question How much I can make with domain investing

[Maxleron]

Hello Domainers, I wonder how much I can make from investing in selling domains as a monthly net profit,
I need experienced people full time working in the field to give me hint what is the average profit they are making in month and thanks

 

[slader23]

How much you make is directly correlated to the amount of work you put in analyzing market trends, studying profitable sales and outbounding potential buyers. You may also get inbound offers, but the reality is you can't rely on just that. At some point you may also consider developing a few names to create recurring monthly revenue.

As stated above there is no average. Put in the work and you'll reap the benefits. There is no perfect path to profit. The only thing that's guaranteed is the mistakes you make along the way. Whether or not you learn from them is up to you.

 

[D Haynes]

To make small fortune you must start with a large one.

(Not sure who first coined this phrase but it sure rings true with domaining for the most part).

 

[viniproject09]

People are not just depending on domain they have other streams of income. It depends how good is your name, backlinks, how old it it. There are professionals who keep looking to purchase the domain if it expires.

 

[PoliticalVII]

You will make a billion dollars.

 

[NYJimbo]

Hello Domainers, I wonder how much I can make from investing in selling domains as a monthly net profit,
I need experienced people full time working in the field to give me hint what is the average profit they are making in month and thanks

If you are asking this question then you are NOT reading enough of this forum.

No easy money or easy answers in this business, but the experience from the members here is worth gold.

 

[Chris Wright]

I am looking to know numbers not logics!

Successful people NEVER tell everyone how much $$ they make. That would be silly.

People tend to exaggerate things if they don't have a answer

No one is exaggerating. These are true and correct answers. You want these people to nail Jello to the wall. It can't be done.

 

[Addison]

Domain investing profitability.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

It depends on your budget and skills. Anywhere between $0 and $1 billion.

Well I like the spirit of this, although with the total NameBio sales at $1.6 billion currently, I am thinking $1 billion might be a stretch, but I guess if you don't aim high ! Thanks for not messing around with any low goals @bgmugford and going right to the top!

ps I would like to correct the bottom of the range, which can easily be a negative number, not $0! That is important for those considering the business to keep in mind!

Have a nice day!

 

[Maxleron]

Thanks for all who really try to give his knowledge experience and for the people who always try to make fun of my topic hope you enjoyed your time have nothing to say about

 

[Ollie3000]

People tend to exaggerate things if they don't have a answer

Thanks for all who really try to give his knowledge experience and for the people who always try to make fun of my topic hope you enjoyed your time have nothing to say about

People are trying to help with your question but there is no simple answer - like most businesses, people won't give you there exact figures. Investing in itself means 'to allocate money in the expectation of some benefit in the future' so those who have invested may not have made or lost money yet - it could take 10 or 20 years.

Throwing your toys out of the pram because you're not getting the answer you want is stupid. You obviously want everyone show you stats that show this is easy - it's not, end of story.

 

[mani0307]

I started domain business last 9 month and in the start i lost $150 and now my average monthly profit from domain business is between $400 - $500.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

While the question may seem straightforward, @Maxleron, there are no simple answers. As others have pointed out, it depends on skill, how much startup funding you have, how much energy and time you want to put into it, and I would add luck. Some manage to hand register a domain name and sell it for $$$$ right off, others slave away with equally good names waiting years for that first sale.

Here are a few numbers and thoughts....

1. There are about 220 NameBio reported sales per day. We all know that there are many others, 5x that, 10x, some other factor.
2. There are over a million people registered at NPs. By no means equally active. But you can see that most of us will not have NameBio reported sales very often.
3. We all know the anecdotes of big sales, someone (put in your favourite big portfolio holder here) bought a domain a few years ago for $200 or $50 or even $12 and sold it for $20,000. But for every one of those there are many many more that will never sell and money is lost on. It is called survivorship bias in conventional investing, but people focus on the success and overlook the failed mutual funds / or domain investing names that never sold.
4. On average, the entire domain investing community loses money. I am not at all saying everyone does, and I know some on here do very well, but on average, when people are really honest, I am totally convinced by the numbers that acquisition and holding costs exceed net returns. I am going to post the analysis, but not yet finished checking that.
5. So to make any money you need to do significantly better than the average.

OK so you plan to be disciplined, hard working and much smarter than the average investor on here. How much might you make. I will do a calculation and you can insert your own numbers.

Example:
Let's say you have $25,000 to start with. You buy domains on average for $125 each (some more and some less). Your portfolio is then 200 names. It depends on how smart you are what the throughput is, but an optimistic number is 1 domain name in 100 will sell in a year so that you will have 2 sales in the year. Congrats! The average selling price on NameBio is $1377 as of today so far in 2018. But that figure is deceptive cause those big $100,000 sales that most of us will never see handled by the high roller types, and indeed some registries and brokers, account for a lot of the high end. So instead we should look at the median price. NameBio no longer display that in stats, but you can for a small set look at it easily. Yesterday for example (Aug 5) there were 177 sales so you scroll through to the 88 th one and it is $271. Now maybe you will occasionally have one off the bigger sales, so lets be optimistic and even though most of the time you will be selling for $271 lets say it is $500. So you take in 2x$500 or $1000. They cost you 2x$125 or $250, but you still have $750 profit, not bad, right? No. You have those 200 domain names costing about $9 per year to renew, so your annual costs are $1800. So you only lost $1050. Welcome to domain investing 101. Do some people beat the odds? Yes. But if you want a probable estimate you will lose money. ​

I know this example will bring on lots of contrary opinions, but I offer it based analysis I have done as I look at the industry as a whole. If you do good names in good extensions and happen to catch the beginning of a wave you can get lucky. Even then, lets say you have two $5000 sales (and many days no one in this one million person community sells at that price on NameBio). But if you sell 2 at $5000 you will gross $10,750 before the $1800 renewal costs, or $8950. Congrats. That is a fantastic 36% ROI over one year, but only a few on here will achieve that.

 

[Maxleron]

People are trying to help with your question but there is no simple answer - like most businesses, people won't give you there exact figures. Investing in itself means 'to allocate money in the expectation of some benefit in the future' so those who have invested may not have made or lost money yet - it could take 10 or 20 years.

Throwing your toys out of the pram because you're not getting the answer you want is stupid. You obviously want everyone show you stats that show this is easy - it's not, end of story.

I don't post here to lose my time with unsupported replies, Throwing your toys out of the pram! don't worry I will leave you toys to play with it

 

[korganian]

While the question may seem straightforward, @Maxleron, there are no simple answers. As others have pointed out, it depends on skill, how much startup funding you have, how much energy and time you want to put into it, and I would add luck. Some manage to hand register a domain name and sell it for $$$$ right off, others slave away with equally good names waiting years for that first sale.

Here are a few numbers and thoughts....

1. There are about 220 NameBio reported sales per day. We all know that there are many others, 5x that, 10x, some other factor.
2. There are over a million people registered at NPs. By no means equally active. But you can see that most of us will not have NameBio reported sales very often.
3. We all know the anecdotes of big sales, someone (put in your favourite big portfolio holder here) bought a domain a few years ago for $200 or $50 or even $12 and sold it for $20,000. But for every one of those there are many many more that will never sell and money is lost on. It is called survivorship bias in conventional investing, but people focus on the success and overlook the failed mutual funds / or domain investing names that never sold.
4. On average, the entire domain investing community loses money. I am not at all saying everyone does, and I know some on here do very well, but on average, when people are really honest, I am totally convinced by the numbers that acquisition and holding costs exceed net returns. I am going to post the analysis, but not yet finished checking that.
5. So to make any money you need to do significantly better than the average.

OK so you plan to be disciplined, hard working and much smarter than the average investor on here. How much might you make. I will do a calculation and you can insert your own numbers.

Example:
Let's say you have $25,000 to start with. You buy domains on average for $125 each (some more and some less). Your portfolio is then 200 names. It depends on how smart you are what the throughput is, but an optimistic number is 1 domain name in 100 will sell in a year so that you will have 2 sales in the year. Congrats! The average selling price on NameBio is $1377 as of today so far in 2018. But that figure is deceptive cause those big $100,000 sales that most of us will never see handled by the high roller types, and indeed some registries and brokers, account for a lot of the high end. So instead we should look at the median price. NameBio no longer display that in stats, but you can for a small set look at it easily. Yesterday for example (Aug 5) there were 177 sales so you scroll through to the 88 th one and it is $271. Now maybe you will occasionally have one off the bigger sales, so lets be optimistic and even though most of the time you will be selling for $271 lets say it is $500. So you take in 2x$500 or $1000. They cost you 2x$125 or $250, but you still have $750 profit, not bad, right? No. You have those 200 domain names costing about $9 per year to renew, so your annual costs are $1800. So you only lost $1050. Welcome to domain investing 101. Do some people beat the odds? Yes. But if you want a probable estimate you will lose money. ​

I know this example will bring on lots of contrary opinions, but I offer it based analysis I have done as I look at the industry as a whole. If you do good names in good extensions and happen to catch the beginning of a wave you can get lucky. Even then, lets say you have two $5000 sales (and many days no one in this one million person community sells at that price on NameBio). But if you sell 2 at $5000 you will gross $10,750 before the $1800 renewal costs, or $8950. Congrats. That is a fantastic 36% ROI over one year, but only a few on here will achieve that.

The one thing you left out Bob, is that your analysis doesn't count the time value involved. Your 36% ROI would imply it's a passive investment. Even a moderate 4 hours per day at a moderate value of $10 per hours results in $14,000 lost wages that could have been earned at a job. So even your best scenario results in a true loss when compared with working the same hours at a job.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

The one thing you left out Bob, is that your analysis doesn't count the time value involved. Your 36% ROI would imply it's a passive investment. Even a moderate 4 hours per day at a moderate value of $10 per hours results in $14,000 lost wages that could have been earned at a job. So even your best scenario results in a true loss when compared with working the same hours at a job.

I totally agree! Even if the person did no outbound, simply invested time in choosing and analyzing names and setting up landers, listing on markets, etc. I suspect that it would be like maybe 2 hr per day on average over say 5 days a week, so that is say about 10x50 (giving us a couple weeks vacation). So $5000 maybe at minimum wage and absolutely minimum time. I am actually working on some different models, like a bit more sophisticated than this one, and you are right that should be included.

I still hold a domain portfolio, but I am concerned when new people enter thinking it is assured and easy money. I hope my model calculations will at least encourage them to think before leaping into this.

ps I started a thread on industry numbers at this link which is relevant to this discussion. It suggests that possibly the sales ratio might be as good as 1in 75, which would make this slightly better but not much.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/state-of-the-domain-name-business-a-typical-day.1094410/

 

[Recons.Com]

While the question may seem straightforward, @Maxleron, there are no simple answers. As others have pointed out, it depends on skill, how much startup funding you have, how much energy and time you want to put into it, and I would add luck. Some manage to hand register a domain name and sell it for $$$$ right off, others slave away with equally good names waiting years for that first sale.

Here are a few numbers and thoughts....

1. There are about 220 NameBio reported sales per day. We all know that there are many others, 5x that, 10x, some other factor.
2. There are over a million people registered at NPs. By no means equally active. But you can see that most of us will not have NameBio reported sales very often.
3. We all know the anecdotes of big sales, someone (put in your favourite big portfolio holder here) bought a domain a few years ago for $200 or $50 or even $12 and sold it for $20,000. But for every one of those there are many many more that will never sell and money is lost on. It is called survivorship bias in conventional investing, but people focus on the success and overlook the failed mutual funds / or domain investing names that never sold.
4. On average, the entire domain investing community loses money. I am not at all saying everyone does, and I know some on here do very well, but on average, when people are really honest, I am totally convinced by the numbers that acquisition and holding costs exceed net returns. I am going to post the analysis, but not yet finished checking that.
5. So to make any money you need to do significantly better than the average.

OK so you plan to be disciplined, hard working and much smarter than the average investor on here. How much might you make. I will do a calculation and you can insert your own numbers.

Example:
Let's say you have $25,000 to start with. You buy domains on average for $125 each (some more and some less). Your portfolio is then 200 names. It depends on how smart you are what the throughput is, but an optimistic number is 1 domain name in 100 will sell in a year so that you will have 2 sales in the year. Congrats! The average selling price on NameBio is $1377 as of today so far in 2018. But that figure is deceptive cause those big $100,000 sales that most of us will never see handled by the high roller types, and indeed some registries and brokers, account for a lot of the high end. So instead we should look at the median price. NameBio no longer display that in stats, but you can for a small set look at it easily. Yesterday for example (Aug 5) there were 177 sales so you scroll through to the 88 th one and it is $271. Now maybe you will occasionally have one off the bigger sales, so lets be optimistic and even though most of the time you will be selling for $271 lets say it is $500. So you take in 2x$500 or $1000. They cost you 2x$125 or $250, but you still have $750 profit, not bad, right? No. You have those 200 domain names costing about $9 per year to renew, so your annual costs are $1800. So you only lost $1050. Welcome to domain investing 101. Do some people beat the odds? Yes. But if you want a probable estimate you will lose money. ​

I know this example will bring on lots of contrary opinions, but I offer it based analysis I have done as I look at the industry as a whole. If you do good names in good extensions and happen to catch the beginning of a wave you can get lucky. Even then, lets say you have two $5000 sales (and many days no one in this one million person community sells at that price on NameBio). But if you sell 2 at $5000 you will gross $10,750 before the $1800 renewal costs, or $8950. Congrats. That is a fantastic 36% ROI over one year, but only a few on here will achieve that.

It is good analysis. However, your median is influenced a lot by domain platform sales which are mostly wholesale.

Most enduser sales happen in $1K to $3K sweet spot.

And, again, NB is a good indicator for prices, if you can separate end user/wholesale ones, but it is not indicative of total sales in no way. I have sold around 20 names this year, none of those is reported on NB.

Afternic has around 13MM names listed, let's say 10MM with some names that have changed owners and shouldn't be there. If they sell 0.4% of those a year (accounting for really bad ones), that is still 40000 sales a year or over 100/day and they are not reported on NB.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

It is good analysis. However, your median is influenced a lot by domain platform sales which are mostly wholesale.

Most enduser sales happen in $1K to $3K sweet spot.

And, again, NB is a good indicator for prices, if you can separate end user/wholesale ones, but it is not indicative of total sales in no way. I have sold around 20 names this year, none of those is reported on NB.
.

@Recons.Com By domain platform, just to make sure I am clear on your point, you mean sales on GoDaddy, NameJet, Sedo, etc. and you are saying most of these are to other domain investors and are lower than sales direct to end users and not on those platforms. I totally admit that is logical and may well be true, but without any record of those sales it is difficult to know.

In the one set I used for the median there was only a single obvious registry sale, so there was not influence from registry premium sales.

I guess we could poll NPs users re what percentage of their sales over $100 are on NameBio reported venues, and what their average prices are on the two, although a self completion survey to limited number of respondents has of course its own issues.

 

[Recons.Com]

Yes, I mean those and mostly GD.

Just GD is probably making the bulk of 177 daily above $100 sales and you know most of those prices are not end user.

For example, I won an auction there for yumh/com for $185 (great deal, by the way). It affects the median for NB, but is not reflective of what the domain investors sell their names for. I will price it in mid $xxxx and it will eventually sell in that price range.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

While the question may seem straightforward, @Maxleron,
............Even then, lets say you have two $5000 sales (and many days no one in this one million person community sells at that price on NameBio). But if you sell 2 at $5000 you will gross $10,750 before the $1800 renewal costs, or $8950. Congrats. That is a fantastic 36% ROI over one year, but only a few on here will achieve that.

I realized I made a math error in my "optimistic" scenario quoted above. It should have said:
"But if you sell 2 at $5000 you will gross $9,750 before the $1800 renewal costs, or $7950. Congrats. That is a fantastic 32% ROI over one year, but ..."

And as mentioned earlier that does not count any cost for your invested time, nor any other costs like Efty, web hosting, communications, etc.

Sorry about the error, and have a good night.

 

[myfavorite]

Good knowledge + Big budget + Good domains + Big patience = Big sales + Good Profit