analysis Exploring Optimal Prices for 4L .com Domains

[4L.com]

Hello everyone,

As some members of this forum may know, I have an extensive portfolio of 4L com domains. Starting from October 1, 2024, I’ve decided to embark on a series of experiments to determine the most profitable pricing strategy for selling these domains. Currently, I own over 16,000 4L domains that contain one or more of the letters J, Q, U, V, W, X, Y, or Z. These are the domains I’ll be using for my pricing experiments. I plan to continue buying domains, so the number will gradually increase.

I aim to find out which approach will be more profitable: selling fewer domains at a higher price or selling more domains at a lower price. Initially, I wanted to start this experiment on September 1, but due to the issues with Afternic, which compromised the accuracy of any data, I decided to wait until October when most of these issues were resolved.

At the moment, I’ve set the price for all my domains at $14,999 each. The nameservers are configured to ns1.afternic.com and ns2.afternic.com. I’ve disabled Boost as I don’t find it useful. I’ve chosen the "Custom Lander" option, and all domains have a Lease-to-Own (LTO) option available for a 12-month term. The "Make Offer" option is disabled, and I will be ignoring any inquiries through Whois during the experiment to ensure that potential buyers can only purchase the domains at a fixed price without the opportunity to negotiate discounts or terms. This also prevents them from contacting me directly, as well as avoiding back-and-forth with brokers who often try to negotiate regardless of the set price. The same applies to Afternic brokers - I will reject any offers or discounts they send through the dashboard unless the domain is purchased at the current fixed price.

My goal is to achieve the best possible pricing strategy that minimizes the time I spend managing this process. Therefore, there will be no brokers, no email negotiations, no personal landing pages - just a fixed price on Afternic.

The planned schedule for the experiment is as follows:

• From October 1, 2024, to November 30, 2024, the fixed price for all domains will be $14,999.
• From December 1, 2024, to January 31, 2025, the fixed price will be $9,999.
• From February 1, 2025, to March 31, 2025, the fixed price will be $6,999.
• From April 1, 2025, to May 31, 2025, the fixed price will be $4,999.
• From June 1, 2025, to July 31, 2025, the fixed price will be $3,999.
• From August 1, 2025, to September 30, 2025, the fixed price will be $2,999.
• From October 1, 2025, to November 30, 2025, the fixed price will be $1,999.
• From December 1, 2025, to January 31, 2026, the fixed price will be $999.

I believe that two months per pricing stage and a pool of >16,000 domains should provide enough data to draw meaningful conclusions for future decision-making.

I plan to post monthly updates on the results in this thread, assuming it doesn’t violate any forum rules. I know that many forum members actively invest in 4L domains containing these letters (J, Q, U, V, W, X, Y, Z), so I believe the results could be valuable for others as well. I haven’t come across any detailed statistics on pricing for these domains, which is why I’ve decided to conduct this research myself.

If anyone has any insights or ideas to make this experiment more beneficial, both for myself and for other forum members, I’d be happy to hear them.

 

[Traderas]

Cmon be honest!
You don’t really want to stop spending time in domaining.
It’s highly addictive and you like it!

 

[4L.com]

January 2025 Sales:

For all calculations, I used the renewal price for .com domains set at $10.86, which is my current price at Dynadot.

Additionally, I calculated Gross Profit, where only the Afternic commission (15%) was deducted from the sale price of the domain, and Net Profit, where both the Afternic commission (15%) and the cost I paid to acquire each domain were deducted from the sale price.

January 2025 Results:

As I mentioned earlier, since domains with the letters J and Q sell much worse than those with the letters U, V, W, X, Y, Z, and I have more than 7,000 J and Q domains, I decided to slightly modify the experiment by splitting the domains into two large categories to obtain more accurate results and prevent domains with J and Q from distorting sales data.

In the first category (J, Q), I randomly assigned domains into two groups and set prices at $499 and $999. All domains in this category are listed on the Afternic marketplace with the following settings: Fast Transfer Enabled, Custom Landing Page, Buy It Now (BIN) Only (No Lease to Own, No Offers), NS1/NS2. I will respond to any attempts to negotiate with a refusal, and any emails sent through WHOIS will be ignored.

In the second category (U, V, W, X, Y, Z), I also randomly assigned domains into two groups and set prices at $1,999 and $2,999. I want to see how this pricing strategy performs since the $1,999 price has shown fairly good results over the past two months (December 2024 - January 2025). All domains in this category are also listed on the Afternic marketplace with the same settings: Fast Transfer Enabled, Custom Landing Page, Buy It Now (BIN) Only (No Lease to Own, No Offers), NS1/NS2. I will respond to any attempts to negotiate with a refusal, and any emails sent through WHOIS will be ignored.

Below is the final distribution (as of 31.01.2025) by letters and the number of domains in each of the groups:

 

[alcy]

nice. tnx
I saw u are also buying more 4l here which is nice

many here will want to unload at cost or min profit so u could make some happy while make u happy

happy is good

me sadly bought my remaining 4l 6 yr back or so when chips ruled world at 3k a pop lol... and low end like mine were still selling good even here for 300 or so...which was my cost point..
add to this renewals...and well I cant let them go for 200 or 300 lol

but eventually I'll get some enduser .. say 500 to 1k

nudv
rveg
gzzi
cvry

 

[URL Stream]

many here will want to unload at cost or min profit so u could make some happy while make u happy

but eventually I'll get some enduser .. say 500 to 1k

nudv
rveg
gzzi
cvry

@robosapien

Thank you for sharing such valuable insights with the community!

It’s impressive that you’re securing strong prices, even for lower-tier names. Would it be fair to assume that most of your buyers are end-users who organically come across your names and make a purchase?

 

[4L.com]

It’s impressive that you’re securing strong prices, even for lower-tier names. Would it be fair to assume that most of your buyers are end-users who organically come across your names and make a purchase?

Considering that these domains are being purchased at such prices, I believe they are being bought by end users. The domains I sold in 2023 and 2024 were also mostly used for various business card websites, corporate sites, and similar purposes.

 

[alcy]

most are unable to get such prices for such lower quality 4l.

so for op it is a numbers game.. in this case quantity over quality

 

[4L.com]

so for op it is a numbers game.. in this case quantity over quality

Absolutely, this is exactly what I wrote about here. With the number of domains I own, there is always a certain level of demand because new companies, funds, individuals, and so on constantly emerge, requiring a unique combination of letters. The key is to find the right price that maximizes returns with minimal effort.

However, this strategy only works with a large number of domains. If someone owns only 100-200-300 domains, they might not sell anything for an entire year or even two if prices are set too high. This can lead to significant losses both financially (due to renewal fees) and mentally (frustration from lack of sales).

In 2023 and 2024, I tested high prices at a loss, and my results showed that even with my large portfolio, pricing domains above $5,000 when they contain the letters J, Q, U, V, W, X, Y, Z is completely ineffective. These prices do not even cover the renewal costs.

 

[alcy]

Absolutely, this is exactly what I wrote about here. With the number of domains I own, there is always a certain level of demand because new companies, funds, individuals, and so on constantly emerge, requiring a unique combination of letters. The key is to find the right price that maximizes returns with minimal effort.

However, this strategy only works with a large number of domains. If someone owns only 100-200-300 domains, they might not sell anything for an entire year or even two if prices are set too high. This can lead to significant losses both financially (due to renewal fees) and mentally (frustration from lack of sales).

In 2023 and 2024, I tested high prices at a loss, and my results showed that even with my large portfolio, pricing domains above $5,000 when they contain the letters J, Q, U, V, W, X, Y, Z is completely ineffective. These prices do not even cover the renewal costs.

agreed.

still it's quite amazing how 4lcom of just about any quality or pattern still maintain value. I understand 3l or 2l being of limited number.. but still many 4l around.

speaking of.. did u say u also own 3l or 2l?

or are u tempted to run a test on say 3lcom in future???

 

[snake_case]

I don't think all your domains are random, from your sold list, I saw some nice brandables and nice 4L containing FX, VR, and a nice HumanX abbreviation, that can fetch mid xxxx to low xxxxx.

 

[4L.com]

speaking of.. did u say u also own 3l or 2l?

or are u tempted to run a test on say 3lcom in future???

I do not plan to run any experiments with 3L domains, as they are listed for sale at a very high price, and I do not intend to lower it significantly. I consider 3L domains a long-term investment because the renewal costs are minimal.

I don't think all your domains are random, from your sold list, I saw some nice brandables and nice 4L containing FX, VR, and a nice HumanX abbreviation, that can fetch mid xxxx to low xxxxx.

I buy absolutely all the domains offered to me based solely on the letters in the domain names. I do not check for specific combinations like VR, FX, IQ, and so on. So for me, all of them are random 4L domains. Naturally, with this approach, I end up with domains containing these letter combinations. For example, I have 110 domains with FX, 24 domains with VR, and 53 domains with IQ.

I have already described my approach here earlier - I don’t spend time searching for good or bad letter combinations and instead focus on volume. Since this is also an experiment for me, and I haven’t seen similar data available publicly to rely on, I decided to share this information with other forum members so they don’t repeat my mistakes.

 

[Moj]

RGNY.com
this price is wholesale price.

 

[alcy]

I don't think all your domains are random, from your sold list, I saw some nice brandables and nice 4L containing FX, VR, and a nice HumanX abbreviation, that can fetch mid xxxx to low xxxxx.

good point mel but there are also high or higher odds that amidst his buying sprees any such nonrandom names as u call them will also be a costlier investment for op. so it all kinda balances out I guess... it's only rarely that u get vrgf for same price as hjfv ... cause most know what vr is... but sometimes in life we just get ... lucky.

bonne journee

 

[snake_case]

@Moj why tag the name?

 

[4L.com]

February 2025 Sales:

For all calculations, I used the renewal price for .com domains set at $10.86, which is my current price at Dynadot.

Additionally, I calculated Gross Profit, where only the Afternic commission (15%) was deducted from the sale price of the domain, and Net Profit, where both the Afternic commission (15%) and the cost I paid to acquire each domain were deducted from the sale price.

February 2025 Results:

I have also added columns indicating the invested funds for domain acquisitions in each category and the calculation of ROI (Annualized).

Below is the final distribution (as of 28.02.2025) by letters and the number of domains in each of the category/groups:

 

[4L.com]

Regarding My Future Plans

I want to wait another month until the end of March to evaluate the results with the current pricing of 499/999/1999/2999 for different domain categories. If by the end of the month I notice that the results are the same or even worse than they were in February (for domains priced at 999 and 2999), then starting in April, I will launch the next experiment.

In this experiment, I plan to set prices of 499 and 399 for domains containing the letters J and Q and list them for sale on the Dynadot marketplace instead of Afternic. I will also keep them listed on Afternic but set a fixed price of 999 to cover the higher commission due to using Dynadot's nameservers - just in case a buyer appears through their reseller network.

I want to observe how much the Sell-Through Rate decreases when domains are listed on Dynadot and whether the reduced marketplace commission (which in this case will be effectively 8%, as the funds will be credited to the registrar’s balance, compared to 15% on Afternic) will compensate for this change.

For domains in the U, V, W, X, Y, Z category, if the results in March remain as disappointing as they were in February for the 2999 price point, I plan to try lowering the price to 2499 or 2488 and see if the results improve.

 

[snake_case]

Regarding My Future Plans

I want to wait another month until the end of March to evaluate the results with the current pricing of 499/999/1999/2999 for different domain categories. If by the end of the month I notice that the results are the same or even worse than they were in February (for domains priced at 999 and 2999), then starting in April, I will launch the next experiment.

In this experiment, I plan to set prices of 499 and 399 for domains containing the letters J and Q and list them for sale on the Dynadot marketplace instead of Afternic. I will also keep them listed on Afternic but set a fixed price of 999 to cover the higher commission due to using Dynadot's nameservers - just in case a buyer appears through their reseller network.

I want to observe how much the Sell-Through Rate decreases when domains are listed on Dynadot and whether the reduced marketplace commission (which in this case will be effectively 8%, as the funds will be credited to the registrar’s balance, compared to 15% on Afternic) will compensate for this change.

For domains in the U, V, W, X, Y, Z category, if the results in March remain as disappointing as they were in February for the 2999 price point, I plan to try lowering the price to 2499 or 2488 and see if the results improve.

thanks a lot, for all the informations, and hard luck fam

 

[Traderas]

Why don't you combine it with another experiment?

99 vs 88

988
1988
2988

From my experience landing pages gives 10-15% of sales.
Even if you point them at Dyna, you will get 85% of sales from afternic.

Also my estimation is that between 399 and 499, you will see the same ctr

 

[4L.com]

Why don't you combine it with another experiment?

99 vs 88

988
1988
2988

Hello. I plan to conduct this kind of experiment once I determine the optimal prices that suit my domain selling strategy. First, I want to establish the most effective pricing for the different domain categories I own. After that, I will run an experiment to see if there is any difference in sales performance between prices ending in 00 or 99 or 88.

From my experience landing pages gives 10-15% of sales.
Even if you point them at Dyna, you will get 85% of sales from afternic.

My experience shows completely different results - at least 70-75% of sales came directly from the marketplaces where the 4L domains were parked, while only the remaining portion came from Afternic.

In any case, I believe the results of such an experiment would be interesting to many forum members, not just me, since 4L domains are quite different from other types of domains, and the demand for them is slightly different.

Also my estimation is that between 399 and 499, you will see the same ctr

That’s exactly what I want to test because the 999 price for such domains (J, Q) has shown very poor results so far, which means the price needs to be lowered.

 

[Future Sensors]

After that, I will run an experiment to see if there is any difference in sales performance between prices ending in 00 or 99 or 88.

You can include 50 and 95 endings in your experiment as well, but it's very hard to find what works best.

Please be advised that the price displayed to end-users via the Afternic partner network may be subject to additional markups imposed by individual registrars. As a result, your carefully chosen price may inadvertently exceed a threshold value you did not intend.

https://www.thedomains.com/2019/09/...-markup-your-domains-without-your-permission/

 

[davidc1]

here it seems 70/30 (AN/landers)