
Ask HN: What is the most you've paid for a domain name? - mbarrett
What is the most you have paid for personal or business reasons? What extension? What domain? Mask them out fully or partially if you want but knowing the length is helpful.
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Killswitch
Never paid much for domains, but the biggest loss was exgfs.com

I registered it in 2005ish before that whole niche in porn took off, some dude
offered me $100 3 days later, being young and naive I took it thinking it was
a great flip. Year later I watched him sell it for $100,000. I learned my
lesson that day.

~~~
giarc
How did you find out he sold it for $100K?

~~~
Killswitch
I had worked with the guy, and a year later he was like "you remember that
domain you sold me for $100? I just flipped it for $100k"

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TaylorGood
Maybe 5-6 years ago I bought tgood.com for $300, negotiated down from $3,000.
In 2014 I sold it to TGOOD Electric Co. out of China – their market cap at the
time was ~$7B and a co-founder messaged me via Facebook. I was set on never
selling it; that TGOOD was to become my VIRGIN brands. Over the years I tested
different blog concepts on it. However, their offer was one I couldn't refuse
and has provided a nice personal runway. My cousins law firm handled the
dialog and it took 3-4 months from start to finish… since this nickname was
originated by my birth name, I gave my parents about a third of the proceeds.

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warp
I sold a four-letter .org for $5000 once, original offer was $500 which I
didn't think was enough. Whatever the buyer wanted to launch on it never got
off the ground, and a few years later I was able to grab it back when it
lapsed.

~~~
JoblessWonder
Doesn't that feel great? I had that happen. I was in negotiations with someone
that fell through and then the next YEAR they decided to not renew and let it
lapse.

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jaredandrews
There is a domain I really want right now that is being squatted. Any advice
HN? I already own the '.net' version so I don't really _need_ the '.com'
version but I want it. I doubt it is a high value name and I am considering
just sending the the admin listed in the WHOIS an email like "Hey, I will give
you $50 for ______.com, let me know. " Is this a good approach or should I try
to go thru an 'appraiser' or something like that.

~~~
TaylorGood
Fred Wilson's blog post, but more specifically the top comment is gold. There
is a template in there which may work for you:
[http://avc.com/2011/04/finding-and-buying-a-domain-
name/](http://avc.com/2011/04/finding-and-buying-a-domain-name/)

Subject Line: Whatever.com ($2,500?)

Hi,

I see you are the owner of Whatever.com. I'm in the process of trying to find
a domain name for a client I am building a web site for and think your name
could be a good fit. I am contacting different domain owners as we have it in
the budget to buy a cool name and Whatever.com is on the list we came up with.

Would you be interested in selling it for $2,500?

Let me know and I can have the funds wired to you next day or PayPal'd to you.
Just let me know your PayPal address.

Thanks for your time.

-YOUR NAME

~~~
hackerboos
What happens when you wire the money and get no domain?

Might be worth mentioning Escrow.com/Sedo upfront.

~~~
TaylorGood
Yes. I always have..

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AznHisoka
Paid $7000 or so for dailysnap.com, and $400 or so for gotacrush.com . Both
projects failed.

~~~
adventured
Dailysnap.com is a pretty great name. You should definitely find something to
use it on again during this era of selfies.

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rcarrigan87
I really want to know how much the guys at RapGenius paid for genius.com

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jacquesm
$70,000 ww.com, $50,000 camnow.com

~~~
laxatives
What did you do with those domains?

~~~
wickedlogic
He posted them to hackernews, to increase traffic, so he can sell them to
someone else now. ;)

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adventured
$500

7 letters, .com address, six or seven years ago

Solid domain name, and I had an interesting product for it. Didn't materialize
the way I hoped, so I shut it down. I've kept the domain though.

I've occasionally run across domains in the $5k range that were quite good,
but I still seem to find good enough .com addresses that I've yet to resort to
buying one. I'm working on a new product now that is a 5 letter .com address,
I bought it straight from a registrar, and it's exactly what I was looking
for.

I've probably only owned one that was stand-alone valuable. I bought a domain
in 1997 via Network Solutions, and have held on to it since then. It's a six
letter .com dictionary term.

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rossover
I purchased myh2o.com for our SaaS billing platform (named H2O) in 2010 for
$3500. I also purchased h2o.io sometime after that for $600. In 2009, an ISP
client of ours, Rio Networks, sold rio.com for $450,000.

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pkfrank
I purchased Texts.com while in high school (~10 years ago) for ~$15k. I had
made a fair amount of money flipping domain names on sites like Namepros /
DNForum / a few private forums. A mix of "tulip" LLL.com's, and then a few
instances of snagging a name in the aftermarket and immediately flipping it to
an "end user."

My biggest domain-fail was letting Naked-Celebs.com expire. I bought it for
something like $300 in 2009 and forgot to transfer it to my main portfolio,
and somehow let it drop... I still shudder thinking about that sometimes.

~~~
bluetidepro
Wait a second.... You had $15,000 to drop on a domain in HIGH SCHOOL!? That's
crazy, and incredible. Ha

~~~
pkfrank
Back then there was a lot of easy money in domain names if you knew what you
were doing. Also benefited from some questionable tactics I would never use
now that I know better / have a real reputation to protect. IE typos, bulk-
sifting Whois for deals, etc. Nothing crazy blackhat / shady, but stuff I
wouldn't go near anymore.

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mtmail
I think it was $2000. We were operating in several countries with the same
brand and when entering a new country we needed that TLD. It was rightfully
owned by a woman who happened to have the name as a nickname (registered years
before our brand existed). Her website was static, outdated and of geocities
type quality (stars background, animated icons). A friend of hers negotiated
and I think we caught him off-guard on the phone. Our budget was multiple
times that.

7 characters.

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ilolu
I was once contacted by a hollywood musician to buy iSingr.com. I wanted to
sell for $500. My Friends convinced me to ask for $15000. And the buyer
stopped responding :).

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jblok
Not my own purchase, but my previous employer paid somewhere in the region of
£1-2 million (I forget the exact figure) for a 2 letter .com which was
actively being used by a Brazilian company. They were using the .com and the
.com.br and just used the .com.br as their main domain after the sale.

It was a huge amount of money but it made sense seeing as the buyer was a
business with a 2 letter name.

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vonmoltke
Never paid more than the standard registration fee for a name. Nearly all the
names I have are .com; I have one .org and one .us. None of them are
particularly interesting. I did get an email once inquiring about buying one
of my domains, but I wasn't interested in selling so I never got an offer.

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Gustomaximus
For a company I organised a $5k AUD purchase. The owner didn't counter offer
and took the initial offer. I had $20k initial limit, and could have likely
taken an increased premium back to the company successfully. If you get an
offer treat that as an opening, not what someone is willing to pay.

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xist
Reading some of these replies, I have to shake my head at the people who are
expecting 100x or 2000x "profit" on domain squatting.

I agree with supply and demand, and letting market forces dictate pricing etc
etc.... but domain squatting is one of my biggest pet peeves out there.

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tzury
$ 9.99

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scottndecker
I submitted a request for quote for hdd.com They replied back and said they'd
accept nothing less than $100k. Seems ridiculous based on the numbers I'm
seeing here.

~~~
Joona
They must be feeling stupid now that SSDs are becoming commonplace. :)

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antidaily
I offered $15k for a 4 letter non-english word domain and was turned down.
That was 10 years ago. Now they want $42k. Still sitting on it. It's some sort
of broker.

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jhonovich
$5,000 for ipvm.com 3 years ago, we started with ipvideomarket.info which was
long and unwiedly and have been happy with what we paid to go to a 4 letter
.com domain

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sauravt
Bought orch.in for 300$

Which left such a big hole in my poor little bank account (I am a college
student) But one year later, turns out it was worth it, every penny of it. :)

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icey
I bought pmn.org for 4k (my initials and username most places). I'd just sold
a domain set (.com, .net, .org) for 10k and felt spendy :)

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alfredxing
I bought gpu.graphics soon after the new gTLD availability for around $35.
Still looking for buyers but it was probably a bad idea.

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greggh
I paid $600 for 0v.org a few years ago. I was happy to get a 2 character .org
for under $1000. I use it for my personal site now.

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allsystemsgo
Can you still make decent coin buying and selling domain names? Are there
alerts you can setup for when one becomes available?

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techusertwo
I was offered $700 for wikawika.com, I asked for $800 and all communication
stopped. Domain buyers are a fickle bunch I guess.

~~~
danvoell
as are squatters.

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kimura
I was offered $2000 for laptracker.com - I didn't sell it. Looking for 10 to
20x that amount.

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ryan_j_naughton
Exponenti.al for $100. As a domain hack / shortener for our primary domain
exponentialtv.com

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mbarrett
I bought joypath.com for 450, personal project.

purchases for employer

party-------.com for 5500

\---force.com for 12000

\-----lite.com for 11500

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bitshepherd
bsd.io -- registered it for something like $120 at the time. It lapsed during
hard times and the registration fees hadn't yet dropped. Now someone is
squatting on it.

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throw876away
500k+ for one .com domain with between 7-11 characters.

~~~
zuccs
Any more clues? :)

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yvoschaap2
13k xmt.com '07 17k citytrip.com '08

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rajacombinator
i considered paying 5k+ for a domain once. instead I just found another one
that was unregged. very happy with my decision.

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piratebroadcast
I recently sold pnthr.com for 9k.

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johnhiott
partyinda.club is for sale :) Anyone have 50 Cent's contact info?

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klinquist
My last name .com - $3500.

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joyofdata
one Euro an fifty Cents

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pathikrit
I bought ॐ.tv for $50.

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gesman
mensk.com for $50.

c.gg for $50 EUROs

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ahmedzain66
I own growthhack.how How much do you think it would fetch?

~~~
cr3ative
Anything other than dictionary words on the new gTLDs is not going to be worth
much

