Atom / Atom.com - Marketplace (formerly Squadhelp)

[JudgeMind]

Hey Folks,

I've just started using squadhelp.com to list some of my brandable. So far I have 76 domains listed, there is no fee to list. I've had some decent action so far in the way of interested buyers but no sales as of yet. I've only been with them for 1 week now.

A bit of a summary review of SquadHelp:

PROS

• No Listing fee
• No Logo design fee
• Ability to submit your names to end users holding naming contests
• Ability to chat directly or send a message directly to end users.
• Stats of your marketplace domains are shown in the marketplace dashboard.
• Their customer service and support has been great, 24hr a day chat.
• Ability to increase or decrease the list price of your domains or to show a discount. You can decrease or increase the price yourself by $200. If you want to lower more, you can contact support.
• End users can shortlist your domains before they make a decision on which they want to purchase. The number of shortlists is shown in you marketplace dashboard.
• When you submit your names you get to set the price you wish to get. Because their commissions are high I recommend listing at a higher price to offset the commission costs.
• Their landing pages are fairly basic but they work. Because the marketplace is fairly new, I'm sure we will see style improvements in the future.
• One thing I really like is they accept multiple extensions. I have listed .co and .io along with .com
• Each seller gets a direct link to their marketplace portfolio, HERES MY PORTFOLIO. It is handy if your trying to p[promote your portfolio through social media.
• I like that their marketplace doesn't have tens of thousands domain listings like BB. They are fairly strict on the domains they accept to list and so this helps keep the number of domains in the marketplace down and gets your listings more exposure.

CONS

• Their commissions are very high, depending on the domain name they are usually between 30% and 35%. However, there are no listing fees, no logo design fees, so in the end their commission is very similar to brand buckets.
• Their logos are not top quality, in fact I requested to have some of my logos remade.
• I think they have a big backlog of logos to design, the wait time for logo design has been around 1 week, but your names are still listed while the logos are being designed.
• After your names are accepted you need to agree to their commission rate, at this point you also need to apply your own keywords, descriptions etc. I found this was very time consuming.

 

[King]

Atom support claims Domain Insights Tool estimator is working properly again.

Things still seems off to me:
Baltic.now $40,500
Isle.now $40,500
Washington.now $40,500
Merry.now $40,500
Par.now $40,500
Baker.now $40,500
Gambler.now $40,500
Your.now $40,500
Anytime.now $40,500
Mandy.now $42,034
BeYou.now $33,000

The above are all available as of today. Some regular price and some premium. Have at 'em if you like any of them.

What is off, exactly? The appraisal tool has always had certain values it assigns frequently, for example, a mediocre .com domain with a score of 5 is give around $1900, a single word .co is mainly given a value around $120K.

Those .now I would indeed price around $40K except the ones ending in er.

 

[Synozeer]

What is off, exactly? The appraisal tool has always had certain values it assigns frequently, for example, a mediocre .com domain with a score of 5 is give around $1900, a single word .co is mainly given a value around $120K.

Those .now I would indeed price around $40K except the ones ending in er.

.now has only had one notable reported sale since inception. It's incorrect for the appraisal tool to have .now valued that high without any sales to back it up. Then again, most appraisal tools are incorrect, especially with non-mainstream tlds.

 

[King]

Little update on Domain Talk.

 

[King]

Got this message

Changes to Expert Review Process For Premium Listings
We’re writing to let you know about an important update to our Premium domain review and approval process.
As you may know, we previously offered an Expert Review process, where a panel of sellers could vote on submitted domains. This allowed us to tap into the collective insights of experienced sellers and rapidly scale our curation efforts.
As we move into the next phase of growth, we’re placing an even stronger emphasis on quality, consistency, and overall fit. To support that vision, we’ll be discontinuing the Expert Review process and transitioning to a fully internal review model for all Premium domain submissions.
Going forward, our internal team—guided by AI signals and proprietary data—will handle the complete evaluation process. While AI will continue to play an important role, final decisions for most domains will primarily be made by our in-house team, allowing us to apply a more consistent standard across the marketplace.
We’re confident this shift will result in stronger curation, an improved buyer experience, and ultimately higher sell-through rates for listed domains.
We also want to extend a heartfelt thank you to all our Expert Reviewers who contributed their time, insights, and expertise to help shape the marketplace to where it is today.
As always, thank you for being part of the Atom community.

So no more "Expert reviewers".

The claim to focus on quality and overall fit sounds promising, let's see how it's actually implemented.

 

[doidomnola]

Got this message



So no more "Expert reviewers".

Bummer on many fronts including:
No more monthly coin credits for review
No more $5 for reviewed domain sales. I made $20 last month
No more insight on domains submitted

Atom ultimately shooting for a fully AI driven marketplace.

They claim it's for "stronger curation" but with 300,000+ names, many thousands of which are worthless, it doesn't much matter as Atom's marketplace and user experience is severely weakened by quantity over quality.

 

[DN_Hunter]

Speaking of Premium Review, what is the policy when Atom approves a name for Premium, but the seller thinks the suggested price is too low and rejects it. Does the domain name revert back to a Standard listing in the seller's account? If so, how long does it take to show up in the Standard listings, as well put back in the WLM?

 

[NameGroove]

Atom support claims Domain Insights Tool estimator is working properly again.

Things still seems off to me:
Baltic.now $40,500
Isle.now $40,500
Washington.now $40,500
Merry.now $40,500
Par.now $40,500
Baker.now $40,500
Gambler.now $40,500
Your.now $40,500
Anytime.now $40,500
Mandy.now $42,034
BeYou.now $33,000

The above are all available as of today. Some regular price and some premium. Have at 'em if you like any of them.

$40.5k is what it always gave to my solid one word .nows - its a default price when it doesn't know what to do. Later, after denial or approval it updates that placeholder and gives a better, almost always, lower appraisal

 

[draco]

Speaking of Premium Review, what is the policy when Atom approves a name for Premium, but the seller thinks the suggested price is too low and rejects it. Does the domain name revert back to a Standard listing in the seller's account? If so, how long does it take to show up in the Standard listings, as well put back in the WLM?

Don't reject it. Just appeal the price. But be prepared to wait. I think someone recently posted appeals are taking about 3 months now.

 

[NameGroove]

Don't reject it. Just appeal the price. But be prepared to wait. I think someone recently posted appeals are taking about 3 months now.

Appeals are now at ~17 weeks, and counting

 

[NameGroove]

I sold .com names years ago for more and they still haven't put a page up, so having a cheap website up is still better than many and not a sign of illegitimacy IMO. To your point though, their company info page looks like AI generated content and stock images, and I can find nothing about that company other than their two social accounts, both of which haven't been updated since creation a year ago.

However, that is the only reported end-user sale .now has had. Most tlds have outliers, and until there are more sales in that range, that's the outlier. Actually, simply selling a .now is an outlier at this point. It's a new tld, and it doesn't matter if we (domainers) like it, but if the end-users adopt it and are willing to spend good money for solid slds.

It always amazes me how many sold names never go live. My guess is it's at least 50%. Simply stunning

 

[enterscope]

It always amazes me how many sold names never go live. My guess is it's at least 50%. Simply stunning

I have a few past sales (some 2+ years ago) that are still redirecting to Atom.

 

[enterscope]

Bummer on many fronts including:
No more monthly coin credits for review
No more $5 for reviewed domain sales. I made $20 last month
No more insight on domains submitted

Atom ultimately shooting for a fully AI driven marketplace.

They claim it's for "stronger curation" but with 300,000+ names, many thousands of which are worthless, it doesn't much matter as Atom's marketplace and user experience is severely weakened by quantity over quality.

That's probably why they got rid of it.

 

[DN_Hunter]

Don't reject it. Just appeal the price. But be prepared to wait. I think someone recently posted appeals are taking about 3 months now.

I had already rejected it -- there were only 2 options (Approve or Reject). Problem is the domain did not go back to my Standard listings. And it's landing page is gone from my WLM and also the Atom Catalog.

NOTE: I do see it in my Premium listings with Status Rejected. From there I can "Request Review" (is that the Appeal)?

 

[NameGroove]

I had already rejected it -- there were only 2 options (Approve or Reject). Problem is the domain did not go back to my Standard listings. And it's landing page is gone from my WLM and also the Atom Catalog.

NOTE: I do see it in my Premium listings with Status Rejected. From there I can "Request Review" (is that the Appeal)?

yes, that's the appeal.

 

[doidomnola]

yes, that's the appeal.

The third option is just to ignore and neither approve or reject. I've been ignoring plenty of premium approved names for many months. No hurry on my part.

 

[DomainRecap]

The third option is just to ignore and neither approve or reject. I've been ignoring plenty of premium approved names for many months. No hurry on my part.

So what happens to these? Are they effectively Standard with the lower commission?

 

[DN_Hunter]

The third option is just to ignore and neither approve or reject. I've been ignoring plenty of premium approved names for many months. No hurry on my part.

The problem I see is if it's ignored, it also disappears from my WLM and Atom Catalog. When I type in the "ignored" premium name (neither Accepted or Rejected), it just goes to the Atom.com Marketplace.

 

[doidomnola]

The problem I see is if it's ignored, it also disappears from my WLM and Atom Catalog. When I type in the "ignored" premium name (neither Accepted or Rejected), it just goes to the Atom.com Marketplace.

Hmmm that hasn't been my experience they just stayed standard. I can't speak to wlm. If your has disappeared than yes I'd think you're forced to choose.

 

[NameGroove]

The third option is just to ignore and neither approve or reject. I've been ignoring plenty of premium approved names for many months. No hurry on my part.

Pending Premium names are not listed in Standard to my knowledge. At least, when I have pending premium they do not show in my Standard (or Premium) dashboard. You better triple check if this is your strategy

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Pending Premium names are not listed in Standard to my knowledge. At least, when I have pending premium they do not show in my Standard (or Premium) dashboard. You better triple check if this is your strategy

I agree with @NameGroove. If a name is pending premium approval at Atom, even though that name used to have a standard lander, it will go to the Atom site rather than a lander while it is pending or under approval review.

When names are not accepted by Atom for premium, they automatically go back to standard listings.

I have not actually rejected a premium approved name, due to suggested pricing, so not sure what happens in that case.

Bob

PS Corrected first line. Thanks for correction, @Future Sensors.