The short version: we estimate what an ideal end-user buyer would pay in an optimal sale. That number is your compass, not your price tag.
Every Appraise.net valuation is a retail estimate: what a motivated end user, the business or individual for whom this domain is the perfect fit, would reasonably pay in a well-executed sale. It is not a promise, not a guaranteed exit, and not what a domainer would pay you tomorrow.
Domains, like real estate, trade at different prices depending on who is buying and how fast you need to sell:
Retail is the end-user price. The startup that needs exactly this name. Highest value, lowest probability in any given month, because that buyer has to show up.
Wholesale is the investor-to-investor price, typically a fraction of retail. This is what you see at auction and in domainer-to-domainer deals. Faster, but you're selling to someone who buys to resell.
Liquidation is the "I need cash this week" price. Lowest of all, and the price many quick-sale platforms are built around.
When someone says a retail appraisal is "wrong" because a similar name closed at auction for far less, they're comparing a retail estimate to a wholesale transaction. Both numbers are real. They answer different questions.
A single number implies precision that no honest appraiser, human or AI, can deliver. Domain sales for comparable names routinely close at prices that differ by 2x to 5x based on buyer circumstances, negotiation, and timing.
Our low-to-high range reflects that reality. The high end assumes a strong-fit buyer and patient, well-run negotiation. The low end assumes a decent but not perfect match. Confidence indicators tell you how much comparable evidence supports the range.
Each appraisal weighs the factors experienced investors will recognize: length, keyword strength and commercial intent, TLD, brandability and memorability, and market trends for the niche. We also run word segmentation to understand what a name actually says (VisualSocial reads as Visual + Social) and assess multilingual appeal where a name carries meaning across markets.
What matters more than any single factor is that the reasoning is visible. Every appraisal shows you the analysis behind the range: the strengths, the weaknesses, and relevant comparable sales where they exist, drawn from the public sales record. A number you can't interrogate is a guess with confidence. A valuation you can check against the market's own history is a tool.
The appraisal is your pricing anchor. Your actual asking price is a strategy decision that only you can make, and it depends on things no appraisal tool knows: your cash-flow needs, your holding costs, the size and shape of your portfolio, and how patient you can afford to be.
A collector with deep reserves might price at or above the high end and wait years. An investor who needs velocity might price at 40 to 60 percent of the high value to move inventory. Neither is wrong. Same compass, different journeys. That's why Appraise.net lets you set My Price as a percentage of the high value in your profile, so your whole portfolio prices to your strategy automatically.
We don't inflate valuations to flatter you into a subscription; a tool you stop trusting is a tool you stop paying for. We don't claim to predict individual sales. We don't treat wholesale auction results as proof that retail estimates are wrong, or the reverse. And when a domain is weak, the appraisal says so.
The best test of an appraisal methodology is how it tracks real market outcomes, so we publish ours.
We appraised a decade of the top 100 annual sales as reported by DNJournal, the industry's sale-of-record, and published how our valuations compare against what the market actually paid.
Appraisals made before the outcome was known, published as they occurred: the accurate ones, the ones that ran under, and the ones that ran over. No cherry-picking.
Or skip our evidence and make your own: run a domain you know well and judge the reasoning for yourself.