How to value a domain name.

What makes a domain valuable

• Extension. .com is the default for most buyers. As of September 2026 it holds about 168 million of the 393 million names in Toyroom’s index, 43 percent. Other extensions can sell well in their niche, such as .ai for AI companies, but to a smaller pool of buyers.
• Length. Shorter names are easier to say, type, and remember, and there are fewer of them.
• Words. Real, common, commercial words beat invented ones. A name that describes a product or an industry has obvious buyers.
• Demand. The number of extensions that already hold the name is a direct measure of how many people want it. See How many extensions is a domain taken in?
• Brandability. Short, pronounceable invented names can sell to startups, but their buyers are harder to predict.
• History and risk. A trademark conflict or a spam past lowers value, sometimes to zero.

How automated appraisals work

An automated appraisal turns features of a name into a price with a model trained on past sales. Features include the extension, length, words and their commercial value, the extensions-taken count, and market signals. Some tools also ask an AI model to judge the name as a brand.

Toyroom’s Domain Appraiser offers two engines. The v2.1 sales model is trained on real domain sales. It returns a value with a 10th to 90th percentile range, floors near $137, and is most reliable between $500 and $25,000. The v1 appraiser adds an AI assessment of branding, memorability, and risk. The Appraisal Lab runs both on one name.

Domain AppraiserFree appraisal for any extension, with live market prices.

Expect tools to disagree. Estibot, GoDaddy, Atom, HumbleWorth, and Toyroom train on different sales and weigh features differently. When two estimates differ by several times, the name is unusual, and comparable sales matter more than any model.

Use comparable sales

A comparable sale is a recent sale of a similar name. Sales databases such as NameBio and the weekly DNJournal sales report list reported sales with the price, date, and venue. Match on:

• Extension: a .com comparable says little about a .io name.
• Length and structure: one word, two words, or a brand.
• Word type and industry.
• Recency: prices from a hot year, such as crypto terms in 2021, may not repeat.

Reported sales skew toward successes. Names that never sold do not appear, so comparables describe the names that found buyers.

Check the live market

Look at what similar names are listed for and what is at auction today. An asking price is not a sale price: many listings never sell. Auction prices for expiring names show what investors pay at wholesale. The Domain Appraiser shows the name’s own Afternic listing and auctions next to its estimate, and TLD Explorer shows the median Afternic asking price for each extension.

From estimate to asking price

1. Take the range from one or two appraisals.
2. Move it up or down with comparable sales and the extensions-taken count.
3. Decide who the buyer is. Investors pay wholesale prices; end users pay retail, usually several times more, but they are rarer.
4. Set a Buy Now price inside the range for the buyer you expect. A clear price converts better than a request for offers.
5. Revisit the price once a year, and before renewal if the fee is high.

Common mistakes

• Anchoring on one appraisal number instead of a range.
• Treating asking prices as sale prices.
• Skipping a trademark search.
• Forgetting renewal costs on premium-priced names, which can cost hundreds of dollars a year to keep.
• Adding up estimates and calling it the portfolio’s worth.

Questions