Flip Domain Names
Buy web addresses cheaply, list them on domain marketplaces, and resell the small fraction that a business eventually wants.
The numbers
Each one links to its source and the day it was checked.
Source: sellers.brandpa.com · checked 2026-10-23
Source: domainnamewire.com · checked 2026-10-23
Corroborated by sellers.brandpa.com
What it is
Domain flipping means registering or buying unused web addresses and reselling them to someone who wants that exact name. A .com costs about $11 a year to hold, and the median domain sale on Sedo's marketplace in 2025 was $818, so the arithmetic works on paper. The difficulty is that only about one or two names in every hundred sell in a given year, so you pay renewals on everything that doesn't.
How it works
- Learn what a real buyer paysBefore spending anything, look up comparable completed sales so you are pricing against the market rather than a guess. Free appraisal tools (GoDaddy's Domain Appraisal) give a rough band; recorded sales data is more honest.
- Buy names a business would actually needRegister short, pronounceable, commercially useful names, or bid on expiring domains at auction. Avoid anything containing a trademark — those get taken off you through a UDRP complaint, and you lose the registration fee with it.
- List on the big aftermarkets at oncePut each name on GoDaddy/Afternic, Sedo and a brandable marketplace simultaneously, since most buyers arrive through whichever one they already use. 76% of Sedo's 2025 sales were fixed 'buy now' prices, not negotiations.
- Point the domain at the marketplace nameserversGoDaddy charges 15% commission when a domain uses Afternic, Dan or Uniregistry nameservers at the time of sale, and 25% when it does not. The nameserver setting is a free 10% difference in what you keep.
- Budget renewals as the real costEvery unsold name bills again each year. A 100-domain portfolio at discounted .com rates is about $1,105 annually, and that bill arrives whether anything sold or not.
- Use escrow for any private saleIf a buyer contacts you directly, run the money through an escrow service rather than taking a transfer first. Note a fresh registration cannot be moved to another registrar for 60 days.
What you need
- A credit card and a registrar account (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Dynadot, Porkbun)
- Money you can afford to lose — renewals continue for years on names that never sell
- Patience measured in years, not weeks: a 2-year hold is normal advice
- Judgment about which words a business would pay for, built by reading completed sales data
- Accounts on at least two aftermarkets (GoDaddy/Afternic, Sedo) so listings reach buyers
- Basic trademark awareness so you do not register a name someone can take from you
The catch
The maths that makes this look easy runs backwards in practice: at a 1–2% sell-through, a 100-domain portfolio produces one or two sales a year while you pay renewal on all 100, roughly $1,105 annually. A median sale of $818 minus a 15–25% marketplace commission barely clears a single year of that bill, so the portfolio has to be large and the holding period long before anything nets out. The money in the headlines comes from a handful of premium names bought years earlier or caught at auction, not from hand-registering clever words this week — and a fresh registration cannot even be moved to another registrar for 60 days.
Where the work is
Every number on this page
11 facts, each with its source and the day it was checked.
Source: porkbun.com · checked 2026-10-23
Source: sellers.brandpa.com · checked 2026-10-23
Source: domainnamewire.com · checked 2026-10-23
Source: sidn.nl · checked 2026-10-23
Source: domainnamewire.com · checked 2026-10-23
Source: namesilo.com · checked 2026-10-23
Source: namesilo.com · checked 2026-10-23
Source: godaddy.com · checked 2026-10-23
Source: sidn.nl · checked 2026-10-23
Source: namesilo.com · checked 2026-10-23
Source: domainnamewire.com · checked 2026-10-23
Researched 2026-10-23. Back to every hustle