Best Domain Appraisal Services Compared

Domain appraisal services help buyers and sellers determine the fair value of a domain. Our expert research team here at Crazy Egg spent hours reviewing 45 of the top domain appraisers on the market before narrowing the crowd down to the best options. We determined that GoDaddy is the best domain appraisal service for most people based on its simplicity, cost, and additional services for buyers and sellers. 

The Best Domain Appraisal Service for Most

GoDaddy makes it easy for buyers and sellers to get accurate domain appraisals in seconds. Simply enter the domain and you’ll see a fair-value price along with comparable domains sold.

The appraisal service is 100% free. GoDaddy has other domain services for transfers, privacy, WHOIS protection, auctions, domain investing, and more. You can get whatever you need pertaining to domains from a single service provider in GoDaddy. 

The Best Domain Appraisal Service Options to Consider:

1. GoDaddy — Best for most
2. Flippa — Best for selling an online business
3. Sedo — Best for appraising a large domain portfolio
4. EstiBot — Best for domain investing
5. Epik — Best for fairness opinions

When it Makes Sense to Invest In Domain Appraisal Services

If you’re interested in selling a domain or a portfolio of domains, you should get an appraisal before listing and setting the sale price. 

An appraisal is an excellent starting point for you to use when determining the value of your domains. Based on the appraisal, you can confidently list your domain on the open market for a fair and competitive price while knowing that you’re not leaving money on the table. 

Even if you weren’t planning on selling your domain, you could always get it appraised if an interested buyer makes you an offer. The appraisal can help you determine whether or not the offer was fair for the value.

Buyers can also use domain appraisal services to get more information about a domain before they make an offer. You can use an appraisal report in your negotiations, as they’ll hold more weight than simply saying, “I think your asking price is too high.”

Online business owners who are planning to build up a site and then sell the domain for a higher value down the road can use appraisal services to gauge the site’s value over time. Even if you’re not planning to sell the domain today, you can use the appraisal as a benchmark of how the domain’s value has increased over time and use that information to forecast future value.

#1 – GoDaddy — The Best for Most

GoDaddy is one of the most reputable names in the domain industry. They offer a wide range of domain tools and services that accommodate both buyers and sellers. 

Best of all, its domain appraisal service is completely free.

GoDaddy uses a proprietary algorithm that combines machine learning with more than two decades of real market data. As the world’s largest aftermarket domain seller, they manage over 84 million domains, so you know the data is accurate. 

See the estimated value of a domain, its current sale price if it is currently available, and samples of comparable domains and values as well. Plus, GoDaddy will tell you about the quality of the domain itself based on memorability, length, and extension. 

Whether you’re a buyer or seller, GoDaddy has everything you need to take the next steps after the appraisal is complete (which takes mere seconds). 

You can sell domains through a GoDaddy auction, buy a domain through GoDaddy’s broker service, and invest in domains as well. Post-purchase, GoDaddy also makes it easy to renew your domain, secure it, and protect all of your personal information. 

Start now on GoDaddy and get a domain appraised immediately. 

#2 – Flippa — Best for Selling an Online Business

Flippa is a bit unique compared to some of the other services on our list. It’s actually a digital marketplace that’s used for selling online businesses. 

Sometimes, most of the value of an internet-based business lies in its domain. It’s like a shoddy house on a great piece of property where a real estate purchaser will pay a good amount to own a quality location.

If your online business isn’t worth much more than the domain it inhabits, Flippa can help you get maximum value and put your listing in front of qualified, interested buyers.

Getting started is easy, and it’s 100% free. All you need to do is create an account and request a valuation from Flippa. Then, you can use that appraisal for guidance when you list your domain on the Flippa marketplace. 

Listing fees start at just $29 and Flippa takes a 5% commission fee based on the final sale price when the sale occurs. They also provide additional support for sellers, including insight reports, non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements, legal templates, escrow services, and more. 

It’s everything you need to get the domain appraised and sell your business from a single platform. 

Get maximum value for your domain by creating a Flippa account today.

#3 – Sedo — Best for Appraising a Large Domain Portfolio

Sedo is an all-in-one solution for people who want to buy, park, and sell domains. But it also provides fast, affordable, and detailed domain appraisal reports that can be useful for both buyers and sellers. 

Sedo’s domain appraisal process is based on ten unique factors, including advertising value, prospects, search engine sustainability, and more. If you want a personalized, professional valuation of what a domain is worth, paying Sedo for an appraisal gives you the best information possible.

Standard domain appraisals for individual domains start at $99 per appraisal. You’ll get a detailed report sent via email within five business days of your request. 

But where Sedo really shines compared to alternatives on the market is its service for domain portfolios. If you want to appraise more than 50 domains, Sedo will provide you with valuation reports for each individual domain and the entire portfolio as a whole. 

The portfolio appraisal tends to take a bit longer—up to ten business days. Pricing is customized based on your portfolio size.

Reach out to Sedo to learn more about appraising your portfolio of domains. 

#4 – EstiBot — Best for Domain Investing

Domains are a commodity that can be bought, sold, flipped, and used as investments. Maybe you’re already doing that, maybe you want to break into the domain marketplace for the first time. Either way, EstiBot offers a fleet of tools to invest and flip domains intelligently. 

Appraisals are fast, easy, and 100% free. Just enter your domain to get a valuation in seconds. EstiBot will also give you information about the domain quality (including a rough total of monthly Google searches pertaining to its keywords), where it was last registered, and available extensions. You can even use EstiBot to check WHOIS information

Once you get an appraisal, EstiBot will give you a couple of links to help you quickly buy or sell that domain. If you’re selling, EstiBot’s lead generator can give you a list of real businesses that may be interested in buying what you own. 

EstiBot also offers a daily list of tens of thousands of expiring domains, which is a great way to acquire domains for cheaper (especially helpful when starting out with domain investing). Or, use 

EstiBot’s bulk domain appraisal tool if you have a portfolio to sell or a wish list of URLs to buy. 

Get some of the best information on domain values for free by using EstiBot.

#5 – Epik — Best for Fairness Opinions

Like most of the domain appraisers on our list, Epik offers a wide range of domain-related services. In addition to appraisals, you can use Epik for domain transfers, buying domains, domain escrow services, and more. 

But say you’re in a position where you need a more personalized touch than the automated appraisals provided by GoDaddy and others, but you don’t have the time or cash to request a thorough appraisal done by a human being. That’s where Epik’s fairness opinions come in.

While Epik provides professional domain appraisals with an in-depth report for a fixed fee of $395 (delivered in seven days), these fairness opinions give a quick valuation of a domain. But the key difference is that you can include information like the proposed sale price and the ideal closing date. Those are key details to getting the right information back on a fairness opinion, which get delivered to you faster than a professional valuation.

Epik also offers complete domain portfolio appraisals for $1,295. 

Reach out to the professionals at Epik for a fairness opinion of full appraisal today.

Methodology for Choosing the Best Domain Appraisal Services

Not every domain appraisal provider is of equal value. They all offer the same basic service—estimating the value of a domain—but, beyond that, there are different factors that should be taken into consideration. 

The buying guide below uses the same criteria that our team used to narrow down the top recommendations for domain appraisal services. You can use it as well to determine which providers best fit your goals.

Buying Domains vs. Selling Domains

In theory, the valuation of a domain should be unbiased. It shouldn’t matter whether you’re a buyer or a seller because the appraiser is a neutral third party.

With that said, some domain appraisal services definitely cater towards one side over the other.

You can usually figure this out pretty quickly by assessing the service’s value proposition. If you see terms like “find out how much your site is worth” or “sell your domain for the highest value,” it’s clear they’re marketing the service toward sellers. Conversely, phrases like “buy a domain” or “invest in domains” cater to buyers. 

It’s important to note that a domain appraisal is not necessarily the set-in-stone price for a domain transaction. This number is simply an estimate or a starting point for negotiations. The final sale may ultimately be significantly higher or lower than the appraisal based on other factors, like the parties involved in the sale or how close to expiring the domain registration is.

Size of Domain Portfolio

There are big differences between buying or selling a single domain and doing the same for dozens of domains. Some services are better for evaluating the fair price of individual domains. Others are better for appraising domain portfolios. 

To clarify, just because you own two or three websites doesn’t necessarily mean you need to get the entire portfolio evaluated as a whole. But with 10, 20, or more domains, you can unlock savings on paying for appraisals through bulk valuation and find out if your portfolio has a higher valuation than the sum of each individual domain’s value. 

A portfolio valuation isn’t too useful if you’re planning to split up the domains amongst multiple buyers. But if you have an interested party in your entire array of online real estate, a portfolio appraisal could help you negotiate a bigger sale price for the whole lot.

Unless you have one buyer lined up for a bulk set of your domains, it’s in your best interest to get the value of each domain appraised separately. 

Depth of Appraisal Report

What are you using the domain appraisal service for? 

If you just want a quick and rough estimate of your site’s value for personal use, then you really don’t need an in-depth report. But if you’re serious about buying or selling a domain, or you’re using domains as a commodity investment, then you should be looking for an appraisal service that gives you lots of data and information along with the valuation. 

For some services, you’ll just enter your domain and see a price on the screen within seconds. Other services take several days or even a week to conduct an appraisal. 

The latter typically includes detailed reports with information like:

• Valuation based on the site’s intended use
• Comparison based on similar sites sold
• Stats related to site speed and performance
• Information related to the developed site attached to the domain
• Data related to page views, backlinks, and social visibility
• Advertising revenue

Some free and instant appraisal services come close to this level of info in their reports, delivering details like keyword search frequency and domain quality assessment.

Depending on your goal, some of this information might be important to you. Generally speaking, the more information you can get, the better—just don’t spend a fortune on a detailed report if you’re not a serious buyer or seller. 

Assistance With Sale

You just found out the value of a domain—now what?

The best domain appraisal services offer additional assistance for completing a purchase or sale, whether that’s a marketplace for buying and selling domains, investment tools, or brokerage or escrow services. 

This is important for anyone that wants to get an appraisal and then complete the sale using a single platform. If you don’t mind bouncing around between multiple tools and services, that’s fine, too. But for simplicity and getting everything you need under one roof, look at the additional services beyond the appraisal. 

The Top Domain Appraisal Services in Summary

GoDaddy is the best domain appraisal service for most people. It’s a free service for buyers and sellers alike, and GoDaddy has a range of other services to facilitate the sale after gaining a valuation. 

However, they’re hardly the only compelling option. Sedo is best for selling domain portfolios and Flippa is our top recommendation for selling an online business whose primary worth is in its domain. Use Estibot if you’re looking to start investing through the purchase and sale of domains, while Epik is a great choice if you need a middle ground between an automated appraisal and an in-depth professional valuation.