Domain offer evaluator · by the numbers
Someone wants to buy your domain. Is the offer fair?
This places the offer against the appraised wholesale and retail ranges for your domain — anchored to reported sales, every factor itemized below the verdict. It computes a position, not a recommendation: whether to take the money depends on things no model can see, and we say so instead of pretending otherwise.
This offer sits inside the middle half of reported investor-to-investor sales for domains of this shape — the price band a domain investor would plausibly pay in order to resell later.
NEVER PAY ── A real buyer never requires you to purchase an appraisal. If a “buyer” will only proceed after you pay a service they name, that’s a documented scam, not a windfall — see the pattern below. This tool is free precisely so no one has to pay to check.
NameBio Dictionary / English Word .com, past 3 years, n=1,163; p25–p75 of reported sales
direction (shorter = more valuable) per GoDaddy's published valuation research; step sizes are a judgment call — NameBio's free tier gates length filters
rank 6,392 in the Norvig corpus — the band is data; the multiplier magnitude is a judgment call in v1 (frequency ≠ commercial intent)
baseline — every anchor cell is measured on .com
NOTE ── A price is conditional on finding the buyer. Typical investor portfolios sell 1–2% of names per year; an unsold appraisal is worth $0 that year. Not a trademark check. A domain containing someone else's mark can be worth less than zero (UDRP risk).
Informational only, not professional advice. A position against reported-sales ranges is not a fairness ruling, and we can’t see the one thing that most moves real prices: the specific buyer. Runs entirely in your browser; nothing you type is sent or stored.
How the evaluation works
Anchors retrieved July 2026 · Last reviewed: July 2026
Where the ranges come from
The offer is placed against the output of our appraisal engine — the same deterministic, in-browser model behind the homepage tool, with its full methodology published there. In short: the wholesale range is the interquartile spread of NameBio-reported sales in the domain’s pattern class, adjusted by named factors that are each tagged as measured data or a labeled judgment call. The retail range applies the widely published ×2–3 dealer-to-end-user guideline (DNAcademy, DomainDetails). This tool introduces no dollar constants of its own — every threshold it uses arrives from the engine, already anchored and cited.
The position bands
The offer lands in exactly one of four bands. Boundaries are inclusive on the range side:
| Position | Condition |
|---|---|
| BELOW WHOLESALE RANGE | offer < wholesale low |
| WITHIN WHOLESALE RANGE | wholesale low ≤ offer ≤ wholesale high |
| RETAIL TERRITORY | wholesale high < offer ≤ retail high |
| ABOVE RETAIL RANGE | offer > retail high |
The wholesale and retail ranges overlap (retail’s low end is wholesale low ×2, which can sit below wholesale’s high end), so the bands are defined on the wholesale range’s two boundaries and the retail range’s top — every offer gets one unambiguous position. The offer ÷ wholesale mid line divides the offer by the midpoint of the wholesale range, the number with the most reported-sales data behind it.
Two answers that aren’t bands
If the appraisal comes back as a floor verdict — renewal-cost territory, the honest answer for most registered domains — there are no bands to place the offer in: the modeled range tops out under the ~$100 floor at which venues report sales at all, so any genuine offer above renewal cost exceeds what the data can resolve. We say exactly that, because the alternative is inventing precision. And if the domain is ultra-short (1–3 character .coms), the engine refuses outright: that class trades as a liquid asset at market prices no factor model can capture, ours included.
The appraisal scam
If you arrived here because of an unsolicited offer, read this part even if you skip the rest. A long-running scheme works like this: a “buyer” emails a generous offer for your domain, then says the deal needs an appraisal or “certificate” — from a specific service they recommend, typically $50–$100, which they operate or take a cut from. After you pay, the buyer vanishes. The pattern has been documented for years across the industry: Namecheap, Domain Name Wire, and DomainInvesting.com all describe the same mechanics. The rule that defeats it is one sentence: a seller never pays for an appraisal a buyer demands. If the buyer wants one, they order it and pay for it. We can’t verify any particular buyer for you — this is a pattern description, not a screening — but a free appraisal removes the scam’s entire pretext. For the full playbook — the scam check, reading the offer’s position, and the mechanics of a safe sale — see our guide on how to respond to an unsolicited domain offer.
What this can’t tell you
- Whether to accept. That depends on your holding horizon, your renewal costs, and your read of the buyer — inputs a model doesn’t have. A position is context, not a verdict on your decision.
- The buyer’s reserve price. Documented end-user outcomes of 5–20× wholesale are real; an offer above our retail range is not automatically generous, and one below wholesale is not automatically insulting.
- Everything the engine can’t model — trademarks, traffic, search demand, and the buyer themselves. This tool inherits every limitation of the appraisal verbatim.
- Timing. Typical portfolios sell 1–2% of names per year (NamePros, Namecheap) — a range says what comparable sales looked like, not when, or whether, the next offer arrives.
Frequently asked questions
Should I accept the offer?
We can't tell you that, and we won't pretend otherwise — the tool computes a position, not a recommendation. What the position tells you is where the offer sits against reported sales of comparable domains. What it can't weigh: your holding horizon, your renewal costs, and the buyer's identity. Worth knowing while you weigh those yourself: typical investor portfolios sell 1–2% of their names per year, so a genuine offer in hand is a statistically uncommon event — most domains never get one.
The buyer says they'll proceed once I get the domain appraised. Is that normal?
No — it's the signature move of a documented scam. A fake 'buyer' makes a generous offer, then requires you to purchase an appraisal or 'certificate' from a service they recommend (which they run or get a cut from). Once you've paid, the buyer disappears. A real buyer who wants an appraisal orders and pays for it themselves. Never pay for an appraisal a buyer demands — this tool is free precisely so no one has to.
The offer is above your retail range — why would anyone pay more than a domain is 'worth'?
Because appraisal ranges describe reported past outcomes, not a ceiling. The single biggest driver of real prices is the specific buyer who needs the specific name — a company rebranding to your exact word can rationally pay far past any comparable-sales range, and documented outcomes of 5–20× wholesale exist. But an above-market offer is also the standard opening of the appraisal scam, so treat a too-generous number from a stranger as a reason for more skepticism, not less.
Why compare the offer to the wholesale range instead of just retail?
Wholesale is the defensible anchor: it's read directly from reported investor-to-investor sales (the interquartile range of NameBio-reported transactions in the domain's class). The retail range is derived from it by the widely published ×2–3 dealer-to-end-user guideline, so it inherits an extra layer of judgment. We place the offer against both — the bands use the wholesale range's boundaries and the retail range's top — and the ratio line uses the wholesale midpoint because that's the number with the most data behind it.