How to Read a Bulk Domain Appraisal (Before You Quote the Total)

By Eric, MetricName founder.

A bulk domain appraisal gives you a lot of rows and one total, and the total is the part people quote. Before you quote it, check three things: which rows were left out of it, which single name is carrying it, and how many names it implies will actually sell. This guide reads one small portfolio that way, using the figures Bulk Domain Appraisal produces for a six-name list.

The three kinds of row

Every row in the bulk tool ends in one of three verdicts. Only the first is summed into the total.

• Range. The name has a modeled wholesale range, and the range tops out at or above the tool's $100 floor. These rows are summed.
• Floor. The modeled wholesale range tops out under $100. In the tool's words, this is "renewal-cost territory", below the ~$100 floor at which venues report sales at all. The row is counted but not summed, and it gets no retail range.
• Refusal. The name is ultra-short (1–3 character .coms, and 1–2 character domains generally). The tool does not price these at all, because they trade as liquid assets at market prices a factor model cannot capture. The row is counted but not summed.

The $100 floor and the refusal rule are design decisions in the tool's own code (lib/appraisal/engine.js), not external findings. They are stated here so you can disagree with them.

A worked example: six names

This is the example list the tool opens on, run through the same engine. Anchors were retrieved July 2026 from NameBio's reported sales; the base cells are the one-word .com interquartile range of $399 to $8,888 (median $1,711, n=1,163) and the two-word .com range of $171 to $705 (median $308, n=210,276), both over the past three years.

Domain	Class	Verdict	Wholesale range	Grade
cedar.com	single dictionary word	range	$556 – $12,373	B
bluewidget.com	two dictionary words	range	$180 – $745	A
888.net	numeric	range	$72 – $295	C
zorvia.ai	brandable coinage	range	$46 – $191	C
my-cheap-insurance-quotes.net	long-tail	floor	$3 – $13 (not summed)	C
the.com	ultra-short	refusal	none	none

Four rows are priced. Adding their ranges gives a wholesale sum of $854 to $13,604 (556 + 180 + 72 + 46 on the low side; 12,373 + 745 + 295 + 191 on the high side). The floor row and the refusal are in the count of six but contribute nothing to the sum.

Check 1: which single name carries the total

Divide each name's high end by the total's high end. cedar.com's $12,373 is about 91% of the $13,604 ceiling, and its $556 low end is about 65% of the $854 floor. The other three priced names together move the top of the range by $1,231.

So this "portfolio total" is mostly one range for one name. The honest summary is "one name with a wide range, plus three small ones", not "a $13,604 portfolio". When one row dominates, read that row's own record first and treat the sum as a footnote.

That row's range is wide partly because the data under it is wide: the one-word .com cell runs from $399 at the 25th percentile to $8,888 at the 75th.

Check 2: what the sum is not

The sum adds per-domain wholesale ranges. It is not a price anyone will pay for the list, and the tool does not total retail ranges at all; per-row retail (wholesale ×2 to ×3, the tool's dealer-to-end-user spread) appears only in the CSV export, where it cannot pass as a headline. The ×2 to ×3 spread is a rule built into the tool, and the tool's methodology notes that end-user outcomes of 5 to 20 times wholesale are documented, so it treats the spread as a range and not a promise.

Check 3: how many names the portfolio implies will sell

The tool prints expected reported sales per year next to the total. It uses the 1–2% annual sell-through figure from NamePros: "1-2% of names per year". The arithmetic runs over every appraisable row, floor rows included (five here; the refusal is not appraisable).

• Low end: 5 × 1% = 0.05, rounded down to 0.
• High end: 5 × 2% = 0.10, rounded up to 1.

The tool shows "0–1" sales per year, deliberately not "0–0", because a small list cannot rule out a sale. Read it plainly: at the published rate, this portfolio is more likely to sell nothing in a year than to sell anything. The wholesale sum describes what the priced names are worth if they sell. It says nothing on when.

For a longer list the same rule scales. A list of 1,000 appraisable names would show 10 to 20 expected sales a year. That is the number to hold against the sum, since the sum is only realised through those sales.

What the confidence grade tells you

Each priced row carries a grade, A, B or C, and the record gives a reason for it (gradeConfidence in lib/appraisal/engine.js):

• A. The base cell was measured directly from reported sales, and the judgment multipliers moved the number by less than the tool's tolerance.
• B. The base cell was measured directly, but judgment multipliers moved the number by more than that tolerance.
• C. The name's class has no directly measured cell, so its base range is a labeled judgment transform of a measured one, or its TLD is outside the measured set and a wide judgment band replaces a measured multiplier.

In the example, bluewidget.com earns an A, cedar.com a B, and 888.net and zorvia.ai a C. The grade says how much of the range is measured and how much is judgment. It is not a quality score for the name and not a prediction that it will sell. A C row is the one to check against reported sales before you rely on it.

A short routine

1. Count the rows by verdict. How many are range, floor and refusal?
2. Find the row with the largest high end and divide it by the total's high end.
3. Look at the sell-through line, and compare it with the number of sales you would need.
4. Open the record for any C-graded row you plan to act on.

Limits

An appraisal of any domain is an estimate, a range with a judgment call behind it, and a list of them adds those uncertainties together. Nothing here is a valuation of a real portfolio. The six names are an illustration, and the figures are the tool's output as of its July 2026 anchors. Informational only, not professional advice.

Last reviewed: October 2026

This guide is for informational purposes only. It is not financial, legal, or investment advice, and it is not a certified appraisal. A domain’s real price is set by what a specific buyer actually pays — no article or model can know that in advance, and we say so instead of pretending otherwise.

Last reviewed: October 2026 · Against primary sources cited in the body.