We now have a complete picture of 2021 domain name sales, when things are being put out as a year end on December 31 or Jan 1, it misses the last reports of the year from Sedo, (came out Jan 6) and Ron over at DN Journal getting his last report out.
For a look at the big trends of 2021 you can check out TheDomains.com 2021 year in review.
Looking at Namebio as the source for all reported sales in our reporting. 2021 was an up year for all ofthe most popular extensions.
.Com you will see in the chart below was up in number of sales and dollar volume by 20,000 sales and $40m in dollar volume. There were 13 seven figure .com sales, no other extension had one.
.Net was almost identical in number of sales but up by $1.1m thanks in large part to the $750,000 sale of Poker.net.
.Ai was the only extension that had more reported sales at Namebio in 2020 vs 2021. .Xyz and .io had breakout years. .io saw an increase of $2.8m in dollar volume, .xyz almost a 20x increase.
I think a breakdown of the numbers helps everyone cut through the noise, or realize they might only be hearing one side of the story on an extension, that goes both ways too, uninformed proclamations about an extension, or over the top hype.
The great keywords are selling, the tech, Web 3 names are selling. But there are 365 days in a year and you can see some extensions don’t even average 1 per day, ( I know, I know everyone has a friend who is killing it in an obscure extension but doesn’t report it, for whatever reason. But we can only discuss what’s known, not all the unknown.)
For me the domain investor of the year was Swetha from DNGear.com/Swetha.xyz. For this award I will be making $100 donation in her name to St. Jude. I personally think her 2021 was one for the ages, I have no vested interest in .xyz, I own 1. I think her willingness to have a plan and stick to it is admirable, I don’t know if I owned 1000’s of names in an extension, and there were 19 reported sales in that extension if I would stick with the extension, maybe but I know I am not sure.
| Extension | 2021 Total Sales | 2020 Total sales | 2021 Dollar Volume | 2020 Dollar volume |
| .com | 128,575 | 108,791 | $145m | $105.8m |
| .net | 3,375 | 3,370 | $4.3m | $3.2m |
| .org | 6,624 | 6,031 | $6.8m | $5.6m |
| .io | 2,240 | 1,220 | $4.2m | $1.4m |
| .ai | 1,187 | 1,386 | $1.2m | $1.1m |
| .tv | 274 | 187 | $448,100 | $269,300 |
| .co | 1,512 | 1,096 | $3.1m | $1.5m |
| .xyz | 568 | 96 | $1.9m | $108,200 |
| .club | 212 | 141 | $729,300 | $355,200 |
| .de | 709 | 607 | $3.1m | $2.7m |
| .vc | 172 | 81 | $319,000 | $65,800 |
| .gg | 309 | 172 | $260,100 | $106,400 |
| .info | 400 | 397 | $197,700 | $185,900 |
| .us | 226 | 153 | $238,000 | $166,00 |
| .app | 107 | 75 | $355,400 | $389,200 |
all sales data provided by Namebio
Disclaimer: Nothing in this article is to be taken as investment advice. Domain investing involves risk and for the most part domain names are not very liquid. Do your homework and don’t buy what you can’t afford to have tied up for some time.
This is absolutely fabulous thank you very much Happy New Year to you.
i had 5 .ai domains acquired by fortune 50 companies – all multibillion dollar companies – all short one word domains taken in at least 250 extensions, yet not close to the 5 highest xyz sales by swetha, so, yes, i’d agree with the selection of swetha…and my 5 .AI sales came via well-known domain industry brokers (who were repping the buyers, NOT me) and that involved weeks of negotiations for 5 figure sales each…but not even close to the aggregate of her sales, and i’ve been negotiating mainly .com domains to endusers since 1999 – and yes, these were 6 figure sales each, with negotiations per domain sometimes lasting over 8 weeks with their hired brokers/branding companies…never easy as those .com names were good and short but not what i’d call great…no gambling, finance names…mainly healthcare and telecom and media
I know many had amazing sales this year…i had a better year in 2020
i had zero 6 figure sales in 2021…. i bought many 5 figure domains, so we will see how 2022 pans out…
stay healthy, have food, home and happy family and life is good
Thanks for the comment Steve, congrats on a solid year, those .ai sales are impressive.
Nice article Raymond. I am sure abdulbasit made more than Swetha last year and for sure Rick made more also easily. Break out domain investor of the year should be Swetha 🙂.
With her reporting,I bought an xyz and got a sale of 9888 .
Thanks for the comment, I am sure many made more, I gave it to her for the extension and where it was in 2019 and 2020 as far as sales.
Congrats on the $9,888.
Swetha Rocks,
Like the consistent base line and higher value momentum she’s establishing.
Also, probably the primary dollar volume driver. Congrats !
Ai- 2022- Most Wanted, Multiple offers starting in the high 5’s The Swetha Way….
Cheers to a better new year for all
Raymond, thanks for gathering all the data.
The overall numbers shows how booming domaining industry was in 2021.
The .co dollar volume significantly increased compared to previous year…we can take the average also raised with this.
Then again .xyz stats 10 folded…this is very impressive and wide acceptancy from Crypto..blockchain…nft..communities.
I am sure these numbers will be met in 2022 also.
good luck to all.