Short answer. If you are about to pay for a Sedo domain appraisal, the alternative is to check the recorded sales yourself. Sedo's written appraisal costs 99 USD per domain and arrives as a PDF within five business days. SoldComparables Pro costs 49 USD a month for 150 searches, and each search shows up to 50 comparable sales with price, date, venue and a link to the public report, plus a value range, within seconds.
That does not make a written report useless. It means you should know what you are paying for before you order one. This page compares the two honestly, shows what a search returns, and explains when a paid written appraisal is still the better buy.
What a Sedo domain appraisal gives you
Sedo has run a paid appraisal service for many years. According to its appraisal page and terms as published in October 2026:
- The price is 99 USD per domain. Portfolios of more than 50 names are quoted on request.
- The report is a multi-page PDF sent by email within five business days of the order being marked as paid.
- It states a value in USD and lists comparable domain names with prices achieved in past sales.
- The analysis is written around quality factors such as the extension, length and memorability, language, typo risk, international use, search and advertising potential, and business potential.
- The terms say the appraisal is for your own use when considering a sale or purchase. Use by third parties such as insurance companies, auction houses, courts or the IRS is prohibited.
- Sedo does not guarantee the estimated value can be achieved as a sale price, and its terms note values may move significantly up or down over time.
Where Sedo is strong is its own marketplace history. It has brokered and hosted sales for a long time, and a person writes the report. If you want a human opinion on a single name and you are not in a hurry, that has real value.
Where a per name report stops working
The 99 USD model fits one name. It fits badly in the three situations where most people actually need a number.
You are pricing a name this week. A buyer has emailed, an auction closes tomorrow, or you want a buy now price on a marketplace before a slow weekend. Five business days is too long.
You have more than a few names. Ten names at 99 USD each is 990 USD. Fifty names is nearly 5,000 USD, which is often more than the names themselves are worth. Investors who reprice inventory or cull renewals need a number for every name, not a report for one.
You want to check the sales yourself. A PDF lists comparables the writer chose. You cannot open them, filter by date or venue, or remove the ones that do not apply to your name. If a buyer pushes back on your price, you want sales you can show, with a source.
How the SoldComparables estimate is built
Every estimate starts from 128,867 recorded domain sales between 2021-05-28 and 2026-05-28, each taken from a public sales report and each at least 1,000 USD. Sedo is one of the venues in that data, alongside GoDaddy, Afternic, DropCatch, NameJet, Namecheap and others. Every sale links to the report it came from. We do not invent sales.
For your name, the search finds semantically similar sold names. A language model has precomputed which words are close in meaning, so a name built on "pay" also finds sales built on "wallet" or "checkout", not only names that share letters. Each comp gets a relevance score from 0 to 100 and up to three reasons, such as "Same .com extension" or "Shares the word pay".
The result shows:
- a low, likely and high value in USD
- wholesale and retail figures apart, because an investor auction and an end-user marketplace are different markets
- a confidence level, High, Medium or Low
- a short rationale that cites the comps by name, price and date
- the comps themselves, which you can filter by extension, price, date, venue type, style and length
When fewer than three good comps exist, the range widens and confidence drops. When there is no comparable recorded sale above 1,000 USD, you see that plainly and no figure is invented. It is a data-backed estimate, not a certified appraisal, and not a promise of a sale price. Our methodology page has the full rules.
Sedo appraisal vs SoldComparables comparison
| Sedo appraisal | SoldComparables | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | 99 USD per domain | Pro 49 USD a month, 24 USD a month billed yearly |
| Names covered | One per order, portfolios over 50 on request | 150 searches a month on Pro, bulk lists of 200 on Investor |
| Turnaround | PDF within 5 business days of payment | Seconds |
| Who writes it | A person at Sedo | Built from scored comps, rationale cites each one |
| Comparable sales | Listed in the PDF | Up to 50 per search with price, date, venue and source link |
| Filter or remove comps | No | Yes, by extension, price, date, venue type, style and length |
| Wholesale vs retail | Not stated | Shown apart |
| Names with no comps | A value is still written | Says so and gives no figure |
| Export | PDF and CSV, white label PDF on Broker | |
| Allowed use | Your own buy or sell decision, third party use prohibited | Your own pricing and negotiation, not a certified appraisal |
When to use which
A Sedo written appraisal fits a single high value name where you want a person's opinion in a document, you are not under time pressure, and you plan to sell through Sedo anyway.
SoldComparables fits everything that happens more than once: pricing a buy now listing, setting a bid ceiling at an expired auction, answering an inbound offer, deciding which renewals to drop, or showing a buyer why your price is fair. If you work through a list, the bulk domain appraisal page shows what Investor returns for up to 200 names at once.
Many sellers do both. They check the comps first, and only pay for a written opinion on the one name where the comps are thin and the stakes are high.
How much does Sedo charge to sell a domain
Selling and appraisal are separate fees at Sedo. Its price list charges a commission on a completed sale that usually runs from 10 to 15 percent of the sale price depending on how the name is listed, for example a parked buy now listing versus an auction. Check Sedo's current price list before you list, because rates and conditions change.
Whatever marketplace you sell through, the commission comes out of the price you set. That is one more reason to set the price from recorded sales of similar names rather than a round number.
Check a name before you pay for a report
You can try the search without an account: one search a day shows three comps and the estimate range. After you sign up you get one full report with every comp and the rationale. There is no free plan, and paid plans start at 49 USD a month.
If you are comparing other appraisal tools too, see our EstiBot alternative page and our look at GoDaddy domain appraisal accuracy. Plans and limits are on the pricing page.