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Last updated: 2026-11-13
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# Est. value is an estimate, not a promise

Est. value estimates what a name could sell for. Similar sales show the count and median of the sales we track for names like it. The estimate is for screening names, not negotiating one.

Course: Buy names that sell
Chapter 1 of 13, 13 min read
Published 2026-11-10, reviewed 2026-11-13.

On the Investor plan, you have Browse open on a word you like. One row shows an estimate in the thousands, a bid in the hundreds, and a count of similar sales whose median falls between the two. The estimate looks like a price. It is one model's reading of a pattern, and half the sales behind the median closed below it.

By the end, you can say what Est. value estimates and on which channel, which sales stand behind Similar sales, and how many sales a median needs. You can say why we report a median and not an average, and why a closing price is a claim until it is paid. You can screen names with the estimate and set your ceiling from the sales, in Browse and Appraise.

## What you will be able to do

- You can say what Est. value estimates, on which channel, and what makes it change.
- You can read Similar sales as a count, a median and a match level.
- You can say why we report a median and not an average, and when a sample is thin.
- You can treat a closing price as a claim until it is paid.
- You can screen a list with the estimate and set your ceiling from the sales.

## What Est. value estimates

Est. value is one model's estimate of what the name could sell for. The model returns three figures for every name: one for a sale at an auction, one on a marketplace, and one with a broker.

The row shows one of the three, chosen by the name's status today. It shows the auction figure for a name that is expiring or expired and whose timing the scanner still confirms. It shows the marketplace figure for every other name.

The reason for that choice is in the model's own output. Its auction figure is systematically the lowest of the three, and a name whose expiry was two years ago is not going to auction. The broker figure is stored and shown in Appraise. It is never chosen for the Est. value column.

Each name is estimated once for each version of the model. The figure changes only when the model changes, or when the name's status moves it to the other channel. The rating a name carries is a word with a confidence. The rating tells you about fit and risk, never about price.

Andrew Allemann tested fifteen automated appraisal tools on real sales the tools could not know (Domain Name Wire, 20 May 2026). None is perfect, the article says, and what matters is the order of magnitude. Allemann wrote in 2026 that a name worth around $5,000 should not be appraised at $0 or over $50,000, and that a figure such as $158,328 claims a precision that no appraisal has.

## Similar sales: a count, a median, a match level

Similar sales are the sales we track of names like this one. We read them in five levels and show the first level that has three usable sales. Level one is this exact name, sold before, at any date. Level two is the same word on another ending, at any date. Level three is variants and synonyms of the word on the same ending, over five years.

Level four is related words on the same ending, over five years. When none of these levels reaches three sales, the cell falls back to the market line. That line is the median of the sales of dictionary words on the ending over five years, and it describes the ending, not the name.

The hover on the cell names the level it used, so a median of synonyms never passes for a median of the same word.

A usable sale is one in US dollars, of fifty dollars or more, that is not held back for review and is not a second report of the same sale. We ask for three sales because two is an anecdote. The median of two numbers is their midpoint, and it moves by half of any single outlier.

In Browse, hover the cell. The card shows the median, the count and the tier, which is the card's word for the level. The median covers every sale at that level.

## Why a median and not an average

A median is the middle sale: half the sales sit at or above it, and half sit at or below it. An average adds up every sale and divides by their number, so one large sale lifts the whole average.

Kevin Murphy reported on Domain Incite on 4 May 2010 that Sedo had started publishing medians, because big one-off sales can distort the averages it also reports. The same 2010 report gave Sedo's .com median for that quarter as $510.

The gap between the two has not closed. On 29 May 2026, Domain Name Wire relayed Escrow.com's index for the first quarter of 2026: the average one-word .com sale was $402,000, while the median price of a domain was $5,369. Allemann noted in the article that averages can be heavily skewed by outlier sales.

The Global Domain Report 2026 by InterNetX and Sedo put Sedo's median sale price at $818 and its median for .com at $595 (Domain Name Wire, 23 March 2026). Among the sales we track, .com's 12-month median is $810, and the count of those sales is 28,214.

Count the sample before you read the figure. Three sales is the minimum our rule asks for, and it tells you little. A few dozen sales are a hint, and a few hundred are a pattern. In the sales we track over 12 months, the median for the word crypto across all endings is $1,188, and the count of those sales is 4.

## Two markets, two prices for one name

A name has two kinds of buyer. The company that will use the name pays a retail price, on a marketplace or through a broker. An investor at an auction of expiring names pays the price at which the other investors stopped bidding, then resells into the first market. The gap between the two prices can be tenfold or more, as the cases below show.

GoDaddy used two sales to explain its new valuation model, Allemann reported on 25 October 2016: HatsForCats.com had sold for $1,000 in a retail sale on Afternic, and HatsForDogs.com had sold for $10 in a GoDaddy auction. So GoDaddy built its model to return two values for each name, a wholesale value and a standard value.

In the same article, GoDaddy ran 1,000 of Allemann's Afternic listings through the model in 2016: their median list price was $1,500 and their median valuation was $1,121, about three quarters of the list price. Allemann's reading is that automated values serve to find outliers, to get a second opinion and to value a whole portfolio. No single name shows a tool to be right or wrong.

Reported sales come from both markets, and a median does not say which market its sales came from. So read a median as the price that names like this one fetched when they sold, never as the price that one of them fetches at an auction tonight.

## Case: Bought at auction for $847, sold for $15,000

- Paid at a GoDaddy auction, 2022: $847
- Sold for: $15,000
- Sale against purchase: about 17.7 times
- PressBridge.com, backorder to sale: $59 to $5,000

Andrew Allemann, writing on Domain Name Wire on 20 May 2026, described two of the names used to test fifteen appraisal tools. One was MakeMatter.com, which the writer had sold for $15,000. The other was PressBridge.com, which another seller had sold for $5,000. Both were recent sales that the tools could not know.

Allemann had paid $847 for MakeMatter.com in a GoDaddy auction in 2022. The seller of PressBridge.com had bought that name for $59 in 2016 through an uncontested backorder, an order placed before the name dropped. Two of the appraisal services put MakeMatter.com below $847. That is a retail value under a competitive auction price, which the article calls probably wrong.

Here is the arithmetic: the $15,000 sale is about 17.7 times the $847 paid, and the $5,000 sale is about 85 times the $59 paid. Each name left the investor market at one price and reached its buyer at another, years later. The article adds that MakeMatter.com, had it been priced at $5,000, would have sold for $5,000, and that PressBridge.com, priced higher, possibly would have sold for more.

The lesson is that an estimate reads a pattern, and the pattern has two prices. The auction price is what the investor market paid. The sale price is what one buyer paid later. Before you set the column's figure against a bid, know which channel the column shows.

Source: Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "We put 15 domain appraisal tools to the test. This is what we learned", 2026-05-20, https://domainnamewire.com/2026/05/20/appraisal-review/

## A closing price is a claim until it is paid

A reported sale is a claim. An auction closes at a figure, and the figure travels before the money does. Every auction venue deals with winners who do not pay, Elliot Silver wrote on DomainInvesting on 29 May 2020.

Silver believed that the venues answer in different ways. GoDaddy offers the name to the next bidder for a day, at a price set as if the higher bidder had never bid. NameJet and SnapNames run the auction again or may keep the name. DropCatch runs the auction again. A reported figure can be the closing bid and not the price that was finally paid, as the case below shows.

A figure can also be too old to use. Konstantinos Zournas, who bought a name at auction in 2008 for $410, wrote on OnlineDomain on 7 October 2020 about GoDaddy's appraisal of that name. The appraisal listed the name itself as a comparable sale, sold at $2,288, with no date, and that sale dated from 2006 at the latest.

So the sales we track keep only what we can stand behind. A sale has to be in US dollars and of fifty dollars or more, because a smaller sale is a clearance price. When a price reads as the name's own digits glued to a figure, we hold the sale back as a likely reading error. The same sale reported twice counts once. A median needs three sales.

## Case: Closed at $65,000, paid at $38,000

- Closing bid, August 2018: $65,000
- Paid by the sixth-highest bidder: $38,000
- Gap: $27,000, about 42%
- Reason GoDaddy gave: payment speed

Elliot Silver reported on DomainInvesting on 13 August 2018 that Dispute.com had closed at GoDaddy Auctions the week before at $65,000, and that the winning bidder had not paid. GoDaddy's aftermarket general manager confirmed the default to Silver.

Under GoDaddy's rule, as the article describes it, the name is offered to the next bidder at that bidder's own high bid, as if the winner had never taken part, and so on down the list until someone pays. Dispute.com went to the sixth-highest bidder. GoDaddy does not disclose its sale prices, but it made an exception here and gave the price: $38,000.

Here is the arithmetic: $38,000 is $27,000 under the closing bid, which is about 42% less. The four bidders between the two figures did not buy at their own bids.

A GoDaddy employee wrote under the article that the bids were real and that the problem was speed. In the employee's account, an expired name leaves little time to collect a sum of that size, and the limits on card and wire payments got in the way.

The lesson is that a closing price is a claim on a buyer, and the sale is the money that arrives. A list that recorded $65,000 would carry a sale that never happened. Read a past sale as a price that someone paid, and read a closing bid as a price that someone said.

Source: Elliot Silver, DomainInvesting, "Dispute.com Auction Winner Defaults", 2018-08-13, https://domaininvesting.com/dispute-com-auction-winner-defaults/

## Screen with the estimate, price from the sales

The figure moves, and each side quotes the version that favours it. When GoDaddy updated its appraisal model, one of Allemann's .ai names went from under $100 to close to $60,000 (Domain Name Wire, 27 August 2026). Across about forty names, many of them among those most likely to move, the median increase was over eleven times. Some owners might see their values fall or barely change, Allemann noted.

Allemann added that higher values reduce the number of buyers who can cite a low appraisal as a negotiating tactic. Silver had received a $1,500 offer on 19 September 2019 from a buyer citing a $1,450 appraisal, and answered with about ten reported sales of similar names. In one purchase, Allemann offered about 60% of the seller's own appraisal, and the seller accepted (Domain Name Wire, 4 December 2017).

The figure is a reference for your own screening, not an argument in a negotiation. In Browse, Est. value, Est. profit (the gap, in percent) and Similar sales sit side by side. The drawer's Value section holds the estimate and the similar sales, and pressing Load the value and ideas fills in the detail. Appraise prices a whole list in the same way, with three channels for each name.

## The rule

Read Est. value as one model's estimate on one channel, and Similar sales as a count and a median with a match level. Screen with the estimate, and set your ceiling from the sales. A closing price is a claim until it is paid, and the figure quoted at you favours the side that sends it.

## Before you read the estimate

- Read the channel before the figure: it is the auction figure for a name that is expiring or expired and whose timing the scanner still confirms, and the marketplace figure for every other name.
- Read the match level of Similar sales, which is this name, the same word, synonyms, related words or the market line.
- Count the sample. Three sales are the minimum, a few dozen are a hint, and a few hundred are a pattern.
- Open the sales behind the median and read their dates. A sale with no date is not a comparable sale.
- Set the median beside the estimate, and where the two disagree, trust the sales you can read.
- Treat a closing bid as a claim. A sale is the money that arrived.
- Use the estimate for screening, never as an argument in a negotiation.
- Write down your ceiling from the sales before you open the bid page.

## Answer a seller who quotes an appraisal

You are writing to a seller or a broker who has sent an automated appraisal with the asking price of a name you want.

> Hello,
>
> Thank you for the figure on [name]. An automated estimate is a reference, so I work out my price from sales.
>
> Could you send me the sales behind it? I mean names with the same word or pattern on [ending], each with its date and its price.
>
> The reported sales I can find for [word] have a median of [median] over [count] sales in the last 12 months. My offer of [offer] is based on them.
>
> If newer sales support your figure, I will read them.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> [your name]

A figure with no sale behind it is an opinion.

## Try it in Browse

1. Open Browse and search for a word. On one row, write down Est. value, Est. profit (a percentage) and what the Similar sales cell shows: the median and the count.
2. Hover the Similar sales cell. Beside the count, the card names the tier: sold before, same word, synonyms, related or market. Write the tier down.
3. Open the name. Under Value, read the estimate. Its channel follows the status above it: the auction figure for a name that is expiring or expired and whose dates the scanner still confirms, and the marketplace figure otherwise. If it shows, press Load the value and ideas.
4. Set the estimate, the median and the price now side by side. Note which of the three is highest, and whether the median rests on this name, on the same word, or on the market line.

Do this in Unique Domains: Open Browse. The public page: https://unique.domains/domains

## Sources

- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "We put 15 domain appraisal tools to the test. This is what we learned", 2026-05-20, https://domainnamewire.com/2026/05/20/appraisal-review/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "GoDaddy builds a new (and better) domain valuation tool", 2016-10-25, https://domainnamewire.com/2016/10/25/godaddy-builds-new-better-domain-valuation-tool/
- Kevin Murphy, Domain Incite, "Second-tier TLDs gain aftermarket traction", 2010-05-04, https://domainincite.com/844-second-tier-tlds-gain-aftermarket-traction
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "Escrow.com: .Com hits record high, .ai settles", 2026-05-29, https://domainnamewire.com/2026/05/29/escrow-com-com-hits-record-high-ai-settles/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "New report contains interesting aftermarket domain name data", 2026-03-23, https://domainnamewire.com/2026/03/23/new-report-contains-interesting-aftermarket-domain-name-data/
- Elliot Silver, DomainInvesting, "Winner Default: Re-Auction or Offer to Under Bidder?", 2020-05-29, https://domaininvesting.com/winner-default-re-auction-or-offer-to-under-bidder/
- Konstantinos Zournas, OnlineDomain, "Beware of “Comparable domains sold” at GoDaddy appraisals", 2020-10-07, https://onlinedomain.com/2020/10/07/domain-name-news/beware-of-comparable-domains-sold-at-godaddy-appraisals/
- Elliot Silver, DomainInvesting, "Dispute.com Auction Winner Defaults", 2018-08-13, https://domaininvesting.com/dispute-com-auction-winner-defaults/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "GoDaddy launches updated domain appraisal system", 2026-08-27, https://domainnamewire.com/2026/08/27/godaddy-launches-updated-domain-appraisal-system/
- Elliot Silver, DomainInvesting, "“I Went by GoDaddy’s Valuation Services”", 2019-09-19, https://domaininvesting.com/i-went-by-godaddys-valuation-services/
- Andrew Allemann, Domain Name Wire, "How to use automated domain appraisals", 2017-12-04, https://domainnamewire.com/2017/12/04/use-automated-domain-appraisals/

This course explains how the trade works. It is not legal or financial advice.

## Related pages

- Explore the public one-word Domains Database: https://unique.domains/domains
- See how investors find names worth holding: https://unique.domains/solutions/investors
- Read every domain word in plain English: https://unique.domains/glossary