domains The Afternic, Efty and NamePros landers experience

[AbdulBasit.com]

Hello everyone,

This post will be one of the most anticipated by the fellow domain investors who follow my domain investing journey over the years.

Since leaving Afternic in mid October 2025, I moved all my domains to Efty.com for around a month time and finally switched to NamePros.com lander since December 2025.

During this time, I’ve removed all my domains from Afternic and Sedo marketplaces and solely relying on direct leads whether through endusers, brokers or whoever is reaching out directly via email or NamePros lander where I’m using contact form, WhatsApp, X and this website to contact.

Most of the sales have been closed via email communication through NamePros lander and a very few through WhatsApp.

When I decided to leave Afternic, the sales flow was okay but right after deciding, the next two months were the worst ever using Afternic. Not sure what was the reason behind that but it kept getting worse until I left. Since that time, the sales have been pretty slow. It’s like curse of Afternic due to which sales are not happening

Overall, I’m happy with the NamePros lander, support service and plan to continue using them. But sales are not happening according to the expectations. And now with the US/Iran war, flow of inquiries have gone down even further. One thing which I noticed at Afternic was that every month there were some 1200-1400 new leads and I was confident of receiving the similar numbers when I will switch to any other lander. After I moved to Efty and NamePros, I noticed that the number of leads are hardly 50% of what I was receiving at Afternic. This shows that more than half of those leads were bots and were still showing in the lead report. This was pretty disappointing to see and one cannot rely 100% on the number of leads showing in the Afternic lead report. This needs to be improved significantly.

The last time I was managing my own leads was at Uniregistry so it’s been many years gap but the behavior of buyers has not changed. I’ve literally received $3 and $3.3 offers which were their max offers! It’s frustrating to deal with such buyers. And then there are some who threatens to transfer the domain just because they owned it previously and/or have the TM. Oh well, such crazy people to deal with.

For anyone with a small domain portfolio, I suggest to keep their domains with Afternic/Sedo to get as many sales as possible and get additional exposure.

One of the great benefits of managing your own leads with price request lander is that you can recheck your prices and quote accordingly. Not because the buyer is someone with a big budget but the domain value has gone up and you’ve the time to adjust the price accordingly. I’ve saved a lot of money by not paying any commission and also by repricing the domains. There is a lot to learn during this entire process of handling the leads, negotiation, sales process, etc.

Some notable sales I would like to share are:

HMA.CO $9,000 (via WhatsApp). This domain had an asking price of $9,888 but after going back and forth, we settled for $9,000.

ClubSpot.com $50,000 – This domain was a BIN purchase via Efty marketplace. Special thanks to Doron (founder of Efty.com) for making this deal happen smoothly and professionally.

Directory.org $25,000 – This domain had an asking price of $29,888 but after negotiations, I ended up selling it for $25K.

Serafino.com $38,000 (via WhatsApp). The broker who acted on behalf of the buyer was pretty tough and took several months to close the deal. This domain had a asking price of $50,000.

Moess.com $14,000 – This one had an asking price of $19,888 but we settled for $14K NET.

Uniti.net for $8,500 – A broker reached out on behalf of their client. This was initially priced at $9,888.

StormBit.com – Received a $1K offer and quoted $9,888. Going back and forth for around 4 months of negotiations and eventually sold it for $8,500 NET.

MyBestFriends.com $18,500 – The buyer is from Turkey and I quoted $19,888. Negotiation took a couple of months before the domain sold for $18.5K. They’ve upgraded from MyBestFriends.com.tr which is a nice decision.

In rare cases, I bear the escrow fee or split with the buyer depending on the agreed sale amount, situation, etc. Usually it’s the buyer who pay the escrow fees.

Both number and amount of sales have drastically dropped. But I’m very confident of having some good sales happen on a regular basis. Number of sales will not pick up for sure unless the domains get additional exposure but the amount of sales will pick up soon.

In the end, I would like to say that for now, I’m not going back to Afternic/Sedo and plan to continue using NamePros lander.

Thanks to NamePros for providing free landers and top-notch service. Also, thanks to my business partner Jamie Zoch for working with me for the last several years and has always been there during good and tough times.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

I was personally waiting this post a lot. Thank you @AbdulBasit.com for sharing it with such details. I had a feeling this will be a community favorite Some incredible sales there congrats. My conclusion is the following: for many of us Afternic is still the backbone in terms of sales, one must need to have really high quality names to be able to survive solely on Namepros landers. I must admit Namepros team is doing some extraordinary stuff with the landers lately, some of them are really beautiful. So it is a great option to handle your leads. I am also brainstorming a lot what would be the best setup for my porfolio, but at the end of the day Godaddy got this figured with the 25%-30% penalty commission when the lander is not pointing to them. Many corporate buyers simply search at registrars and have the credit card ready, but they hate frictions to go through unknown channels to hunt down domains. So for me Afternic is still a must have. The objective is to figure out how to channel them to alternate landers or checkout channels, which is already very difficult when usually only 35-40% of the buyers approach via landers. Other option is to add + 15-25% on names at AF, but again this is another friction that might confuse buyers. Please keep sharing those awesome sales, we learn a lot from them.

I completely agree with you.
Also, I appreciate you taking time for the feedback, kind words and sharing thoughts about your plans for the portfolio.

Best wishes!

 

[AgeDomain]

It always amazes me that like 50% of purchased domains stay unused or don´t even load. I see it happen a lot

 

[Bravo Mod Team]

It always amazes me that like 50% of purchased domains stay unused or don´t even load. I see it happen a lot

That percentage is even higher when they're purchased by investors.

 

[AEProgram]

It always amazes me that like 50% of purchased domains stay unused or don´t even load. I see it happen a lot

talk to some big web / app development companies. Ask them, what percentage of projects they work on, projects that people invested months or years building, actually go live. One company a while ago told me less than 30% ever go live. With end-users, they have ideas, they get excited, family and friends pump them up, a billionaire in the making, they need a name, they all get very excited over a specific name, they see its for sale, it's 20k, but what's 20k when you will make billions, they see a lease option, a huge steal, grab it right away. This is why price requests kill deals. You need BIN landers.

Some of those people will end up doing well with the name, other won't do anything. It's like everything else. Domains are not unique. There are subscription models that only work because many people that pay won't use the service and continue paying.

 

[UncleBrand]

ego is the enemy
you made a rash emotional decision,
domaining is a special business because you have a reliable metric

there is no lander that will replace the Afternic network,
some sale from Afternic came from suggested domains when people query the registrars participating in the afternic network,
this is not a lander limitation, most lander wont provide this kind of exposure

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

ego is the enemy
you made a rash emotional decision,
domaining is a special business because you have a reliable metric

there is no lander that will replace the Afternic network,
some sale from Afternic came from suggested domains when people query the registrars participating in the afternic network,
this is not a lander limitation, most lander wont provide this kind of exposure

Haha well, thanks for your feedback.

It took several months to decide for leaving Afternic and Sedo and wasn't an emotional one at all. It's pretty much calculated and carefully thought. The near future results will clear the doubts.

Either way, I'll share it again in the future.

 

[Fryo4life]

talk to some big web / app development companies. Ask them, what percentage of projects they work on, projects that people invested months or years building, actually go live. One company a while ago told me less than 30% ever go live. With end-users, they have ideas, they get excited, family and friends pump them up, a billionaire in the making, they need a name, they all get very excited over a specific name, they see its for sale, it's 20k, but what's 20k when you will make billions, they see a lease option, a huge steal, grab it right away. This is why price requests kill deals. You need BIN landers.

Some of those people will end up doing well with the name, other won't do anything. It's like everything else. Domains are not unique. There are subscription models that only work because many people that pay won't use the service and continue paying.

Some endusers buy premium domains just for emails only without needing it for creating a website