AppraiseTHEnet™

Q: The Seller Guide: from a qualifying domain to a completed sale

This guide takes you from a qualifying domain to a completed sale, in the order things actually happen. Read it straight through the first time; afterwards each chapter stands on its own. Already familiar with the basics? Why the Marketplace explains the idea in two minutes, and the Bouncy.com case study shows a real sale end to end. Getting set up Chapter 1: What can be listed - the appraisal bar, minimum price, single and bulk listingChapter 2: Set up payouts first - payout account, the 4% commission, getting paid in dollars or BitcoinChapter 3: Prove ownership and go live - the TXT record or our nameservers, and what each gives you Building the listing Chapter 4: What your listing contains - the text and images we generate, what you controlChapter 5: Listing types and the lease-to-own add-on - Buy Now, Make Offer, both, and lease-to-own termsChapter 6: Look and feel - presets, colors, backgrounds, portfolio-wide defaultsChapter 7: Pricing, minimum offers and reading interest - minimum offers, offer expiry, the price lock, what the numbers mean Selling Chapter 8: Buy Now: payment methods, escrow and the transfer - every way a buyer can pay, and the transfer step by stepChapter 9: Offers, counters and the deal thread - negotiating in the deal threadChapter 10: Lease-to-own from the seller side - installments, nameservers during the lease, missed paymentsChapter 11: Custody on lease-to-own deals - securing the domain while a lease runsChapter 12: Disputes, cancellations, refunds and delisting - when something goes wrong, and how to take a listing down The seller dashboard: setup status, stats and your listings

Q: Chapter 1: What can be listed

Two things decide whether a domain can go on the Marketplace: the domain itself, and your seller setup. This chapter is about the domain. The appraisal bar A domain qualifies when the high end of its appraisal is at least $15,000. Appraise it first; the seller dashboard reads the result and tells you whether the name is eligible. Listing prices start at $500, and the same $500 floor applies to offers, so nothing on the Marketplace trades for pocket change. The bar is about quality, not price. A name appraised at $15,000 to $25,000 can be listed at $2,000 if that is what you want for it. What we are filtering out is names that would never justify a buyer's time. The listing form confirming a domain is eligible One domain at a time The New Listing form takes one domain. Type it, let the appraisal lookup run, choose a listing type and price, and save. The following chapters cover every field on that form. Many domains at once Bulk listing takes a CSV, one domain per line, in this format: domain,price[,listing_type[,min_offer[,category]]] Only the domain and price are required. Listing type defaults to Buy Now or Make Offer, the minimum offer to your saved preference, and the category to the one from the appraisal. Domains that do not meet the appraisal bar are reported back, not silently skipped. Every domain still has to be appraised before it can be listed, so appraise the batch first. The bulk listing page and its CSV format What you need before the next step A domain appraised at $15,000 or more on the high endA price of $500 or more in mindControl of the domain's DNS at your registrar, which chapter 3 uses to prove ownershipA way to be paid: a bank account in a country where payouts are available, or an Escrow.com account anywhere else Seller Guide contents · Chapter 2: Set up payouts first →

Q: Chapter 5: Listing types and the lease-to-own add-on

Every listing has one of three types, and any of them can carry the lease-to-own add-on. The three listing types Buy Now (fixed price). The buyer pays your price and the transfer starts. No negotiation.Make Offer only. No price is shown; buyers open with an offer at or above your minimum and you negotiate in the deal thread (chapter 9).Buy Now or Make Offer. Both buttons. Most listings use this: the price anchors the conversation and the offer button catches buyers who want to talk. The three listing types Minimum offer For any type that accepts offers, set the smallest offer you are willing to see, either as a percentage of the Buy Now price or as a fixed amount. Offers below it are rejected before they reach you. A sensible default is 5% of Buy Now, which filters out noise without discouraging real buyers; you can set a portfolio-wide default on your profile so every new listing starts with it. The lease-to-own add-on Tick "Lease to own" on any listing to let a buyer pay in monthly installments instead of all at once. You set the terms: Term: 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48 or 60 months.Down payment: none, a percentage of the price, or a fixed amount.Total price: shown to the buyer as the monthly amount times the term plus the down payment. Many sellers set the lease total a little above the Buy Now price to reflect the time value. Lease-to-own terms on the listing form A buyer can also pay off the remaining balance at any point with a single payment, which ends the lease early and starts the transfer. The buyer's side of a lease, what happens to the domain during it and how a missed payment is handled are in chapter 10. Whether you need to place the domain in custody first is in chapter 11. ← Chapter 4: What your listing contains · Seller Guide contents · Chapter 6: Look and feel →

Q: Chapter 6: Look and feel

Your sale page does not have to look like everyone else's. The Look and Feel tool changes colors, backgrounds and shape, either for one listing or as the default for your whole portfolio, with a live preview as you go. Where it is Open it from the seller dashboard or from any listing's edit page. The left side is the controls; the right side is your actual sale page, updating as you change things. The Look and Feel tool with its live preview What you can change Style preset. Start from one of the ready-made palettes. Each sets a coordinated set of colors for light and dark mode.Color assignments. Assign the palette's colors to the accent (buttons and highlights), text and surfaces. The payment buttons pick up your accent automatically, including their hover state.Background image. Choose an image by category and set its opacity so text stays readable.Borders, radius, shadow and width. The shape of the price card and content blocks.Preview theme. Check the page in light, dark and auto before saving; buyers see whichever their device prefers. A restyled sale page in the live preview Listing, category or portfolio The Editing switch at the top chooses the scope of what you are styling: this one listing, every listing in a category, or your portfolio defaults. The most specific style wins: a listing's own style beats its category's, which beats the portfolio default. So a hundred names can share one look, the finance names can carry their own, and a few premium ones can be styled individually. Templates Two page templates exist, a standard and an enhanced layout with more room for the analysis. Both respect your colors and background. ← Chapter 5: Listing types and the lease-to-own add-on · Seller Guide contents · Chapter 7: Pricing, minimum offers and reading interest →

Q: Chapter 7: Pricing, minimum offers and reading interest

Pricing is yours. This chapter is about the mechanics around the price, and about reading the signals your listing produces. Price, minimum offer and the appraisal The appraisal is a market estimate for a typical buyer. Your price is what you ask a particular buyer. They are different numbers and it is normal for the ask to sit above the appraised range; showing the appraisal on the listing gives that ask a floor in the buyer's mind rather than a ceiling. A minimum offer that is too low invites lowballs; too high and serious buyers who wanted to open a conversation walk away. 5% to 10% of Buy Now is the usual band. Offer expiry Offers and counter-offers expire after 14 days by default. When you send a counter you can set your own expiry anywhere between 3 and 30 days. Expired offers close automatically; nobody has to chase them. The price lock If you use bulk repricing across your portfolio, lock the listings that should not move: a name under brokerage, a name priced deliberately above its appraisal, a name with a live negotiation. Locked listings are skipped by any automated change and keep every number exactly as you set it. Lock or unlock one listing on its edit page, or many at once from the seller hub: select the rows, set Price lock in the Update Selected panel to Lock or Unlock, and apply. Unlock can travel in the same click as a reprice. A price-locked listing with its reason Reading interest The seller dashboard shows traffic per listing, but raw traffic includes scanners and type-in visits that never become buyers. The signals worth watching are offers, saves and logged-in views. A name with steady saves and no offers is usually priced too high for the interest it is drawing; a name with offers below your minimum is telling you where the market sits. Traffic, saves and offers per listing ← Chapter 6: Look and feel · Seller Guide contents · Chapter 8: Buy Now: payment methods, escrow and the transfer →

Q: Chapter 9: Offers, counters and the deal thread

When a buyer makes an offer, a private deal thread opens between the two of you. Everything about that negotiation happens there: offers, counters, messages and the moment of acceptance. Receiving an offer You are emailed, and the offer appears on your seller dashboard. Open the thread and you can accept, counter or decline, and write a message alongside any of them. Offers below your minimum never reach you. An incoming offer in the deal thread Countering A counter carries your number and, if you want, a shorter or longer expiry between 3 and 30 days. The buyer can accept, counter back or walk away. There is no limit on rounds, and the thread keeps the whole history so neither side has to remember who said what. A counter-offer with its expiry Accepting Accepting an offer creates the sale at that price and locks the listing. The buyer is sent to pay with any of the payment methods from chapter 8, and from the moment they pay, everything proceeds exactly like a Buy Now sale: the transfer choices, the 5-day window, the automatic steps. If the buyer never pays, the listing unlocks again. Talking to the buyer Use the thread's messages for anything that helps the sale: how the name is being used today, what is included, timing. Keep the transaction itself on the Marketplace; taking it off-platform loses the escrow, the ownership checks and the record we keep for both of you. ← Chapter 8: Buy Now: payment methods, escrow and the transfer · Seller Guide contents · Chapter 10: Lease-to-own from the seller side →

Q: Chapter 11: Custody on lease-to-own deals

A lease means a buyer pays for months on a promise that the domain will be theirs at the end. To make that promise good for both sides, a domain on a lease-to-own deal is secured in a Marketplace-held account before the first payout is released to the seller. Who this applies to Every seller other than the Marketplace itself. If you are selling your own domains as an independent seller, a lease you accept triggers custody. What custody means You move the domain into an account we control at a registrar, and we hold it for the life of the lease. You remain the beneficial owner: if the buyer defaults, the name comes back to you; if the buyer completes the lease, we deliver the name to them. Renewals that fall due during the lease are handled with you so the name never lapses. How to place a domain in custody Push the domain into our account if your registrar is one of the trusted registrars where we hold an account. The sale page tells you the account to push to.Transfer code otherwise: unlock the domain, submit its authorization code on the sale page, and we transfer it into our registrar. Transfers take a few days; payouts start once the name has arrived. Timing and payouts The buyer's down payment and installments are collected on schedule regardless, but your payouts are held until custody is confirmed. Once it is, every held installment is released together and later ones flow monthly as usual. When the lease ends On the final installment, or when the buyer pays off the balance early, we transfer the name to the buyer directly from custody; you have nothing further to do. If the lease is forfeited over a missed payment, the name is returned to the account you specify. ← Chapter 10: Lease-to-own from the seller side · Seller Guide contents · Chapter 12: Disputes, cancellations, refunds and delisting →

Question

QuietClose: keeping a domain purchase private

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Accepted Answer

QuietClose™ is the Marketplace's private sale option. When you ask for it, we do not show the domain as sold and we do not publish the sale. The seller has committed to honor your preference, so the seller does not disclose it either.

When a sale is private

Sales are public by default. A sale becomes a QuietClose sale only when both of these are true:

The buyer asks for it, by ticking Keep this purchase private before paying.
The seller takes part in QuietClose. Sellers are enrolled by default and commit to honor the buyer's preference on every one of their listings. A seller may opt out; their listings then do not show the option.

The option appears on every listing whose seller has not opted out. It costs nothing, and it works with every payment method the listing offers, including lease-to-own.

How to use it

Buy Now or lease-to-own: tick the box in the price card on the listing page, then choose how to pay.
Accepted offer: tick the box next to the payment buttons in your deal thread, then pay.

After payment, your purchase and transfer pages show "QuietClose private sale" so you can confirm the request was recorded.

What stays private

The listing page is taken down quietly. There is no "Sold" stamp, no "Sale pending" banner and no sold page. Only you and the seller can still open it.
The listing's social preview card is withdrawn.
We do not publish, announce or report the sale, its price or the parties.
The sale is never used as an individual comparable sale in appraisals.
Card, PayPal and Bitcoin payments carry a reference number in place of the domain name.

What QuietClose cannot hide

We promise only what we control. These remain visible to anyone who looks:

Registrar, nameserver and DNS changes, and historical WHOIS or RDAP records. They can show that a domain changed hands.
Anything you or the seller choose to say about the sale yourselves.
Anything posted about the listing before the sale, such as an earlier social media post.

If you pay through Escrow.com, Escrow.com is told the domain name, because it needs it to run the transfer.

The seller's commitment

An enrolled seller commits to honor your preference. If you tick the box, the seller will not disclose the sale: not to sales databases, not on social media, not in their own marketing. If you leave it unticked, the sale is an ordinary public sale and the seller may report it as usual. If you believe a seller has disclosed your purchase, contact us. We review the evidence and the seller's response. A first violation forfeits the seller's listings and their seller account.

You are free to use your own non-disclosure agreement with the seller as well. We are not a party to agreements between buyers and sellers and do not draft, review or enforce them.

How we use private sales internally

Private sales inform our appraisal models only in aggregate. Any statistic we publish that includes private sales covers at least 10 sales, so no single sale can be worked out from it. Private sales do not appear in our accuracy examples or showcases.

When we must disclose

QuietClose keeps a sale private from the public. It does not override the law. We disclose what we are required to when faced with a valid legal demand, tax reporting duties, or the obligations of the payment and escrow providers that process the sale.

For sellers

Every seller is enrolled by default, and enrolment covers every listing on the account. We tell you on the sale page, and in the sale email, whenever a sale is private. You can opt out on your seller page, marketplace/seller, though we strongly advise against it: your listings then lose the option that privacy-minded buyers look for. A first violation of the commitment forfeits your listings and your seller account.

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