Guidesby the numbers
How to Translate a .com Comp to .net, .org, .io, .ai or .co
Convert a .com comparable sale to .net, .org, .io, .ai or .co with measured multipliers — a worked example, and where the arithmetic stops holding.
A .com sale is the comparable most domain people have in hand, and the name you are pricing is often not a .com. Translating one into the other is arithmetic with one measured input, and it comes with limits worth stating before you use it. This guide walks through the translation, runs it on a worked example, and says where it stops being trustworthy.
The measured input: one multiplier per extension
MetricName's TLD multipliers are the median sale price of one-word dictionary domains on each extension, divided by the same median on .com, over the past three years of NameBio-reported sales. The measured values are .com 1.0, .net 0.31, .org 0.36, .io 0.24, .ai 0.41 and .co 0.24 (NameBio).
Dividing by the same one-word cell on .com holds name quality roughly fixed, so what is left is the extension's own effect. The multiplier describes where the middle of each extension's reported market sits. It says nothing about any single name.
The base: what a one-word .com sells for
The base figure is the one-word .com cell: NameBio-reported sales of Dictionary/English Word names on .com, n=1,163, over the past three years. Its 25th percentile is $399, its median is $1,711 and its 75th percentile is $8,888.
The spread between those three numbers is the first lesson. Half of reported one-word .com sales closed below $1,711, and a quarter closed above $8,888. A translation that starts from a single point inherits none of that spread, so start from the range.
Worked example: a one-word name on other extensions
Take a one-word dictionary name, such as "cedar", and ask what the middle of the market implies for each extension. The arithmetic is the median of $1,711 times each multiplier.
| Extension | Multiplier | Implied median |
|---|---|---|
| .com | 1.0 | $1,711 |
| .ai | 0.41 | $702 |
| .org | 0.36 | $616 |
| .net | 0.31 | $530 |
| .io | 0.24 | $411 |
| .co | 0.24 | $411 |
Each figure is $1,711 × the multiplier, rounded to the dollar. These are not sale prices for "cedar" on any extension. They are what the measured medians imply for the middle of each market.
If you want a range rather than a point, one option is to apply the same multiplier to the .com 25th and 75th percentiles. For .net that gives about $124 to $2,755 around the $530 center ($399 × 0.31 and $8,888 × 0.31). That step is an assumption, not a measurement: the multiplier is a ratio of medians, and nothing here shows that the ratio holds at the edges of the distribution. Treat the band as a rough shape and label it that way.
Wholesale versus retail
Every figure above is a reported-sale figure, which is closer to a wholesale view of the market. MetricName converts to a retail range by multiplying the wholesale range by 2 at the low end and 3 at the high end, the dealer-to-end-user spread guideline published by DNAcademy. End-user outcomes of 5 to 20 times are acknowledged on the tool's pages.
Where the translation breaks
- Extensions outside the six. Only six extensions have enough reported one-word sales to read a defensible median. For any other, the appraisal engine uses a wide ×0.1–0.5 band, labeled as a judgment call. A multiplier with two decimals for an extension we have not measured would be invented.
- The median is a center, not a ceiling. The table says where the middle of each market sits. Individual .ai and .io names can out-sell weak .coms.
- Registry risk is not in the multiplier. The measured medians reflect market pricing at a point in time. For what that leaves out, see ccTLDs vs. gTLDs: The Regulatory Risk Nobody Mentions Until It's Too Late.
- A comp is not a conversion. Before you carry any sale across extensions, read how the comparable was selected in How to Read a Domain Sale Comp.
Running it on your own name
The TLD Value Comparison tool runs this translation for you: enter a name and it shows the appraised range across all six extensions at once, with every multiplier visible. For the branding side of the choice, which no sales table can settle, see Choosing .com vs .io vs .ai for a Startup.
Limits
This guide is informational only, not professional advice. Appraised ranges are estimates, and no formula gives a domain's true price. Attribution: Eric, MetricName founder.
Last reviewed: October 2026.
Sources
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.