poll Did you make money domaining in 2019?

[equity78]

After renewals, paid tools and any other domaining related expenses, did you make money in 2019?

 

[rohitgoyal]

Yes approx $180k in revenue and $90k in profit...

 

[frank-germany]

yes I do make money,
but I can't understand why second half of 2019
is so low

had a great 1. quarter

and then it got slower and slower

had nearly no inquiries
in november/december

switched from DAN to my own landing page
in early december
to find if DAN was the cause for some unknown reason
had a phone calling low ball offer.

I found that phone calls of prospects
are the main advantage of using your
own landing page.

I love talking to leads.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

After renewals, paid tools and any other domaining related expenses, did you make money in 2019?

Yes, 2019 has been one of the best year for me and December being the best month of this year.

Would be nice to see if you could answer your own question with all of us

 

[Doron Vermaat]

Total revenue for me this year is just over $82,450. About half of that was invested back in my portfolio and on renewals. It's been my most profitable year as a domain name investor since I started 7 years ago. Wishing everyone a profitable 2020.

 

[DnFolk]

Yes, average net profit approx 5k per month excluding one sale i had recently (yet to receive money in bank for that), though last year when it was 4k+ per month i had goal this year to double it that i couldn't.

Agree on second half with others. for me also since september it has been average except recent one sale i had of 30K. may post about it later.

 

[NetworkPearl]

Yep this is my best year. Made 6 figs profit

 

[Silentptnr]

I was profitable this year. My sales outran my renewals and acquisitions. My gross sales were mid $xx,xxx from afternic sales, auction sales, and private sales.

Actually, this last quarter has been good for me. Except for the very end of December. I am still debating whether to either raise my minimum offer amounts or just put bin prices.

I get more inquiries with PUR but I get more sales with BIN. At least so far.

I have raised my personal bar as far as the prices I am quoting. I rather keep good names than sell too low.

I read a great quote this morning. "My prices are not too high, your(buyer) idea is too small."

 

[DnFolk]

So you made 5k and 4k per month consistently? If this is true, tell me what your secret is. Did you make that money from parking revenue?

Not from parking but from domain sales, gross much higher, though its average per month, so some months i made more than 5k some less than 5k but overall average should be around 5k. not counting my recent 30K sale. august was my best month. 13k+ net november worst 2.5k net. net income not only depends on sales but also my expenses of renewals, transfers, purchases or new acquisations, in the last quarter i have maximum renewals.

There is no one secret but here i will mention some of the points i follow -

try every possible niche like geo, brandables, liquid or others so that you don't be dependent on any single niche.
though most of the names i have are .com but i don't shy away from trying net org or .co or .in and more

keep yourself updated with namebio or namepros reported domain sales thread and other possible sources to know whats selling.
Keep up with latest tech and startups, who and whch niche is getting most funding, whats trending etc.
make good use of dropcatch discount backorder.
when there is any promo offer for handreg try to bulk register during that period.
GD closeouts one of better source to get quality for nominal price. though lots of competition now and its getting difficult but still if you focus you can get good names.
if you check aftermarket also its tough to get any name for fair price but if you keep trying then there also you get chance few times to get a good deal.
try to check around your network or social media that whether you are getting any good deals to buy domains.
rarely but you will even find names at dan, sedo etc that can be worth buying.

for selling - afternic premium listing has been the biggest source for me. So i make sure to avoid registers that are not eligible for that. parking at dan and now epik work fine for me. and Previously i have used efty which was good as well.

 

[Anna_M]

2019 was my first year in domaining.

June
2 word
Com
$588
Dan

Nov
2 word
Com
$588
Afternic

Dec
2 word
Com
$988
Dan

Broke even.

 

[Ategy]

Yup .. made multiple $x,xxx sales this year (a few in the upper 4-figure range) and definitely in the green overall by a nice amount.

I obviously also made some $$ with my daily lists at NameCult, but nowhere near as much as I hoped given the time invested, and looking back I'd have to say my time would be much better spent focusing on my own portfolio.

Because while I did make a good profit in 2019, for most of the year less than 1/3 of my domains were listed on Afternic only (only half of those priced) .. and then about 10% of my domains were listed on Sedo. So I was likely operating at about 25% efficiency .. which means I'm very happy looking ahead about the profitability of my portfolio if I actually get it organised and price/list all my domains at all the marketplaces. I recently started using Epik landers for about 40% of my domains, and definitely seeing increased activity .. really looking forward to 2020!

Anyhow .. hope everyone else had a good 2019 .. and wishing you all the best of luck for 2020!

 

[Brands.International]

2019 was my best year ever - I made only few sales, but all to end users and for significant profit (even after re-investing back to my porftolio, where I have purchased approx 30 - 40 new good names in 2019 with ultra-low renewals, and extented most of my domain names in .life, .world, .live, .ltd and .chat sub-portfolios years into future).

My portfolio is 100% new gTLDs, and I try to keep it little above 1000 new gTLD names all the time, where approx. half of then are presented on my website, and half of them are under privacy.

I feel 2020 will be even better, as new gTLDs demand is accelerating (if you have good names).

GL to everyone

 

[Nikhil Jain]

Yes. I certainly did make money. Got into full-time domaining around August 2018.

Total approx dollar volume of sold domains in 2019 = $35,000+

Very much in the green after deducting the commissions and covering my renewals upto end of March 2020, and any other business expenses.

Eagerly looking forward to scale it up in 2020.

 

[Name Trader]

Cash Flow -wise I'm breaking above even, this year.

 

[Joakim]

Yes, I have made money during my first full year in domaining. Total tally at low 5 figures in sales.

Portfolio is at approx 300 names.

 

[Nametree]

In the green for 2019, and I broke even for my total domain investment. 2018 was a $30k+ loss, almost gave up (was my second full year domaining), but things started looking up by this spring.

The kicker is - I spent more on names in 2019, and bought more names than I had in previous years combined; but instead of overspending on GoDaddy auctions, I've been buying fewer names privately for more money on the one hand, and bulk handregging names at promotions on the other.

What I haven't accounted for is labor. I've probably spent about 600 hours on domaining-related activities this year, and I'm happy to have invested that in a portfolio that I think will do well in the next few years, but I'm definitely looking to cut down on my time investment significantly in 2020.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

While it seems a simple question, I think for some it depends on how it is calculated. Do we count any cost for time? What about how to deal with if your overall inventory got better or worse during the year? You might have had good revenue, but by selling great domain names you have held for some time. Or maybe you put all the money you made into improving the quality (or quantity) of your portfolio? Does revenue made or spent in domain related ways not quite domain sales count? What about money made from developing domains does that count? See I make everything complex!

Anyway, I decided to answer Break Even. I certainly made money if you take sales minus acquisition and holding costs for the portfolio. However, my entire "business model" is to not take profit so anything I make I put into renewals or acquisitions, so by definition as long as I do that I will just break even I guess. My portfolio grew, both in numbers and I think quality and slightly in advance renewals in 2019, without losing money.

Had I costed the time I put into domaining at say even $15 per hour I would certainly have lost however, but I view domaining as a past-time not a business.

It is interesting that several have commented about the first half of the year being better than the second. I plan to run some numbers around that topic soon to see how the two halves of the year compared at least with NameBio stats.

Thanks to everyone who has provided answers.

Bob

 

[Laguna]

Nearly 2 years in and still no sales, no lowball offers, no spammy emails, no spammy calls, nothing. Maybe I should of registered
InvisibleMe.com

 

[NickB]

Had more sales than my first year, bought better quality names (I like to think so anyway) which has eaten into the potential profits for this year and dropped a load of crap....

Made a bit of profit this year and am confident 2020 will recoup the first years worth of loses.....going in the right direction which is all I can ask for, as I'm in it for the long term......not setting the world on fire, but you have to collect the twigs first

One thing I really need to work on is getting my price expectations right and setting the right BIN pricing, be that higher or lower - comes with experience I suppose

Bring on 2020 and I hope it is a prosperous one for everyone!!

 

[bmugford]

I've been acquiring, acquiring, acquiring... so I am in the red. If you count my time, let's say, $150 per billable hour, and I'm deep in the red. I do have some good domains though that will sell, eventually :B

You make more money on the buy IMO.

I have made steady sales for more than a decade, but recently I have had much larger profits on paper as there are fewer reinvestment opportunities.

Brad

 

[pinkdragon]

$4,000+ net profit this year from a portfolio of 121 domains.
75% - Afternic BIN
25% - Outbound

1st half of the year was very good for me, second half almost dead (only one sale in October).

 

[Kpett]

Looks like I'm up about $4800 for the year:
Purchase/Registrations: -$965
Renewals: -$530
Sales: +$8,310
Commissions/Expenses: -$2,000

 

[barybadrinath]

after renewals and buying , i made around 24k usd in 2019 including as brokerage + sales.

 

[J Sokol]

In June I reached my first-year mark, which meant it was time to unload a lot of my early blunders. I was lucky to sell most of them, but they sold at low prices. This resulted in a small profit for 2019, but a slight loss overall. I'm still waiting to get into the ??? .... it used to be called being in the black, but now people are referring to is as green. Either way, I'd like to be out of the red!

 

[biggie]

After renewals, paid tools and any other domaining related expenses, did you make money in 2019?

Hi Ray

earned some parking revenue and had a couple of sales

so, minus those expenses mentioned,
yeah, I could say that money was made.

imo...​

.

 

[imadoer]

Profits =$0.27