When Spaceship launched its Sellerhub with domain name landing pages, the platform was charging sellers a modest 5% sale commission for successful deals. I can’t find it specifically, but I recall former CEO Richard Kirkendall implied that this low commission rate may not last forever.
Yesterday on X, Thorsten noticed a change in the way commission was presented to prospective buyers.
Did @spaceship just add a 5% commission fee for the buyer as well, or was the fee changed from the seller’s side? pic.twitter.com/LZw0iC7Zzx
— thorsten (@rundns) February 11, 2026
Mezbaul followed up on Thorsten’s post to ask about whether Spaceship shifted the commission burden to the buyer or if both buyer and seller are now paying a 5% commission for transactions:
Collecting fee from seller is a nice movie.
But is it 5% from seller & 5% from buyer?@spaceship https://t.co/AqkNYJ2XoC pic.twitter.com/iFlh3Pebp7— Mezbaul | Brandefty.com (@mezba016) February 11, 2026
Spaceship replied on X to share that both parties now pay 5% commission for deals transacted via Spaceship:
Hello Mezbaul! The 5% commission is paid both by the seller and by the buyer.
— Spaceship (@spaceship) February 11, 2026
It’s a bit peculiar that Spaceship quietly added this without informing sellers beforehand since this fee for buyers could impact sales. Perhaps this was a test to see the impact before deciding whether to roll it out or not. I am not really sure.
Sellers should understand prospective buyers will be charged 5% commission, and this could impact sales on the platform.
Update:
After lengthy discussions on X, Spaceship has made a change. Instead of charging both the buyer and seller a 5% sale fee, Spaceship has increased the seller commission to 10%, with the option of allowing the seller to pass along the fee to the buyer from within the chat on a negotiated deal. Former CEO Richard Kirkendall posted on X with more details:
Some Spaceship SellerHub (Domain Aftermarket) news.
Yesterday we tested a 5% buyer commission. That change has already been rolled back.
While we didn’t see a material impact on overall sales, we’ve decided to move the commission to the seller side in the coming days.
Our base…
— Richard Kirkendall (@namecheapceo123) February 11, 2026
I don’t like Spaceship’s auctioning of expired domains policy. The long registration agreement says they have the right to auction domains which have passed the expiration date but they don’t otherwise notify you that at 24 days past expiration domains go into a 14-day auction at NameCheap and if anyone bids the domain will simply disappear from your account. If there are no bids the domain will remain renewable with no redemption fee until day 40, so you can easily think you have 40 days to renew all domains without penalty. I lost about 20 domains before I realized some were simply disappearing from my account, and when I asked Spaceship if domains disappear when a bid is made at NameCheap – or only at the conclusion of the auction if the domain hasn’t been renewed by then – they told me that was proprietary information. I still don’t know the answer, if anyone does please post.
Charging 5% each to the Buyer and the Seller is ridiculous. This move will effect sales adversely. Their greed will kill their own business. Buyers will never pay 5%.
From spaceship to Spaceshiit…
..
Going to shoot your own Dickie