A domain on Nameshift can be sold at a fixed price, through offers, in an auction, in monthly installments or rented out, and most of those can be on at once. Each suits a different name and buyer. Here is how each works in practice, and how to pick.
Buy now: a fixed price
You set a price, the buyer pays it, and the sale is done without a conversation. Payment is immediate, by bank transfer or card depending on the amount and currency (cards and wallets are not offered above 10,000 euros). The domain transfer runs after payment, by auth code for most extensions, and if the buyer does not confirm receipt it is confirmed for them after seven days. Your payout becomes due once the transfer is complete on your side, and goes out on the schedule you chose, from immediately to quarterly.
Buy now suits a domain with an obvious price, which in our experience is most of a portfolio below a few thousand euros, where a negotiation costs more time than the margin it wins. It is also the only method that can be bought without talking to you, which matters more than it sounds: a fair share of buyers are companies that will not negotiate at all.
Offers: let the buyer open
Set a minimum offer and buyers can make one; anything below the minimum is refused before it reaches you. New domains get your account's default minimum, 99 euros unless you change it, so a listing is never open to one-euro offers by accident. From there the two of you alternate: you cannot send two counters in a row, and a thread allows ten messages each way before it is closed, which is plenty.
A counter does not have to be a number. From inside the negotiation you can propose lease-to-own terms, a monthly rent, or an auction that opens at the buyer's own offer. Accepting a plain offer creates an order at that price, and the buyer pays as with buy now. The classic shape still works: a buyer offers 9,000, you counter at 10,450, they accept.
Offers suit a domain where the price depends on who is asking. If you want to hear from buyers without naming a figure, leave buy now empty and set only a minimum; that is as close as the platform comes to price on request.
Auctions: a deadline and competition
An auction gives buyers a defined window to compete for a domain. You pick the start and end dates (the end is always four in the afternoon, your time), bids step up by 10% rounded to a multiple of five, and a bid in the last five minutes extends the auction by three, so it cannot be sniped at the buzzer. Bids of 1,000 or more in the domain's currency need a phone-verified bidder. There is no limit on how many auctions you run; there is one per domain at a time, and the domain has to be DNS-verified.
Free or paid
A free auction opens at a default first bid of 10 in the domain's currency. A paid auction costs 12.95 euros plus tax and lets you set either your own opening bid or a reserve price, one or the other; if the auction ends in a sale, the fee is refunded on your invoice. With a reserve, the highest bid wins only if it reaches the reserve; otherwise, or with no bids at all, the auction simply ends and the domain stays listed as before.
Auctions suit a domain with more than one plausible buyer, or one you have priced wrong for a while and want the market to settle. They do not suit a domain nobody has searched for; a deadline creates urgency, not demand.
Lease-to-own: installments toward ownership
Lease-to-own needs a buy now price to start from. You set the term you will accept, between 2 and 60 months, with the rule that every month must cover at least 100 euros of the price, so a 20,000 euro domain can run up to 60 months and a 1,500 euro domain at most 15. The buyer pays monthly, the domain sits in Nameshift custody for the term, and on the last payment it transfers to the buyer.
The buyer pays a markup on the price for the privilege, by the length of the term:
| Installments | Markup on the price | Your share of the markup |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 12 | 5% | Half, by default |
| 13 to 24 | 10% | Half, by default |
| 25 to 36 | 20% | Half, by default |
| 37 or more | 30% | Half, by default |
So the original example, a 20,000 euro domain over 20 months, is 22,000 euros to the buyer at 1,100 a month, and you receive your price plus half the markup, 1,000 euros, spread over the term, less commission on the price part. A missed payment is retried after a day; after repeated failures the lease is cancelled and the domain comes back to you.
Lease-to-own suits a premium name where the upfront price is the obstacle, and a buyer who is a business rather than an investor; it is the method most likely to turn a 'too expensive' into a yes.
Rent: income without selling
Renting lets a business use the domain while you keep ownership. You set a monthly price of at least 25 euros; the renter pays that plus 5% on top, and you receive the rent less commission every month. There is no fixed term: the renter can stop at the next renewal, and a rental that has run a year is indexed every August by the renter's country inflation rate, capped at 5%. As with lease-to-own, the domain is held in Nameshift custody while rented, the renter manages its DNS, and it comes back to you when the rental ends.
The original example still holds: 49 a month is 1,176 over two years, and the domain is still yours at the end. Rent suits brandable names you would rather not sell, and names with existing traffic a business can use now. There is no rent-to-buy switch; a renter who wants to own it makes an offer like anyone else.
Which to use for which domain
| Method | Best for | You set | You get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buy now | A clear price, buyers who will not negotiate | The price | The price, less commission |
| Offers | A price that depends on the buyer | A minimum | What you agree on |
| Auction | Several plausible buyers, or a stale price | Dates; opening bid or reserve on the paid option | The highest bid, if the reserve is met |
| Lease-to-own | Premium names, business buyers | Term range; needs a buy now price | The price plus half the markup, monthly |
| Rent | Names you keep, names with traffic | A monthly price | Rent less commission, monthly |
You do not have to choose one. The usual portfolio has buy now and offers on nearly everything, lease-to-own switched on for the names above a few thousand, rent on a handful of brandables, and an auction now and then for a name that deserves a push. Every price on a domain is in one currency, which you pick from eighteen, and your current commission per extension is shown in your account; the commission post has the rates.
Start with the names you already know the price of: set buy now and a minimum offer on those from the seller area, then turn on lease-to-own for the expensive ones. The rest can wait for the first offer to tell you what kind of domain it is.
