Getting Started

Appraise.net — Service Timeline

Major updates to the appraisal engine, platform, API, and pricing. Sections tagged ENGINE tell you whether a refresh of older appraisals is worth the credits.

Prefer a visual timeline? This roadmap is also available as an interactive timeline at appraise.net/roadmap.

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2025-10-30 — Bug bounty program FEATURE

Public bug reporting launched at /bugs, advertised from the dashboard, batch, and lists pages. Every confirmed bug is rewarded with 50 credits. The first reporter received the inaugural reward.

2025-11-07 — Public API documentation API

API documentation went public at appraise.net/api/docs, so partners can integrate domain valuations directly into their own platforms and workflows.

2025-11-14 — A+ security rating PLATFORM

Appraise.net scored A+ (105/100) on the Mozilla HTTP Observatory. Spot-checks of a dozen marketplaces, registrars and competitor sites showed Sedo at C+ (60/100), Aternic at D (30/100), and GoDaddy at D– (25/100).

2026-01-12 — Discord bot FEATURE

The Appraise.net Discord bot launched. /appraise domain.com returns instant AI valuations privately to the requester, with estimated value, strengths, weaknesses and market analysis. At launch, new users received 18 free credits on registration (signup credits retired July 2026).

2026-02-19 — Engine baseline (v5) ENGINE

The reference appraisal algorithm. Established the brand-score → price tiers, the .com-equivalent ceiling rule, and per-TLD base percentages. This is the point all engine changes below are measured against.

2026-02-22 — Confidentiality & ccTLD recalibration ENGINE

• The service was hardened so internal scoring mechanics never leak into the user-facing market commentary.
• .CO bumped up — recognised as a real aftermarket rather than a thin one. Meaningful uplift on .CO valuations, especially short and keyword-aligned ones.
• .XYZ bumped down slightly (crypto, tech, and ultra-short modifiers reduced).
• Established compound words (landmark, sunflower, notebook…) are now kept as a single component instead of being split.

Refresh recommended for: .CO domains, .XYZ domains, and compound-word generics.

2026-02-25 — Brandable recalibration ENGINE

Brandable and coined one-word valuations recalibrated downward across all tiers to better reflect current marketplace comparables. Elite tier dropped from $100K–$1M to $60K–$250K, with proportional drops below.

Refresh strongly recommended for: pure-brandable and dictionary-brand domains across all TLDs.

2026-03-02 — Industry categories & .IO/.CO uplift ENGINE

• New applicable categories field — every appraisal now tags up to three industry categories (technology, finance, health, AI, SaaS, crypto, and more). Powers filtering and discovery.
• .IO and .CO base percentages raised again to reflect continued strength of the developer and startup aftermarket.

Refresh recommended for: .IO and .CO domains. All earlier appraisals gained category tags automatically where possible.

2026-03-07 — Segmentation consistency & listing titles ENGINE

• New listing title field — every appraisal now includes a one-line marketing call-to-action for marketplace display.
• Segmentation made deterministic across TLDs: yaber.ai and yaber.net now segment identically.
• Suffix handling (-ify, -ly, -able, -less, -tion…) standardised.

Refresh recommended for: coined and brandable domains where prior segmentation looked inconsistent or over-split.

2026-03-07 — Doma briefs & "more than a price lookup" FEATURE API

Launched the automatic Doma brief view, a different way to expose existing appraisal data for a specific portfolio (example: /doma/tokencobra.com). Published a companion piece, Appraise.net Is Much More Than a Price Lookup Tool, spelling out what the API actually returns: semantics, brand scores, buyer profiles and market analysis — not just a price.

2026-03-14 — Tighter ranges, deeper analysis, batch consistency ENGINE

• Tighter valuation ranges. Typical low–high spread compressed from roughly 3× down to about 2.3× — a narrower, more defensible band instead of a wide guess.
• Deeper market commentary. Expanded comparable-sales reasoning and market analysis in every appraisal.
• Batch consistency. The same domain run multiple times — or alongside siblings in a batch — now produces materially more stable results.

Refresh recommended for: any appraisal from before this date where the range felt too wide to act on, and any batch where sibling results looked inconsistent.

2026-03-24 — Lifetime Membership & Pricing Wizard PRICING FEATURE

• Lifetime Membership — by popular request, lifetime platform access is now offered at $399 (without API) and $599 (with API). No monthly credits included, but purchased credits (which never expire) can be used at any time without an active subscription. Previously, a minimum $29.99/month plan was required just to spend an existing balance.
• Pricing Wizard — new interactive tool at /pricing-wizard with a recommendation flow plus static comparison tables. It calculates the exact break-even point between a lifetime membership and a recurring plan based on projected appraisal volume.

2026-03-28 — Lifetime affiliate commissions PRICING

Lifetime Memberships were added to the affiliate program. Affiliates now earn $79.80 on a Lifetime ($399) referral and $119.80 on a Lifetime + API ($599) referral, on top of the recurring commissions already paid on subscription referrals. Apply at /affiliate/apply.

2026-04-02 — Engine Enhancements ENGINE

The appraisal context enforces stricter validation and several new rules:

• Literal-spelling enforcement. Misspellings (for example, brigthr) are now flagged as a primary weakness and substantially reduce value, instead of being credited as "creative branding."
• Pronounceability test. Unpronounceable consonant clusters are detected and penalised.
• Pattern validation. CVCV / LLL / NNN classification is checked letter-by-letter — fixes prior cases where non-CVCV strings were misclassified and over-valued.
• Compound-word boundary rule. Doubled letters at legitimate word boundaries (sentinellink, bookkeeper) are correctly recognised instead of being flagged as typos.
• SLD vs TLD discipline. Segmentation now strictly applies to the second-level domain only — fixes appraisals like ai.kitchen where the wrong half was being analysed.
• Segmentation integrity check. Components must reassemble to the exact original string — eliminates a class of bugs where the service silently "corrected" the input.
• .SO added to the TLD framework, with a tech / developer "solution" association.
• Tighter category enforcement.

Refresh strongly recommended for:

• Any domain containing a likely misspelling or unusual letter cluster.
• Any domain erroneously classified as a CVCV, LLL, or NNN pattern.
• Compound-word domains with doubled boundary letters.
• Domains where the SLD is very short and the TLD is itself a dictionary word (.kitchen, .studio, .legal…).
• All .SO domains.
• Any prior appraisal whose value looked surprisingly high for a borderline-pronounceable string.

2026-06-20 — Engine v2 ENGINE FEATURE

Our biggest engine upgrade yet. Engine v2 is now live for every new appraisal:

• Faster appraisals. Real-time appraisals now return in about 10 seconds, down from roughly 40. Batch appraisals are dramatically faster too — we recently processed 5,000 domains in about 16 minutes, so large portfolios can be valued as fast as thousands of domains in minutes. Every batch is still backed by our firm 24-hour completion guarantee; the minutes are the typical speed you can expect.
• Deepest analysis yet. The most thorough valuation analysis we have ever offered, with richer reasoning behind every estimate.
• Detailed calibration. Valuations are carefully calibrated against real-world domain sales data for sharper, more reliable estimates.
• Comparable sales. Supporting real-world comparable sales (comps) are now surfaced alongside the appraisal when available, so you can see the market evidence behind the number.
• Distinctive certificate. Engine v2 appraisals come with a refreshed, visually distinct certificate design, so an Engine v2 valuation is instantly recognisable at a glance.

Refresh strongly recommended for: any appraisal created before this date. Engine v2 reflects the deepest, best-calibrated valuations we have shipped, and a refresh is the only way to bring older appraisals up to the current engine.

2026-06-27 — Engine v2.5 ENGINE FEATURE

Engine v2.5 is a calibration upgrade to Engine v2 — the same engine family, not a new major version — now live for every new appraisal. It sharpens accuracy where it matters most and adds a new fit signal to every appraisal:

• Sharper premium .com valuations. Top-tier and category-defining .com names are valued more accurately.
• Per-extension calibration. .com, .ai, .org / .net, .io / .co and more are each graded on their own market, rather than being measured against a .com yardstick.
• New field: SLD–TLD Synergy. Every appraisal now rates how well a name fits its extension. .com is always "King"; other extensions are scored on semantic fit as Perfect → Strong → Moderate → Weak → None.
• Short-pattern recognition. One-to-three letter (L / LL / LLL) and one-to-three number (N / NN / NNN) .coms are now graded at their true premium tier.
• Cleaner value ranges. Estimates display as tidy, rounded figures that are easier to read and quote.
• Stronger public-sales grounding. Valuations are anchored to real, recent public sales.

Refresh recommended for: premium and short .com names, anything outside .com (each extension is now graded on its own market), and any appraisal where you want the new SLD–TLD Synergy rating. Appraisals created before this date pre-date Engine v2.5.

2026-07-13 — New pricing PRICING

Simplified plans and appraisal pricing: appraisals from $19.99 one-off or $29.99/month on the Investor plan, with volume tiers above. Free signup credits were retired on 2026-07-20; every appraisal now runs on the same paid, fully supported footing.

2026-07-13 — Brand assets page FEATURE

/brand publishes our official logos (SVG, WebP and PNG), wordmark colors including Appraise Navy #0D0830, and usage guidelines for partners and press. Linked from the footer.

2026-07-14 — Consensus valuations on guest reports FEATURE

Consensus valuations on guest reports — every $19.99 guest Domain Value Report is now produced by running five independent valuations of the domain, discarding the highest and the lowest, and averaging the middle three. A single appraisal carries noise; a trimmed consensus of five is far more stable. The five opinions run concurrently, so reports still arrive in seconds.

2026-07-14 — Proven Accuracy gallery FEATURE

/proven publishes reported domain sales next to the complete report each received, on the exact template subscribers get. Misses stay on the board; nothing is edited after publication.

2026-07-14 — API upgrades API

A round of partner-requested API improvements:

• GET /appraisal/{domain} now returns the certificate ID and verification URL.
• New endpoints list your batches and fetch batch results by ID — web and refresh batches included.
• Refresh-all batches, with preview and confirm.
• Signed webhooks for batch completed / failed events, with a test endpoint.

All documented at appraise.net/api/docs.

2026-07-19 — Ten-year market study published FEATURE

We appraised every entry of DNJournal's year-end Top 100 charts, 2015–2025 (1,217 sales), and published the findings: about three quarters of top-chart sales transact within a wholesale-to-moonshot band around retail appraisal. Read it on the blog.

2026-07-24 — Consensus appraisals for subscribers FEATURE

The five-opinion consensus method is now available on demand: 9 credits for a new consensus appraisal, 6 to upgrade an existing appraisal (your prior appraisal counts as opinion #1), and 6 per domain in batch. Measured run-to-run variance is exactly why this exists.

2026-07-25 — Batch reliability: automatic retry FEATURE

Failed batch appraisals now retry automatically before any refund is issued. Stuck API jobs are also detected and requeued. Fewer refunds, more results.

2026-07-26 — The Year's Biggest Sales, Appraised FEATURE

/biggest-sales: a decade of DNJournal Top 100 charts, every entry consensus-appraised and shown against its reported sale — cited, archived, filterable, including the charts' own resale ledger.

2026-07-28 — NameBio partnership PARTNERSHIP

We partnered with NameBio, the industry's reference for domain sales data, licensing their full retail sales record. Our comparable-sales pool grew from ~23,000 to over 155,000 retail sales, synchronized daily including corrections and removals. Comps on your appraisals now draw from the complete retail record.

2026-07-29 — Smarter, deeper comps ENGINE

Appraisals now show up to ten comparable sales, ordered by name closeness, each within a support window around your valuation range (0.65× low to 1.25× moonshot). New matching lanes include the same name sold under other endings, and past sale prices are time-adjusted with a value-tiered market index built from repeat-sales data. After stress-testing coverage across the full retail dataset, matching was also tuned for brandable and invented names — lower-value domains now find supporting comps far more often. Displayed valuations are unchanged; this improves the evidence beside them, so no refresh is needed.

2026-07-30 — Attestation letters FEATURE

Generate a formal Letter of Appraisal for any consensus appraisal (or a whole list) from the appraisal page: free as a verifiable electronic PDF, or $19 as a hand-signed original embossed with our corporate seal and mailed ($31 via USPS Certified Mail). Built for lenders, escrow, and estate paperwork.

2026-07-30 — Batch performance PLATFORM

Ongoing backend improvements have steadily cut batch turnaround. July's average is about 6 minutes per batch regardless of size, with a current record of 4,984 domains appraised in 7 minutes 16 seconds — under a tenth of a second per appraisal.

2026-07-30 — Self-serve account deletion FEATURE

You can now delete your account yourself from Profile, under Account and Billing: subscription cancelled, personal details anonymized, done in a minute. Built the same day a member pointed out it was missing — feature requests get heard.

2026-08-01 — Scout API

A new lightweight tier: score any domain 0–100 in under a second, built for screening big lists before deciding what deserves a full appraisal — expiring drops, auction lists, incoming offers, portfolio pricing, or name ideas before you register them. Use it at appraise.net/scout (paste or upload a list) or via the API (lists up to 250,000 names, webhooks included). Results are rank-validated against the full engine (81% recall of the true top 5%) and cached for consistency. 0.05 credits per score — one appraisal equals sixty scouts — and every new account starts with 100 free scouts. Scout your list before you appraise it.

2026-08-05 — Payment Methods Expansion MARKETPLACE

Buying a domain now works the way the buyer prefers. The marketplace accepts cards, stablecoins and crypto (USDC and more, with a dedicated "Pay with crypto" option on every listing), and US bank debit (ACH) alongside the existing Escrow.com wire path. Crypto and bank payments skip the 3% card processing fee entirely, and bank buyers save an additional 2% on our own inventory. Alipay is live as well — Chinese buyers on our Chinese-language marketplace can pay natively. Guest appraisal reports accept the new methods too.

2026-08-06 — Fairer Accounting Enhancements PLATFORM

Plan upgrades now credit you precisely for the time you actually use. When you upgrade mid-cycle, your credits are prorated to the day — exactly the way the charge is — so your balance always matches what you paid for, no more and no less. And when an account ever needs a credit adjustment, we handle it gently: you keep what’s already granted and can use it right away, any balancing happens quietly at your next renewal, and if you cancel first, it stays on us. Small, honest touches that keep your credits exactly right.

2026-08-07 — TLD Footprint on Consensus Appraisals FEATURE

Consensus appraisals now show a live “Registered across N TLDs” footprint — how widely a name’s root is already claimed across domain extensions. It’s a quick read on how much the market wants a given string: a common word like “payment” is registered in hundreds of TLDs, while an invented compound sits in a handful. The footprint appears alongside every consensus valuation, including guest reports. It’s market context, shown to inform — not a factor in the valuation itself.

2026-08-07 — Drop Feed FEATURE

A curated daily shortlist of dropping domains worth pursuing, pre-scored 0–100, live at appraise.net/drop-feed. We scan the market once — expiring .com plus .io, .co and more — and serve the shortlist to every subscriber, so you don't burn a scan on names thousands of others are already checking. Filter by TLD, minimum score, or text; sort any column; export to CSV. Any active plan unlocks the feed; the top-scoring band is an Enterprise benefit.

2026-08-28 — Brand images for your domains FEATURE

Every appraisal can now generate a custom brand identity - a clean logo and a photorealistic lifestyle image that show how the name could live as a real business. Create them from any appraisal page, carry them onto your marketplace listings and certificates, and re-roll until they feel right. Your first re-roll of each image is free.

2026-08-29 — Branded marketplace cards & social previews FEATURE

Listings with brand images now stand out with a rich visual card in the marketplace grid, and every listing link unfurls a polished branded preview when shared on social or messaging apps - the domain, its price, and its imagery in one card.

2026-08-29 — Marketplace sales, handled end to end FEATURE

Our marketplace has now handled several completed sales from offer through transfer, with payments processed securely through both Stripe and Escrow.com. Buyers and sellers can transact with confidence - instant checkout for smaller deals, escrow for larger ones.

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2026-09-03 — Measured search demand on every appraisal FEATURE

Appraisal pages now show the measured monthly Google search volume and average cost-per-click for the words in a domain, right in the Analysis Factors, with a twelve-month trend line beside it. While our engine has always considered a domain's search demand when valuing it, we now surface the underlying numbers so you can see the market's interest for yourself. The figures are shown for context and do not change the appraised value - where a name has little search volume but a strong appraisal, the other factors on the page carry the explanation.

2026-09-06 — Engine v3 (current) ENGINE

Engine v3 is now live for every appraisal. Every extension's valuation curve is calibrated on its own market: publicly reported comparable sales, momentum, and whether the extension is generally available. Engine v2.5 valuations on .com and most other extensions carry over unchanged. Extensions that were valued too generously at the top end come back within reach of their real market. Extensions with no sales record are valued cautiously until real sales arrive. The earlier Engine v2 display figures are retired, so every appraisal now shows its current value.

What this means for you: existing Engine v2.5 appraisals were updated in place, at no charge and automatically; there is nothing to refresh. The Engine v3 designation replaces Engine v2.5 on every updated appraisal, in lists and batches, and on certificates. Certificates already issued remain valid as issued. If you need a v2.5 certificate and appraisal restored, contact us and we will do it. From here, extensions are re-evaluated as new sales are recorded or as they fall out of favor. Read what changed in Engine v3, or see which of your appraisals changed.

Feedback that moves the engine ENGINE

Engine v3 was shaped by feedback from people who trade domains every day, and the next calibration will be too. The most useful feedback has a specific name, our figure, and the reason you think it is off. The reason is the part we can act on. In rough order of value:

• A name with a real number we cannot see. You sold it, you declined an offer, you paid a price, a broker quoted a range. Send the name, our range, the actual figure, and the rough date and venue. Private deals never reach the public record, and those are exactly the gaps.
• A pattern, with two or three examples. One name can be noise. Three names that land the same way point at a curve we can fix for everyone, such as premium-letter three-letter .coms or a specific extension.
• The range is fine but something else is wrong. The Buy or Hold label, the category, a strength or weakness that does not fit, a trademark we missed or flagged wrongly.
• An extension you actually trade. Engine v3 values each extension on its own market, so recent sales you know about on an extension move the whole extension, not just one name.

Less useful: the famous eight-figure sales, which are already in the public record, and single-name reactions without a number. Send feedback to support@appraise.net with the domain in the subject line. If it is a real miss, the value moves, and we will tell you.

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Looking ahead — stability commitment ENGINE

Engine v3 is the stable baseline for the remainder of 2026. No major recalibrations are planned. Any further improvements will be quiet, incremental refinements that will not reset your existing valuations, and any change material enough to move valuations will be version-bumped and announced here first. In short: stable by default, improving by exception.

General guidance

Appraisals created on Engine v2.5 (2026-06-27 to 2026-09-06) were updated to Engine v3 automatically and need no refresh. Appraisals created before 2026-06-27 pre-date Engine v2.5 and are considered obsolete: they stay on your account and can be refreshed at the normal reduced refresh rate, which values them directly on Engine v3. A refresh is most worthwhile for premium and short .com names, brandables, anything outside .com, and domains with unusual spelling or letter patterns.