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.

 

[Optimal Names]

The monopoly in internet infrastructure seems WORSE than the one in the domain industry.

Problems with ONE company take out almost the entire internet.
First, it was AWS. Now, it's CloudFlare.

I can't access my registrar accounts Dynadot, Spaceship, NameSilo, NameCheap and even Sav.

Infuriating stuff.

Single point of failure, it happens too frequently and not just domains but other aspects of the WWW. Not good.

 

[Jannes]

The monopoly in internet infrastructure seems WORSE than the one in the domain industry.

Problems with ONE company take out almost the entire internet.
First, it was AWS. Now, it's CloudFlare.

I can't access my registrar accounts Dynadot, Spaceship, NameSilo, NameCheap and even Sav.

Infuriating stuff.

But GD & Afternic work. Oh, the irony.

 

[DomainRecap]

The monopoly in internet infrastructure seems WORSE than the one in the domain industry.

Problems with ONE company take out almost the entire internet.

It's the same everywhere - industries are mass-consolidating which then translates into even small issues translating on a massive scale.

The consolidation of food production is the scariest, by far.

 

[D Haynes]

Definitely the future of terrorism. Cut a couple undersea cables, blow a few server centres and congratulations you have a world on its knees .

 

[DomainRecap]

Definitely the future of terrorism. Cut a couple undersea cables, blow a few server centres and congratulations you have a world on its knees .

Yeah, the old "Eggs all in One Basket" strategy.... what could go wrong?

 

[Chris Co]

Definitely the future of terrorism. Cut a couple undersea cables, blow a few server centres and congratulations you have a world on its knees .

The irony is the internet was originally designed to solve this very problem, so we could still communicate if parts of the network were disrupted & we still ended up messing it up.

 

[Velocity.Now]

First time I have noticed a drop in Atom premium listings. I don't think it is producing a worthwhile STR for the average domainer. I think the drop in numbers is a trend that will continue, hopefully the lower quality stock

 

[King]

First time I have noticed a drop in Atom premium listings. I don't think it is producing a worthwhile STR for the average domainer. I think the drop in numbers is a trend that will continue, hopefully the lower quality stock

Are they actively deleting names, or are people just dropping their junk?

 

[draco]

Are they actively deleting names, or are people just dropping their junk?

My guess would be people are just dropping their junk or delisting their names and leaving Atom. If Atom started deleting names, I think we would hear about it.

 

[NorthernDomains]

Are they actively deleting names, or are people just dropping their junk?

I believe people are moving on. The 25-30% fee, plus the fact that the names aren't exactly flying off the shelves, is taking its toll.

 

[Chris Co]

I believe people are moving on. The 25-30% fee, plus the fact that the names aren't exactly flying off the shelves, is taking its toll.

Agreed. I wonder if it might be worth Atom reassessing this premium fee in light of the current market climate.

 

[Hypersot]

Agreed. I wonder if it might be worth Atom reassessing this premium fee in light of the current market climate.

If domains don't sell, no amount of commission will fix anything.

I only recently took a more serious interest in selling through Atom but, I have to say, what I see makes no sense to me, especially compared to the much simpler, albeit efficient, BB.

However, what surprised me the most (and I believe the reason Premium numbers are dropping, if that really is a fact) is the terrible names that have been accepted as Premium.

I have made a few purchases through the Wholesale Market (which I consider Atom's best feature) but, man, so much garbage!
How those names have been accepted as Premiums is beyond me. I consider myself as one of the worst name generators and even my brain gets horrified by what I see for sale there

 

[draco]

If domains don't sell, no amount of commission will fix anything.

I only recently took a more serious interest in selling through Atom but, I have to say, what I see makes no sense to me, especially compared to the much simpler, albeit efficient, BB.

However, what surprised me the most (and I believe the reason Premium numbers are dropping, if that really is a fact) is the terrible names that have been accepted as Premium.

I have made a few purchases through the Wholesale Market (which I consider Atom's best feature) but, man, so much garbage!
How those names have been accepted as Premiums is beyond me. I consider myself as one of the worst name generators and even my brain gets horrified by what I see for sale there

I completely agree. I'm not positive, but I think a lot of them might be automatically approved by their AI tool. Every once in awhile I see wholesale portfolios with garbage. Most are only taken in the 1 extension, Atom score of 5, new registrations, and the first Google results are the domain listed for sale. Some of them are approved in days.

I mentioned it to Atom once. Not sure if they looked into it though.

 

[Chris Co]

I completely agree. I'm not positive, but I think a lot of them might be automatically approved by their AI tool. Every once in awhile I see wholesale portfolios with garbage. Most are only taken in the 1 extension, Atom score of 5, new registrations, and the first Google results are the domain listed for sale. Some of them are approved in days.

I mentioned it to Atom once. Not sure if they looked into it though.

Yup, it's definitely the AI tool... or at least it was. I had a few hundred names that the AI recommended from my first few months of domaining, and I couldn't wait to let them expire. But the AI apparently thought they were great!

It seems Atom has updated it lately and it is accepting a far lot less names, both good & bad. Most of them are going to manual review now, which is a good thing, and the average approval rate has been slowly going down:

For comparison, it was sitting at 6.45% last month.

 

[Velocity.Now]

I think buyers who come with the intention of buying a domain get completely lost on the Atom homepage and go elsewhere .

 

[Name2go]

New message in my Atom account, and probably in yours:

Hi Bernd!
We wanted to share a quick update about our distribution partnerships.
Over the past several months, we’ve been aggressively expanding direct integrations with registrars and other partners to provide more exposure for your domains.
Following this expansion, Sedo has decided to end its partnership with Atom. While we’ve valued the collaboration over the years, this change does not meaningfully impact your exposure. Your domains remain fully discoverable through Atom’s growing network of direct registrar and marketplace integrations. In fact, we will now be accelerating these direct partnerships to provide even greater visibility for your domains.
A quick reminder about listing types:

• Premium listings on Atom are exclusive to our platform and therefore cannot be added to Sedo. You may still list them on Afternic and certain other qualifying ICANN-accredited registrars. View Terms
• Plus and Standard listings remain fully non-exclusive — you can continue listing those names on any other marketplace.

Our mission remains the same: to make buying and selling domains faster, more transparent, and more creator-friendly. Building a direct, open distribution network is a key part of that vision.
We are in the process of finalizing several additional partnerships and will be making announcements in the near future.
Thank you for being part of the Atom community and for continuing to support our work as we build the most open and efficient ecosystem for domain sellers and buyers.

this change does not meaningfully impact your exposure --> Really not?

 

[Name2go]

Yup, it's definitely the AI tool... or at least it was. I had a few hundred names that the AI recommended from my first few months of domaining, and I couldn't wait to let them expire. But the AI apparently thought they were great!

It seems Atom has updated it lately and it is accepting a far lot less names, both good & bad. Most of them are going to manual review now, which is a good thing, and the average approval rate has been slowly going down:

Show attachment 287880

For comparison, it was sitting at 6.45% last month.

The fool in me is pondering new metrics: the lower the approval rate, the better the Premium portfolio.

As a non-native speaker, I feel incapable of evaluating my premiums. On the contrary, one automatically overestimates one's own domains when Atom's demands and complexity suggest that with 1,300 premiums and Platinum status, you're a real pro.

If the assessment frequently made by the marketplace veterans in this thread is correct—that many newer customers' premiums have been treated too leniently—it would not only devalue the marketplace and thus negatively impact all objectively better portfolios. It would also be a trap for domainers who, like me, trustingly renew premiums without question.

Personally, I would welcome Atom re-evaluating all premiums according to stricter criteria and delisting those of lower quality. In such cases, customers should be free to transfer the domains to Plus or Standard, or delist. I started at Atom in August 2024; it's quite possible that they can do finer sorting there.

 

[Velocity.Now]

I have just put 210 Atom Premium on Wholesale Marketplace. $33 each. That's where I'm at

 

[Chris Co]

It would also be a trap for domainers who, like me, trustingly renew premiums without question.

Personally, I would welcome Atom re-evaluating all premiums according to stricter criteria and delisting those of lower quality. In such cases, customers should be free to transfer the domains to Plus or Standard, or delist.

Great idea. Like you say, it's a bit of a trap, and once you have upgraded to premium you are locked in because Atom makes it difficult to remove them (only 10% of your entire inventory being allowed to be delisted).

Maybe Atom could for a brief period of like a month or two, allow all those who want to delist their premiums to do so without penalty.

The terms are also slightly ambiguous because this page says you are free to "delist" your domains without penalty if you let them expire:

https://helpdesk.atom.com/en/articles/5784149-keeping-your-account-in-good-standing

However, this doesn't seemed to be mentioned anywhere else on Atom's site or documentation, and the customer support that I spoke to didn't even seem to be aware of this policy at all!

So if you let your domains expire, what guarantee do you have that this won't count against you in some counter somewhere hidden from your view, if the staff aren't even aware of the rules?

Imagine wanting to get rid of your bad names, so you let 15% of your atom premium inventory expire, only to receive an email that your account is no longer in good standing. There needs to be more transparency here.

 

[Name2go]

The fool in me is pondering new metrics: the lower the approval rate, the better the Premium portfolio.

A comment on the approval rate, which seems incredibly high for me.

I suspect they are comparing apples and oranges here.
I know colleagues who submit every newly registered domain for a premium check immediately.
I don't do that, or rather, I did with a few dozen non-com domains, most of which were rejected.
I use the AI Grading Tool and have it check all my .com domains. Approximately 10% +X are approved by the tool for further review, and of those, less than half are assigned to the premium marketplace. Occasionally, the AI Grading Tool notifies me automatically when it has identified potential premium candidates in the background.

Therefore, my 52% approval rate understandably refers to premium recognition after pre-selection by the AI Grading Tool. The drop to the site average of 6.18% could be explained by Atom.