If Domainers were paid hourly, how much would they make?

I was having a conversation with a friend who is interested in getting started in the world of Domain Investing. She brought up an interesting point as I was sharing some of the fundamentals – when you take the amount of time spent looking at and acquiring names, negotiating deals, and finalizing transactions, what do you end up making hourly?

My initial answer was – well that really depends on a lot of factors. That being said I do think people who buy and hold, don’t do outbound, and only negotiate when they know they have a big buyer likely come out with the highest conversion of time to money.

For people who flip names and focus on outbound they likely end up with a lower “hourly wage” so to speak. Flipping names regularly not only means  spending more time researching and buying names, it often means spending a lot more time emailing with prospective buyers and trying to close a deal.

About five years ago I stopped doing outbound myself, since I run a software company I just don’t have the time to do it. While I could make time, after working a ten hour day I’d rather spend time with friends or family vs. doing more work, and yes – outbound is work no matter how you slice it in my book.

My friend continued to push on figuring out this calculation for herself, the reason being that she’s a pretty talented software developer so can make around $200/hour consulting. If she makes less than $200/hour Domaining over the course of a year, she feels like she won’t be doing as good of a job as she could at converting her time to money.

At the end of our discussion I was able to convince her to give it a shot but to start small with two-word .COMs in the sub-$500 range and a target sale price in the $1,500 – $3,500 range. She’s going to start with a $10,000 investment and see if she can turn that into $20,000 valuing her time at more than $200/hour – we’ll see how it goes!

I do think plenty of Domainers would make north of $500/hour if you calculated it. At the same time, I think other Domainers that may “profit” $10,000 – $20,000/year could end up in the $20-$30/hour range which is on par with what an Uber driver makes.

Either way, I think my friend has an interesting perspective and makes a point that every Domainer should be thinking about – how do you end up converting your time to money, and more importantly, how much do you think your time is worth?

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton