How Much is a Three Letter Domain Name Worth?

Prices range from a couple thousand to millions.

I was just scrolling through Sedo’s auction page and came across a listing for a three letter domain, Pat.com, which has a bid of $62,000 with its reserve met. Sedo sold a number of three character domains over the past couple weeks at a wide variety of prices. A quick search at NameBio shows that recent .com three character domain sales range from a couple thousand dollars up to millions depending on a number of factors. As a starting point, here are three things to consider when valuing a three letter .com:

1. Do the three letters spell a word? Sex.com, for example, probably shouldn’t be counted in an analysis of three letter domain prices. It sold not because it was three characters, but because of the meaning of the word. Sex.com sold for over $10M in cash and stock. Other three letter domains that are also words include:

Tom.com $2.5M
Fly.com $1.5M
VIP.com $1.4M
Men.com $1.3M
Sky.com $1.0M

(All of these sales were private sales and actual transaction amounts are estimated.)

2. What acronyms can the letters represent? The more combinations, and the more representation by large corporations, the more valuable the domain. You can search for acronyms at AcronymFinder.com.

POS.com sold for $252,500 last year. POS.com is a popular acronym for point-of-sale, a retail term. If you search google for “POS” you’ll also find other uses including the stock symbol for Catalina Marketing and an acronym for Public Opinion Strategies.

3. How are other versions of the three characters being used? If the .net and .org versions of a three character domain are in use you can expect the .com version to be valuable. POS.net and POS.org are in use, making POS.com a hot commodity.