Some make the claim that the domain name secondary market is working against internet development and standing in the way of startup owners. They argue that businesses are held back by lack of names.
Numerous arguments could be made in response, including that an orderly secondary domain market helps startups efficiently find and acquire a domain name.
Also, the holding and selling of domain names is a legal practice, as long as they do not infringe on rights of others, essentially no different than holding other assets that may appreciate in value over time.
This article is not a comprehensive attempt to directly refute the argument. However, I thought it would be useful to have some numbers about the supply and demand of domain names. Along the way, I think there are insights for investing in domain names. Most of the numbers presented here are uncertain, and I include links to sources.
How Many Businesses Start Each Year?
While it is easy to access how many businesses start each year in certain countries, the data is more elusive for parts of the world. In the USA, the number of new business started each year has grown to more than 5 million per year — see data from 2015 through 2025 summarized by CommerceInstitute).
This 2022 article at Microsoft estimates about 50 million startups globally each year, or 137,000 startups each day.
How Many Companies Listed on a Stock Market?
Most of those companies are very small and privately held, and many startups will have a short lifetime, however. This article suggests that only about 58,000 companies are listed on one of the global equity markets, and that number is not growing very rapidly.
Number Unicorn Companies
Investopedia defines a unicorn company as a privately-held startup that has reached a valuation of at least $1 billion USD.
CB Insights list 1283 unicorn companies currently. In exchange for you email, you can download the list of unicorn companies.
Number of Global Trademarks
Since trademarks are registered in each jurisdiction, it is elusive to get a good number for the global total. However, WIPO estimates that in 2023 there were 11.6 million trademark applications globally, a slight decline from the previous year. By the way, that article has a wealth of information on how trademark applications vary by country and relates to GDP, and what classes were growing strongly.
What is the total number of active trademarks globally? About 88.2 million according to WIPO Trademark Highlights.
Number Registered Domain Names
Quarterly, Verisign issues the Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB). The Q1 2025 DNIB, reported a total of 368.4 million domain name registrations across all extensions, up 6.1 million or 1.7% year-over-year. The .com/.net registrations were actually down 2.6 million, but that was more than made up by increases in other extensions.
Compared to numbers cited earlier, with 50 million new startups globally each year, it appears that the domain name supply is not keeping pace. But that probably simply reflects that the majority of tiny startups choose a hand registration, or some do not have an online presence outside social media and shared sites.
Number of Extensions
The IANA root database has about 1600 entries. While not all of these extensions are open to general use (e.g. the ones that are exclusive brand TLDs, or otherwise restricted, or not yet generally released), I think roughly 1200 extensions are generally available.
How Many Domain Name Combinations Are Possible?
As a fun math exercise, I wondered about how many possible domain names there could be.
Each registry sets the rules, but for most domain names can be up to 63 characters in length. Many also set a lower limit of 2 or 3 characters. Those characters can be the numerals 0 through 9, and the letters A through Z, or a hyphen with certain restrictions. Leaving out provision for international characters, or names with hyphens, let’s simplify to 36 possibilities, the 10 digits and 26 letters.
If we had a 1 character domain name there would be 36 possibilities, for 2 character names there are 36*36 combinations, three character names 36*36*36, and so on. So if we have the maximum number of characters (63) and allow 36 possibilities for each (leaving out hyphens, etc.) we would have 36 to the power 63 possible domain names. How many is that?
The number of 63 character domain names possible in a single extension is 111,444,219,848,545,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000! Really there are more than that, since the above is only the number of combinations for domain names that are the full 63 characters long. We need to add how many combinations for 62 character names, plus 61 character names, and so on. But this gives us an order of magnitude number less than the total number.
It’s awkward to write big names like that, so we can use scientific notation. The number of 63 character domain names possible in a single extension is more than 1.114x10^98 and not counting shorter names.
And we have those 1200 different extension possibilities, so the total number of possible domain names is more like 1.34x10^101. That is without allowing for blockchain domains, and we have not counted all of those shorter names.
Wondering how big a number that is? One estimate of the number of atoms in the observable universe is about 10^82. In other words, every atom in the observable universe could have its own unique domain name, with a bunch of unused domain names left over!
The DNS system can support a lot of names, but of course not all are desired. What about how many dictionary word possibilities?
Words In A Dictionary
If we restrict our consideration to English, there are more than 600,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary. If you are talking the full unabridged version, the Merriam-Webster dictionary has about 470,000 words, but the collegiate version many use is closer to 175,000 words.
Now these numbers are all much less than the number of companies in the world, so clearly not every company can have a single dictionary word .com. Of course there are numerous ways to expand the number of available company names beyond the number of desired dictionary words, but that is the topic for another article.
But the total number of dictionary words is misleading, since many of those are highly technical words unlikely to be used by a company. For example, paleichthyology is definitely a word, listed in most dictionaries including Merriam-Webster. It means ‘study of fossil fishes.’ It might someday be useful to someone, but most startups would not consider a technical word like this. As i write this, it is unregistered in .com, and everything else, and odds are will stay that way.
You can use ExpiredDomains to find dictionary .com words dropping every single day. But almost all are technical or rarely used words.
So how many of the words in a dictionary would be useful as a potential company name?. I could not find an estimate of that, but it clearly is significantly less than the 175,000 in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate dictionary. If we rule out technical words and some with really negative connotation words, might it be 30,000 to 40,000? That is my guess of the upper limit.
Academics in a BBC episode about languages indicated:
Interestingly, one can become fluent and manage in conversations with far fewer than that, just a few thousand words.
Company Names Can Be Long!
While there are lots of good reasons to keep your company name short and memorable, in most jurisdictions they are allowed to be long. For example, company 04120480 registered in the UK has the official name: THIS IS THE COMPANY WITH THE LONGEST NAME SO FAR INCORPORATED AT THE REGISTRY OF COMPANIES IN ENGLAND AND WALES AND ENCOMPASSING THE REGISTRIES BASED IN SCOTLAN, unfortunately no space for the D at end.
Long company names do open up more domain names to corporate use, but at a cost of memorability. As noted earlier, most TLDs restrict domain names to 63 characters.
A Few Thoughts for Domainers
Here are some of the things I thought about in putting this compilation of numbers together:
Numerous arguments could be made in response, including that an orderly secondary domain market helps startups efficiently find and acquire a domain name.
Also, the holding and selling of domain names is a legal practice, as long as they do not infringe on rights of others, essentially no different than holding other assets that may appreciate in value over time.
This article is not a comprehensive attempt to directly refute the argument. However, I thought it would be useful to have some numbers about the supply and demand of domain names. Along the way, I think there are insights for investing in domain names. Most of the numbers presented here are uncertain, and I include links to sources.
How Many Businesses Start Each Year?
While it is easy to access how many businesses start each year in certain countries, the data is more elusive for parts of the world. In the USA, the number of new business started each year has grown to more than 5 million per year — see data from 2015 through 2025 summarized by CommerceInstitute).
This 2022 article at Microsoft estimates about 50 million startups globally each year, or 137,000 startups each day.
How Many Companies Listed on a Stock Market?
Most of those companies are very small and privately held, and many startups will have a short lifetime, however. This article suggests that only about 58,000 companies are listed on one of the global equity markets, and that number is not growing very rapidly.
Number Unicorn Companies
Investopedia defines a unicorn company as a privately-held startup that has reached a valuation of at least $1 billion USD.
CB Insights list 1283 unicorn companies currently. In exchange for you email, you can download the list of unicorn companies.
Number of Global Trademarks
Since trademarks are registered in each jurisdiction, it is elusive to get a good number for the global total. However, WIPO estimates that in 2023 there were 11.6 million trademark applications globally, a slight decline from the previous year. By the way, that article has a wealth of information on how trademark applications vary by country and relates to GDP, and what classes were growing strongly.
What is the total number of active trademarks globally? About 88.2 million according to WIPO Trademark Highlights.
In 2023, there were an estimated 88.2 million active trademark registrations across 155 IP offices globally, representing an increase of 6.4% compared to 2022.
Number Registered Domain Names
Quarterly, Verisign issues the Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB). The Q1 2025 DNIB, reported a total of 368.4 million domain name registrations across all extensions, up 6.1 million or 1.7% year-over-year. The .com/.net registrations were actually down 2.6 million, but that was more than made up by increases in other extensions.
Compared to numbers cited earlier, with 50 million new startups globally each year, it appears that the domain name supply is not keeping pace. But that probably simply reflects that the majority of tiny startups choose a hand registration, or some do not have an online presence outside social media and shared sites.
Number of Extensions
The IANA root database has about 1600 entries. While not all of these extensions are open to general use (e.g. the ones that are exclusive brand TLDs, or otherwise restricted, or not yet generally released), I think roughly 1200 extensions are generally available.
How Many Domain Name Combinations Are Possible?
As a fun math exercise, I wondered about how many possible domain names there could be.
Each registry sets the rules, but for most domain names can be up to 63 characters in length. Many also set a lower limit of 2 or 3 characters. Those characters can be the numerals 0 through 9, and the letters A through Z, or a hyphen with certain restrictions. Leaving out provision for international characters, or names with hyphens, let’s simplify to 36 possibilities, the 10 digits and 26 letters.
If we had a 1 character domain name there would be 36 possibilities, for 2 character names there are 36*36 combinations, three character names 36*36*36, and so on. So if we have the maximum number of characters (63) and allow 36 possibilities for each (leaving out hyphens, etc.) we would have 36 to the power 63 possible domain names. How many is that?
The number of 63 character domain names possible in a single extension is 111,444,219,848,545,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000! Really there are more than that, since the above is only the number of combinations for domain names that are the full 63 characters long. We need to add how many combinations for 62 character names, plus 61 character names, and so on. But this gives us an order of magnitude number less than the total number.
It’s awkward to write big names like that, so we can use scientific notation. The number of 63 character domain names possible in a single extension is more than 1.114x10^98 and not counting shorter names.
And we have those 1200 different extension possibilities, so the total number of possible domain names is more like 1.34x10^101. That is without allowing for blockchain domains, and we have not counted all of those shorter names.
Wondering how big a number that is? One estimate of the number of atoms in the observable universe is about 10^82. In other words, every atom in the observable universe could have its own unique domain name, with a bunch of unused domain names left over!
The DNS system can support a lot of names, but of course not all are desired. What about how many dictionary word possibilities?
Words In A Dictionary
If we restrict our consideration to English, there are more than 600,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary. If you are talking the full unabridged version, the Merriam-Webster dictionary has about 470,000 words, but the collegiate version many use is closer to 175,000 words.
Now these numbers are all much less than the number of companies in the world, so clearly not every company can have a single dictionary word .com. Of course there are numerous ways to expand the number of available company names beyond the number of desired dictionary words, but that is the topic for another article.
But the total number of dictionary words is misleading, since many of those are highly technical words unlikely to be used by a company. For example, paleichthyology is definitely a word, listed in most dictionaries including Merriam-Webster. It means ‘study of fossil fishes.’ It might someday be useful to someone, but most startups would not consider a technical word like this. As i write this, it is unregistered in .com, and everything else, and odds are will stay that way.
You can use ExpiredDomains to find dictionary .com words dropping every single day. But almost all are technical or rarely used words.
So how many of the words in a dictionary would be useful as a potential company name?. I could not find an estimate of that, but it clearly is significantly less than the 175,000 in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate dictionary. If we rule out technical words and some with really negative connotation words, might it be 30,000 to 40,000? That is my guess of the upper limit.
Academics in a BBC episode about languages indicated:
Word family would treat say run as a term, with ran, runs, running, etc. part of same word family. If a native speaker is only familiar with up to 20,000 words, I think it is doubtful if the total number of company name suitable words in a language is much more than double that.Typically native speakers know 15,000 to 20,000 word families - or lemmas - in their first language.
Interestingly, one can become fluent and manage in conversations with far fewer than that, just a few thousand words.
Company Names Can Be Long!
While there are lots of good reasons to keep your company name short and memorable, in most jurisdictions they are allowed to be long. For example, company 04120480 registered in the UK has the official name: THIS IS THE COMPANY WITH THE LONGEST NAME SO FAR INCORPORATED AT THE REGISTRY OF COMPANIES IN ENGLAND AND WALES AND ENCOMPASSING THE REGISTRIES BASED IN SCOTLAN, unfortunately no space for the D at end.
Long company names do open up more domain names to corporate use, but at a cost of memorability. As noted earlier, most TLDs restrict domain names to 63 characters.
A Few Thoughts for Domainers
Here are some of the things I thought about in putting this compilation of numbers together:
- For a domain name to hold much value, it must be in demand and scarce. There must be few competitive names available to hand register or buy cheaply.
- Part of in demand is an extension that is respected and desired. We can argue about which extensions pass this test. I think most would agree on .com, .ai, and .org, and many would include .net, .io, .xyz and .co, probably along with .app and a few others. Clearly many other extensions have value in certain terms, for example when a good synergy across the dot.
- Prime names only become scarce when the number of registrations in the extension get to the order of at least 40,000, the number of useful words for corporate naming in a language. The problem is when an extension is emerging, you need to grab the good words while still available, and you don’t know if it will ever reach the scarcity level.
- If we look at the number of global startups each year, about 50 million, it indicates that there is still a lot of room for expansion of the domain aftermarket.
- Over the past 12 months, NameBio has listed just under 33,000 sales of $1000 or more. While the majority of retail sales are not listed, this is still a factor of 1500x less than the number of new companies that started up in that year.
- The number of new companies started in the year could purchase the entire Atom inventory of premium names 150 times over to meet their needs.
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