AI offers insights. Just don’t rely on them blindly — Afternic’s Pricing
Pricing AI offers helpful data regarding comparable listings and sales.
I hear lots of people complain regarding GoDaddy’s automated appraisal tool, GoValue.
I believe GoValue is very useful when used correctly (e.g., scanning a list of domains for ones to acquire), but it can certainly be an issue when using it for individual domains.
Afternic recently launched Pricing AI, a tool that builds on GoValue to make recommendations to Afternic sellers. It takes into consideration similar listings, past sales, previous offers, and other relevant factors.
To use the tool, go to any domain in your Afternic account and click “Suggest a Price” at the top:
Like all AI tools, Pricing AI can be somewhat inconsistent. The format of the suggestions it makes varies. In some cases, it mentions a factor (like the number of leads a domain has received), and other times it omits it.
Here are examples of various pricing suggestions it made for my domains (these are parts of various Pricing AI results, not just for a single domain):
Past Offers: The domain has received an offer of $2,000, which was closed lost. This suggests that there is at least some interest in the domain, although the amount is relatively low compared to its valuation. The other offers of $0 indicate that while there may not be active interest at this time, the previous offer provides a baseline for negotiation.
GoDaddy Valuation: The GoDaddy valuation for [domain] is $3,871, which indicates a strong potential value for this domain. Still, since you have received an offer of $1,500 in the past (which was a “Closed Lost” deal), this suggests that the market may not right now support the full GoDaddy valuation.
Comparable Listings: When looking at comparable domain listings, we see prices for domains in the pet niche vary widely. The domain everythingdog.co is listed at $1,988, while others like everythingbutthedog.com are priced at $1,288. The higher-end domains such as dogsdogs.com and dogs.org command prices in the thousands, reaching up to $555,555 for dogs.org.
Market Demand: The lack of leads may indicate that there is not a high current demand for this specific domain, which could lower its price. Still, the substantial valuation percentile (86.2%) indicates that it is still considered a premium domain within its niche.
Lead and Offer History: The domain has received no leads and only one closed offer of $80, which suggests that demand for this specific domain may be low. This limited interest ought to be a significant factor in determining a more conservative pricing range.
The last two examples above illustrate an area where the tool is lacking: it doesn’t appear to have a consistent definition of leads. On the first one (Market Demand), there have been lots of leads, but it states there haven’t been. On the Lead and Offer History, I don’t understand how a domain could have received no leads if it has received an offer.
I appreciate how the tool highlights active comparable listings to help you understand what your competition is. (Instant Domain Search is another tool for finding these.) In one example, the tool showed me how the plural version of the domain was priced.
Sometimes, the comparable sold domains are lacking. You’d think the fact that the exact domain it evaluated had previously sold on Afternic (and the comparable shows up in Afternic’s data for the domain) would receive a mention, but it did not.
Ultimately, you may still disagree with Afternic’s pricing suggestion. But the more data, the better, and I think this is a welcome addition, even if you disagree with its suggestions.
