The Most Expensive Domain Names Ever Sold

The most expensive domain names ever sold

Domain prices are often kept private, so lists like this only include sales that were publicly reported by the buyer, the seller or the broker. Some huge deals are rumoured but never confirmed, and those are left out.

The common thread: short, real words that people type straight into a browser, in industries where one customer is worth hundreds of dollars. Insurance, travel and hotels dominate because a single click can turn into a big commission.

Why would anyone pay millions for a domain?

It sounds absurd until you do the maths the buyers did.

Type-in traffic

For years, people typed what they wanted straight into the address bar: hotels.com, insurance.com, cars.com. A generic .com caught that traffic for free, every single day, without paying for one advert.

Trust and memorability

A one-word .com feels established. People remember it after hearing it once on the radio or a podcast, and they're more likely to trust it with a credit card. That lifts every other bit of marketing the company does.

Cheaper than advertising

In expensive industries, ads for a single search can cost tens of dollars per click. Against that, $35 million for a name that brings customers directly can pay off within a few years. That's how QuinStreet justified CarInsurance.com and Insurance.com.

Defence

Sometimes the reason is simply to stop a competitor having it. Facebook's purchase of fb.com from the American Farm Bureau Federation gave it a short internal address and kept the two letters out of anyone else's hands.

The stories behind the biggest sales

Voice.com: $30 million, all cash

In 2019 Block.one, the company behind the EOS blockchain, paid $30 million for Voice.com to launch a social network called Voice. It's often called the biggest all-cash domain sale. The Voice platform itself never became the hit it was meant to be, which is a good reminder that a great name can't save a product nobody needs.

Chat.com: sold twice in two years

HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah bought Chat.com in 2023 for about $15.5 million, a figure he shared publicly. In 2024 he sold it to OpenAI, and Chat.com started pointing to ChatGPT. Shah said he was paid in OpenAI shares, so the exact value of the second sale depends on how you count them.

Sex.com: the most fought-over domain

Before it sold for $13 million, Sex.com was stolen. In the 1990s a fraudster used a forged letter to get it transferred away from its original owner, Gary Kremen, who spent years in court winning it back. It became one of the defining legal cases in domain history and a big reason registrars added stronger transfer checks. Our guide on how to transfer a domain explains the checks every transfer goes through today.

360.com: from Vodafone to a Chinese security giant

Chinese cybersecurity company Qihoo 360 bought 360.com in 2015 for a reported $17 million. Numbers are especially prized in China because they're easy to type and remember for people who don't use the Latin alphabet day to day.

Did the expensive domains pay off?

Some of these were brilliant investments. Others were expensive lessons.

The domains that cost almost nothing and became priceless

The flip side of the list is more encouraging. Most of the internet's most valuable brands registered their domains for the standard fee.

• google.com was registered in 1997, back when the founders could have chosen any name at all. The name was the value; the domain cost a normal fee.
• amazon.com was registered in 1994 after Jeff Bezos dropped his first choice, cadabra.com.
• twitter.com wasn't the first choice either: the company started as twttr because the full name was taken, then bought twitter.com.
• Brandable made-up words like Spotify, Hulu and Etsy were invented names, so the domains were free to register or cheap to buy.

If you want the backstory of how domain names began, read the first domain name ever registered: symbolics.com, in 1985, for free.

The future of expensive domains: AI, short names and new extensions

The biggest prices of the 2020s have a theme: artificial intelligence. Chat.com went to OpenAI, and short .ai domains now sell for six and seven figures. Our guide to .ai domain names explains why the extension of a small Caribbean island became one of the most valuable on the internet.

What's likely to keep rising in value

1. Short, single-word .coms, because no more will ever exist.
2. AI-related words on .com and .ai, as long as the AI boom lasts.
3. Two- and three-letter .coms, which are scarce and liked by investors.
4. Premium names on newer extensions, though these are far less proven.

The best domain extensions for 2027 guide shows which extensions are worth considering if the .com you want is long gone.

What big tech paid to get its own name

Some of the most interesting domain deals aren't on the top-ten lists, because the price was never disclosed. But the stories show how much companies care about owning their exact name.

Tesla is a good example of patience. For years the company used teslamotors.com because tesla.com belonged to someone else. Only after a decade of growth did it get the shorter name. Twitter did the same, launching as twttr until it could buy twitter.com.

What is your domain worth?

Almost certainly far less than these. For the vast majority of domains, the honest answer is "what it cost to register". That's not a bad thing: it means good names are still available for a normal price.

You can see when a domain was first registered with the domain age checker. Be wary of anyone who emails you offering to "value" or "list" your domain for a fee: it's a common scam. Real buyers make an offer; they don't charge you to listen to one.

Get a great domain without spending millions

You don't need $30 million. You need a name that's short, easy to say, and free. Here's how to find one.

1. Generate ideas with the domain name generator or brand name generator, aiming for invented or combined words.
2. Check every extension at once with the domain name search.
3. Compare a shortlist of names across extensions with the bulk domain search.
4. Check the social handles too with the username checker, so your brand matches everywhere.

Conclusion

Recap

The most expensive domain names ever sold include CarInsurance.com (about $49.7 million), Insurance.com ($35.6 million), VacationRentals.com ($35 million), Voice.com ($30 million) and Chat.com (about $15.5 million, before it was resold to OpenAI).

Buyers pay because short, generic .coms bring free traffic, instant trust and cheaper marketing. But a great name only multiplies a good business.

Final thoughts

You can still find a short, memorable name for the price of a normal registration. Start with the domain name generator, then check the winners with the domain name search.

Frequently asked questions