Thanks, I appreciate the feedback. It looks like the question was:
how can you prove that the results are true, within those percentages?
In short, there is no way to simply prove it. The negotiated price of a domain has many varying factors including the value of the domain, the buyer, the seller, and many personal details of the buyer's and seller's current situation and point-of-views. The tool gives 6 different pricing levels and unless you know details on the buyer and seller's situation and negotiations, there is no way to judge the accuracy of the tool as compared to a particular sale when just comparing number to number.
What I can tell you is through experience, I have found it's accuracy to be in this range. How? I've been a domain investor for over 15 years, have around 7,000 domains up for sale, and sell around 80 domains per year. The ways it has been tested are below.
- Before releasing the tool I manually checked over 10,000 estimates and made adjustments along the way based on my 15 years of buying, selling, and statistics of both.
- Since releasing the tool, 1,000s more estimates have been manually checked and we've moved from version 1.0 to version 1.2 now. Version 1.3 is due to be released this week.
- It has been checked against hundreds of top sales and fine-tuned over time.
- We used it to purchase over 1,000 domains last year while it was in beta testing. The initial $12,000 investment in those domains was turned into close to $20,000 within the same year. This proved it not just theoretically, but in a real situation with our own financial risk.
First and foremost is I built the tool for my next 2-3 projects, because estimate accuracy is a necessity that didn't previously exist in the industry. So whether people use it or not, while I do greatly appreciate it, in the end it makes no difference to me. I use it every day for every purchase and sale I make as a "second opinion", and my next 2-3 projects are based on it. So I'm all-in in going forward only because my other projects are rooted by this technology. This tool was never meant to be a commercial product, but I found it wasn't feasible for me to make it a free tool, because the overhead costs were way too high. This is just a stepping stone, and foundation for my next projects.
If it helps other domain investors, like it helps me, great.
i'd rather see users say that it was more accurate, compared to other tools,
than the site making the claim
NameWorth has only existed for 6-7 weeks. So maybe as time goes on customers will attest to the accuracy, especially once the tool approaches version 2.0 this summer. But right now, the service is still pretty new. But out of all the accounts that signed up under normal circumstances, there is a 100% renewal rate. So, I think that gives some confirmation to the accuracy.
for one, i don't follow MM sales, and they aren't relevant to what i asked
The link I shared with you shows how the majority of Mike Mann's English-based domain sales in one month are very close to the NameWorth estimates.
You mentioned MMs sales not being relevant to what you asked, but they are
key to what you asked. Most of us are not pricing domains at the prices of the top domain investors (Rick & Mike Mann). Mike moves more domains at these price levels than anyone in the world so you can count on him pushing for top dollar. That is the baseline for top sales without a doubt. So the top of what the tool estimates needs to match what the top investors would try to sell at. This is what the tool calls
Retail Level. There are 5 other levels including Market Level, Investor Level, Industry Level, Auction Level, and Liquidation Level and I'll explain three specific scenarios below in addition to the 20+ scenarios on the link shared before (
https://www.nameworth.com/benefits.php FAQ Question #8).
Case #1
ClassicRides.com
I'm an enthusiast of classic cars and have been since I was in high school. I have a 66 fastback in the garage, that I paid for with domain income, and maybe one day I'd like to build some type of restoration business when I'm not working as much anymore. About 4 months ago, classicrides.com came up as an expired auction. Going into it I was prepared to pay as much as $2,500 for the domain without even looking at the NameWorth estimate.
Not as a domain investor, but as a classic car enthusiast, and someone with a distant dream of running a classic car restoration business, even though it is likely not going to happen. So I realized I could possibly win the domain because there would likely need to be another classic car enthusiast to outbid me.
So if we run the NameWorth estimate (below) it shows a Retail Level price of $14,500. I'm obviously not ready to pay this amount going into the auction, even as a classic car enthusiast with a distant future plan, but if it is 10 years from now and I was ready to invest $100,000+ into starting up a restoration shop, I would have no problem spending $14,500 or even up to $30k for the domain. Here lies the problem with most estimate tools. What is the correct price? I'll pay $2,500 as buyer with a potential future use, but as a serious buyer, in the right moment in time, I would pay up to $30k for the domain. This was why I created Pricing Levels. It is the only way to explain huge variances in pricing. As a domain investor, and entrepreneur I have many years of first hand experience in seeing why price levels are established.
I ended up winning the auction at $1,750. So if you look at my use for the domain, it falls into the Investor Level area. My limit of $2,500 was very close to the Investor Level of $2,897. The Investor Level is characterized by the Buyer (me) having a possible future need, and investing in a particular type of domain (classic car related). Because classic cars and the market is known to most, you get investors going beyond typical Auction Level pricing and are willing to move into Industry Level pricing on a name like this, as shown below.
Case #2
InternetFriends.com
I ended up watching InternetFriends.com as an expired auction and was prepared to pay up to $1,000 for the domain without even looking at NameWorth. It was Christmas time and I was pretty limited as far as coming up with more than $1,000-$2,000 for the domain. It is a term that my son, who is in high school, uses with his friends at school to describe people they meet online via video games or other sources.
So, I was in the car driving around during the auction and really had to make a quick decision. I based my decision to buy based on what kind of selling price I'd put on it. I knew it would be at least $25k, maybe $50k but wasn't really sure. Later in the auction, I saw that the tool recommended $44,500. The auction climbed to over $1,500, so I called up a close friend and got him to split the cost with me and we won it at $2,550.
Together, we were prepared to bid up to $3,000. He wanted to put a price of $74k on it to cover commission fees, so that's where it's at. If I go and look back at the NameWorth recommendations, Auction Level pricing shows at $2,336; we paid $2,550, and that is pretty close to what 2 other investors/bidders were willing to pay at 10:30pm, a week before Christmas during this auction. If I had more funds available, I may have paid up to $5,000 for the domain.
Case #3
CBDOil.com
In this case, CBDOil.com recently sold for $500k, and we estimated $250k. Double it and we are there which is within the limits of the "in-the-ballpark" definition.
So to summarize it is 80-95% or more accurate to the scenarios below:
- My personal purchases and sales, with me knowing the details of each transaction. I've been a very open person on this forum, and have shared strategies, past sales, and insights.
- Most of Mike Mann's top sales without me knowing any details of those transactions, but knowing that he pushes for the maximum price.
- Several of Rick's sales that are English based terms.
- Top sales like CBDOil.com above.
if i buy a name from you for $3500 and i only pay you $2250, did i send correct amount?
sure, it's in the "ball park" but it's not the accurate amount agreed on.
Instead of thinking of the tool in "absolute accuracy" terms I would look at the realistic application of the tool. It cannot guess the exact dollar amount of every sale. That is impossible for anyone or anything to estimate the exact dollar amount of a sale because it depends on 10+ conditions that we'll never know. What if someone is selling a domain for $15,000 instead of $25,000 because they need to put a down payment on a condo? This is something that at best, only the buyer and seller would know. But the ballpark figure would still apply in this case. There is little value in trying to give a 100% accurate number. What you don't want is to sell a domain for $15,000 that you should have sold for $500,000 (case #3 above).
That is where the value is clearly at with this service.