Comps (Comparable Domain Sales)
Comps — comparable sales — are recorded past sales of similar domain names, used to estimate what a domain is worth and to justify an asking price. Borrowed from real estate, the logic is the same: the best evidence of what a name will fetch is what names like it actually sold for.
What makes a sale comparable
- •Same TLD, or a defensible adjustment across TLDs.
- •Similar structure: length, word count, and word quality (dictionary word vs. made-up string).
- •Similar category: a two-word finance .com comps against other finance names, not pet names.
- •Recent enough to reflect the current market, since demand shifts by niche and TLD.
The blind spot in comp data
Published sales databases only contain disclosed transactions — a minority of the market, skewed toward marketplace and auction sales. Big private end-user deals are usually under NDA, so comp data tends to understate the top end. Comps set a floor and a reference range; they do not cap what the right buyer will pay.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do domain comps come from?
From publicly reported sales: marketplace and auction results that platforms disclose, plus voluntarily reported private deals collected by sales databases and industry publications. Most private sales are never published.
How many comps do I need to price a domain?
There is no fixed number — a handful of genuinely similar recent sales beats dozens of loose matches. For unusual or highly brandable names, close comps may simply not exist, and pricing becomes judgment.