[ELI5] How the heck do domain sellers work? Who actually owns the bulk of these addresses? How much power does the central registry have vs the big players like GoDaddy or Hover? More questions in thread.

Question

**Why are they all able to sell the same name at different prices? The pricing models seem very well worked out. Who’s making the money here? The Domain Agents who negotiate the sales of premium addresses… what’s their cut? Are they really representing themselves a lot of the time?**

I would love to hear from an industry insider to give us a little glimpse into this mysterious world.

In: Technology

Answer 1

These businesses have two profit models: speculation and services.

As speculators, they register some unregistered domains with the domain registrar. They pay a fee up front, and hope that someone is willing to pay them a premium to get that domain name.

All unregistered names are available from the domain registrar for a fixed fee. Since they work closely with the registrar, they offer a service to people who want an unregistered name for their own use. They also offer those customers bundles, with things like email services and web services, to maximize the advantage of using their services.