30% commission is good!!! ARE YOU ON DRUGS?
There is no way in the world i would pay anyone 30% to sell a domain, sorry, let me restate that, which i sold.
Is this the only industry in the world that actually competes to make prices higher?
Sedo 10%, BuyDomains 20%, Godaddy 30%!!!
You pay for what you receive. Whereas GoDaddy premium listings receive an enormous number of eyeballs from businesses willing to pay end-user prices, the preponderance of folks browsing Sedo are domainers, with periodic waves of end-users seeping through the cracks. End-users also tend to be more amenable towards transacting through GoDaddy than through Sedo due to GD's brand recognition, and based on my own interactions with end-users over the past year, they are absolutely willing to pay for that added degree of comfort.
As an illustrative example, I listed a certain domain for $1195 on Sedo and for $1495 on GoDaddy (to compensate for the extra commission). A month ago I received a $275 offer for the name on Sedo and I negotiated him/her up to $550, but he/she would go no higher.
Lo and behold, 2 weeks later, I receive a message "Your premium listing has been sold". It was the exact same domain, listed at and purchased for $1495. No negotiations, no work whatsoever required on my part. Just a check in my mailbox for more than 20x what I pai to acquire that domain.
With Sedo, my earnings would have been 90% * $550 = $495.
With GoDaddy, my earnings were 70% * $1495 = $1046.50.
Don't think in terms of "How much is GoDaddy making for doing nothing" -- this is irrational. Think in terms of "Will I earn more money by choosing to list my name with GoDaddy than if I didn't?" Based on my personal experience, the answer is a resounding yes. I have only around 200 names listed with GD premium and have earned over $6K (
after commission) purely as a result of these listings.
GoDaddy takes a high commission for a reason. Sometimes you simply need to extinguish the envy flame and flip on the rational economist switch.
