Finding a way to nudge it up could have a big impact on your bottom line.
Why do you comment on every post, with essentially the same message every single time?
You hand reg’ your domains, and sometimes you book sales. Great – we get it.
@Andrew If you own quality .Com domains instead of quantity, STR is less important. Your domains should sell themselves eventually anyway.IMO
But I could see a very large domain portfolio benefiting from STR.