Domain appraisals are here. From the Domains page of your seller dashboard, or from a domain's landing page as a buyer, you ask for a price; human appraisers price the domain blind, and the result is one amount in euros.
Why a free appraisal rarely settles a price
If you sell domains, you have probably had an automated appraisal quoted back at you. Investor Elliot Silver writes that at least once a month the other side of a negotiation cites one to justify an offer, almost always from GoDaddy or Estibot, and that GoDaddy's number has derailed about three of his sales.
The tools themselves rarely agree. A June 2026 review of 15 automated appraisal tools concluded that none of them consistently predicts sale prices. The oldest of them works from comparable sales and search data the reviewer found sometimes dated or irrelevant; it valued a two-word .com at $314 that sold for $15,000.
Paid appraisals written by people exist, but they usually arrive as a PDF by email, away from the place the domain is sold. On Nameshift the figure comes from people with the data in front of them, next to the domain where it is bought and sold.
How the appraisers reach one figure
A domain is priced by appraisers we invite ourselves; there is no sign-up. By default three of them each price the domain independently, in whole euros, with a note explaining the figure. While the prices are being collected, each appraiser sees only their own, so nobody can anchor on a colleague's number; that is what we mean by pricing blind.
Each appraiser works from the same evidence, taken when the appraisal opens: reported sales of the exact domain, of the same name under other extensions and of similar names; which popular extensions are taken; registration history; registrar prices; a language-model reading of the words; and earlier appraisals.
When every price is in, the request closes if the highest is at most 20% above the lowest; the appraisal is then the geometric mean, rounded to the euro. Domain prices tend to spread out log-normally: an appraiser saying double is about as far off as one saying half, so a plain average would be dragged up by the highest. With €1,000, €1,100 and €1,200, the request closes at €1,097.
When the prices are further apart, say €800, €1,000 and €1,600, the request goes into a debate. The appraisers now see each other's prices and notes, talk it through in a chat and may revise their figure until the prices agree; if they don't, an administrator closes it with an amount and a note.
Where to ask for one, and when you pay
As a seller, you ask from the Domains page of your dashboard, where each domain you own gets an Appraisal button. It opens a payment window; after paying you are back on the Domains page with a link to your appraisals list.
As a buyer, you ask from the domain appraisal box on the domain's landing page. The checkout works like a buy-now order: your email address and the usage terms, then your billing details, then the pay page with the total. Card is the default, with crypto where offered and bank transfer with a pro-forma invoice.
Buyers and sellers pay the same fixed price, and as a buyer you see the total on the pay page before you pay. The appraisal goes to the appraisers once the invoice is paid; until then you can cancel it from your list and nothing is charged.
What comes back, and what a seller can do with it
In your dashboard the request moves from pending payment to in progress to appraised, and a Domain appraisals page lists each one with the domain, its status, the value in whole euros and the dates it was asked and appraised. Buyers get a page of their own once they have a request. You get the figure and the date; the appraisers' individual prices and notes stay with them.
A seller can use the figure to set a buy-now price they can defend, or as the reply when a buyer opens with a free tool's number; how the selling formats differ is in five ways to sell a domain on Nameshift. A buyer can use it as a check before offering.
Getting your first appraisal
Make sure the domains you want priced are on your account, listed in your seller dashboard: only the owning account can ask for a seller appraisal. Then open the Domains page and press Appraisal next to the name you want a figure for. If you are not selling on Nameshift yet, the sellers page explains how listing works.
