The wholesale value of one-word .COs might be going up

While most people agree that .COM is their first choice, in many cases that’s just not possible either because the .COM is already taken by another business or the price is too high. So then comes the decision that startups ask themselves all the time – should I append the letters “HQ” to the end of my name or “Get” to the front…or should I get the name I want in a non-com option?

Ten years ago if you couldn’t get the .COM for most people .NET was the way to go but over the last few years other domain extensions like .IO, .CO, .AI and a few more have become a popular choice.

As more and more startups build their brands on non .COMs, more and more investors are buying them driving up the wholesale prices especially for TLDs like .IO and .CO that I think it’s safe to say are the two hottest non .COM alternatives right now 🔥

So I wasn’t too surprised to see Stellar(.)co at over $3,500 in auction on Park.io with about twelve hours to go. We’re seeing wholesale on strong one-word .CO and .IO names now get into the $3k – $5k range and I only see the number getting higher.

While I don’t have a crystal ball, I do think that we are still in the early days of both the Internet and the domain name world. There’s no doubt .COM is and probably always will be the best, but I think over the next 10 – 20 years the opportunities on extensions like .IO, .CO, .AI and others could be much bigger than most people think.

The reason is that we aren’t going to see a slowdown over the next twenty years in people starting companies, and those companies will need a presence online…and just like their top choice .COM is taken now, it’s even more likely it will be taken ten years from now.

Just like wholesale on a good one-word .COM can be $100,000 or more, I don’t think it’s crazy to think of a future where wholesale on a .CO or .IO is $10,000 or more. I do think we’re seeing the beginning of this shift and names like Stellar(.)co are, dare I say, stellar examples 🚀

What do you think?

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton