Here are some alternatives to Afternic, but do the math to make sure you should switch.
I’ve received several comments, tweets and messages from people today who aren’t happy about GoDaddy’s new commission structure. Their question is the same: what alternatives are there?
To me, this is only a question if you’ll be worse off under the new commission structure. You’ll be worse off if you sell a significant number of your domains through landers rather than the Afternic network. Perhaps most of your sales were on Dan landers and you’re wondering where you can move to save commission.
With that in mind, here are four of the popular alternatives.
Sedo
I’m going to start with Sedo because it’s the oldest of the bunch but often overlooked. It’s always been viewed as a marketplace rather than a landing page service. But Sedo is worth a look on a couple of fronts.
First, it has a syndicated sales system similar to AfternicDLS that carries a 20% commission. It doesn’t have the reach of GoDaddy, in part because GoDaddy isn’t part of the network. But it’s a solid alternative if you don’t want to use Afternic.
Second, Sedo introduced new landers last year. Buy Now landers carry a 10% commission, which is similar to what Dan had. Make offer landers carry a 15% commission. Sedo has a solid transfer system and representatives that speak many languages, making them great for international transactions. I don’t love the flow of its landers — if you try to make an offer, the next thing it asks you to do is log in or register. But Sedo has a fairly good reputation amongst buyers, so it’s worth looking into.
Sav
Sav’s commission is so cheap that you wouldn’t have to sell too many domains through Sav to make up for the 25% commissions at Afternic. It charges just 4%. I know they’re working on improving the checkout process, but it’s already pretty solid. Here’s an example domain.
The downside to Sav is that the management console for your domain listings is rudimentary, and you won’t get any data.
Squadhelp
Squadhelp offers two listing levels.
Its Basic level offers landers with a 7.5% commission. The service is feature-rich: live chat and phone support for landing page visitors, in-depth data, installment payments, automated price increases and discounts, and more.
The Premium level is curated, and the domains get a lot of exposure, including retargeting ads and inclusion in Squadhelp’s naming contests. Commissions are as high as 35% but are lower for high-ticket sales. Squadhelp also charges you a fee if you list a domain as Premium and end up selling it at Afternic. It’s a bit complicated, so it’s worth learning about before listing domains.
Efty
Efty works on a SaaS model rather than commissions, so you can create landing pages and pay nothing when they sell. In practice, you’ll probably want to take payments via Escrow.com or Dan.com, so there is a charge there. The Dan.com payment fee is 5%, and I haven’t heard anything about that partnership going away. Efty has a lot of cool features and is worth checking out.
What should you do?
Again, taking stock of your situation is important before deciding what to do about GoDaddy’s new commission structure. For some domainers, moving your landers to different companies will make sense. For others, you’ll be better off remaining in the GoDaddy ecosystem.
These are all self-service products. However, if you want a full-service Domain Brokerage that has completed over half a billion dollars in sales and averages over a decade in industry experience, Saw.com is also an option. We will get the most out of your leads.
We study the opportunities and provide guidance and pricing. As well as speak English, Spanish, and Mandarin.
Give us a call or come to Saw.com to learn more.
Completing over half a billion is a stellarr achievement and isn’t mostly with premium names?. Saw couldn’t close a single sale for me in 6 months. Can’t recommend Saw from my experience. Your brokers Can’t value a good name for five figures and pressuring a seller to accept peanut .
You don’t even respond to brokerage inquiries for domains that your own valuation tool says is worth six figures. So hardly an alternative.
I use efty with DAN payments. Although I do sell through Afternic/GoDaddy network quite often, most of my sales come from the landing page. And I love the installment options. I am glad to hear this commission structure does not appear to have changed.
I haven’t heard anything about Efty before, but it seems like a good and cheap alternative.
Regarding the payment processors, both Escrow.com and Dan.com still take 5%-7% of the sale. This could potentially be further optimized.
Escrow.com is much cheaper than that depending on payment method. But it’s also a bigger hassle.
Where’s Daaz? Smh
I’ve never used it and no one who has used it has ever talked to me about it.
SH charges 5% for Bring Your Own Lead..
Actually 4.5% I believe
You are right Andrew.
https://helpdesk.squadhelp.com/en/articles/5524079-import-a-lead-for-standard-wlm-listings
DaaZ.com is a perfect alternative marketplace.
1) 3.5 Years old platform: DaaZ.com started its project in 2017 and gone live on August-2019
2) Customers from 60+ countries are using DaaZ.com effectively
3) Service / success fees are industry low by any pure domain marketplace:
a) BIN listings success fee is just 5%
b) Make an offer success fee is just 7%
c) Auctions success fee is 7%
d) DaaZ secure ( for offline agreed leads aka import leads ) – 5%
e) Lease to Own offering – 8% success fee
4) DaaZ.com payouts are processed with in 48 hours ( at least 99% cases so far )
5) DaaZ.com offers 22 payment options. (https://twitter.com/Daazcom/status/1607516202724913152)
Sedo is a good option if you don’t want to use GoDaddy. Sedo MLS Network works well.
10% commission BIN Lander pages.
15% commission Make Offer Lander pages.
20% MLS Network
Squadhelp is super complicated and too high to tale seriously. Also, they may want to consider a rebarnd. Just like ‘undeveloped’ did, squadhelp is a terrible brand name for a domain name marketplace.
Currently I redirect all my $10K plus names sales traffic to Afternic. Now that they jacked up the rates, I’m looking to switch that traffic to SEDO. I see that they have an API which is an added plus.
But if you already redirect the traffic to Afternic, won’t your commission be less?
I redirect. I don’t use their name servers. I averaged about 12.5% commission rate before. Now it’s jacked up to 25%.
Ah, got it. I wonder if they thought about that scenario. And if you’re only selling high priced domains through them, that will definitely create a problem with their new flat structure
Sedo has a helpful transaction history page which contains all communications on the transaction. Sedo transaction agents are also easy to reach and respond quickly to inquiries. And, Sedo consistently makes same or next day payments on sold domains. (Aside: anyone remember the days when sales made through Godaddy Premium Listings weren’t paid out until the end of month plus 30 days?)
Sav.com looks competitive but one big concern is customer service, which operates on a ticket/email model, causing response times to be up to 24 hours for a basic inquiry. Issues that take back and forth emails can thus take quite some time to resolve, whereas a phone call could get things done in a few minutes. (Any serious domain registrar should offer phone or live chat service and at least limited weekend customer service.) They also don’t provide dedicated account reps for bigger accounts like other domain registrars and service providers do. So yes, Sav.com offers great pricing and it is good to see a scrappy competitor like them pop up, but they are growing very quickly and need to make sure they focus on the customer service experience as they do.
What better commission of 15% to look for Domain Broker.
Domain Sellers should band together and DEMAND that GoDaddy, Sedo and Afternic restructure the Sales Commission into Buyer pays, Seller pays, or both buyer and seller split the commission the same way Escrow.com does. Sellers should be able to post a listing with a sales price and check the box that says “Buyer Pays” sales commission. This could result in somewhat lower sales listing prices.
I prefer to remain in the GoDaddy ecosystem. It’s the best for me, and it’s the best exposure in the industry.
Sold a domain via DAN yesterday. Loved the 9%. Going to miss that. But I will stay with DAN. IMO, it’s still the best platform … for now. (DON’T SCREW IT UP, GoDaddy!)
And of course I like DAN’s SUPER-FAST payout! Hopefully GoDaddy will not screw that up.
You have to keep in mind that because Godaddy, Afternic, Dan and Uni increase commissions, as we all know, most aftermaket buyers go through these first three every day and then, through Sedo, Efty, Sav and DomainAgents, (Those written like this without no preference) there is also Dynadot, Namecheap and some more, finally as my previous comment the Domain Brokers.
You have to keep in mind that the one with the most sales will give you the same if they go up by 5% or 10%, possibly changing your sales strategies.
I have two dozen domains purchased through GoDaddy and had them listed for sale but Afternic has terrible customer service, is trying to charge a 25 % commission even though it’s all “inhouse” from my perspective, and they haven’t answered questions about the transaction process. Without removing listings from GoDaddy as registrar or whatever, what options do I have for easily selling withOUT using afternic? Namecheap seems to require that you purchased the domain through Namecheap to begin with, for example. THanks.