Acquisition
The purchase amount is only the beginning. Include known acquisition or closing fees that belong to the deal.
Domain investment economics
Domain investment ROI is more than sale price minus purchase price.
A useful ROI model includes the cash you committed, the cost of holding the domain, selling costs and the time it took to reach the exit.
Evidence boundary: a modeled sale price is an assumption until a real sale occurs. DOMALYST keeps scenario inputs separate from observed outcomes.
Cost basis
Start with everything the domain actually cost.
If you omit carrying costs, a long hold can look more profitable than it was. Use explicit values and leave missing evidence unknown rather than inventing a convenient average.
Renewals
Renewal cost compounds with time. Use the actual annual renewal amount and holding years when known.
Other holding costs
Include only costs that genuinely belong to holding the asset. Do not pad the model with generic assumptions.
Exit economics
Use net proceeds, not the headline sale price.
A gross sale price does not equal cash retained after the transaction.
Selling percentage
If the modeled sale uses a marketplace, broker or other channel with a percentage fee, include that fee in the scenario.
Fixed selling cost
Add a fixed cost only when you know it applies. The goal is to model the real transaction, not a generic one.
Three outputs
Profit, ROI and annualized return answer different questions.
Net profit or loss
How much remains after the cost basis and selling costs are accounted for. This is the first check, not the whole analysis.
Simple ROI
How large the modeled profit is relative to the capital invested. It makes differently sized deals easier to compare.
Annualized return
How the modeled return relates to time. A similar percentage outcome reached quickly and reached slowly are not economically equivalent.
Break-even
Know the sale price that merely gets your money back.
A break-even sale price is useful because it exposes the effect of renewals and selling fees. The longer the hold or the higher the selling cost, the more gross proceeds may be required before the modeled outcome becomes profitable.
Break-even is not a recommended asking price and it is not a valuation. It is an economic threshold created from your explicit cost assumptions.
Portfolio use
One profitable sale does not describe the whole portfolio.
A portfolio can contain winners, unsold holdings and dropped names. Decision quality improves when each domain keeps its own cost and outcome history and the portfolio view preserves the domains that consumed capital without producing a sale.
Track decisions, not only sales
Renew, review and drop decisions affect future capital allocation even when no sale occurs.
Keep scenario and outcome separate
A projected return is not realized performance. When an actual sale occurs, record the real outcome instead of rewriting the old scenario.
Compare opportunities
Use the same explicit cost discipline across acquisitions so one attractive-looking headline sale does not hide a weak long-term return.
FAQ
Domain ROI without shortcut math.
What costs belong in domain ROI?
Use the acquisition amount, known acquisition fees, renewals and other relevant holding costs, then subtract selling costs from the exit proceeds.
Why use annualized return?
It adds time to the comparison. The same simple percentage return can have very different economics over different holding periods.
What is a break-even sale price?
It is the gross sale price required for the modeled net proceeds to recover the entered cost basis under the entered selling-cost assumptions.