From $20 to $2.6 million: the domain trading opportunity and how to start

Pizza.com was bought for $20 and sold for $2.6 million; AI.com set a $70 million record. How the domain market works and how to trade safely on Resmi.ID.

In 1994, a website consultant in Maryland named Chris Clark registered Pizza.com for about $20. Fourteen years later, in April 2008, the same name sold at a Sedo auction for just over $2.6 million. Money that once bought a pizza turned into an asset worth millions.

Stories like this are not one-offs. A domain name is digital property: it is scarce (there is only one pizza.com), and it can be used, leased, or resold. This article covers the world's most famous domain sales, what makes a name valuable, and how you can sell or buy a domain safely at domain.resmi.id/dijual.

Record domain sales worldwide

The list below only includes publicly reported pure domain sales paid in cash — not company acquisitions that came with a website. Figures come from Wikipedia's list of most expensive domain names, DNJournal, and news coverage.

The stories behind the prices

AI.com — a set of initials that became a world record. The original owner bought AI.com not for artificial intelligence but because their initials are "A.I.". Years later, when AI became the hottest word in tech, the owners of Crypto.com bought it for $70 million. The deal closed in April 2025 and was announced in February 2026, alongside the launch of their AI agent service.

Business.com — from $150,000 to $7.5 million in a few years. Entrepreneur Marc Ostrofsky bought it in the mid-1990s for about $150,000. In 1999 he sold it for $7.5 million — a world record at the time according to Guinness. It was later reported that part of the payment was in stock that lost value, a reminder that how you are paid matters as much as the number.

Chat.com — bought, then sold to OpenAI within months. HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah bought Chat.com in early 2023 for $15.5 million. He soon resold it; in November 2024 he confirmed the buyer was OpenAI, with payment partly in OpenAI shares. The exact price was not disclosed.

Tesla.com — a decade of waiting. The domain was registered in 1992 by Stu Grossman, a Silicon Valley engineer and Nikola Tesla fan. Tesla only got it in 2016 after trying for about ten years. Elon Musk later put the price at around $11 million.

FB.com — even Facebook paid up. In 2010 Facebook bought FB.com from the American Farm Bureau Federation for $8.5 million. For comparison, Facebook.com itself was bought in 2005 for $200,000.

Google.com — owned for one minute, for $12. In 2015 former Googler Sanmay Ved managed to buy Google.com through Google Domains for $12 due to a glitch. Google cancelled it about a minute later and rewarded him $6,006.13 — the digits spell "Google". The story shows the huge gap between registration cost and the value of a name.

A living market, not just old stories

The domain aftermarket keeps growing. According to NameBio data cited by Wikipedia, around 144,700 domain sales worth about $185 million were recorded in 2024, up almost 33% on the previous year. Those are only publicly reported sales — many deals happen privately.

Most sales are not millions, of course. They range from hundreds to thousands of dollars: short memorable names, industry keywords, or names that suit a new brand. That is where the opportunity lies for ordinary domain owners.

What about .id domains?

In Indonesia, short names have commanded high prices from the start. When PANDI opened direct .id registration in 2014, forex.id went for Rp150 million in the priority phase, the highest of that phase. Two-letter names were priced at Rp500 million by the registry, and ef.id was bought by English First at that price.

Those were registry prices, not owner-to-owner resales. The .id resale market is still very young — which means the opportunity for good .id names is wide open.

What makes a domain valuable?

• Short. Fewer letters means scarcer and easier to remember. A 3–5 letter name is worth far more than a 15-letter one.
• Real, meaningful words. Common words like *coffee*, *property*, or *tax* are instantly understood and widely searched.
• Extension. .com is still the most sought-after globally; .id and .co.id are strong for the Indonesian market.
• Easy to say and spell. No digits or hyphens, no typos when spoken aloud.
• Relevant to a growing industry. AI.com soared on the momentum of artificial intelligence.
• Clean history. Not using someone else's trademark and no record of spam or fraud.

Curious what a name might be worth? When you check a domain on the domain search page, Resmi.ID shows an estimated market value based on length, extension, words, and popularity. The estimate is indicative — the final price is always agreed between seller and buyer.

How to sell a domain on Resmi.ID

With Sell Domains in the client area you can list a domain from any registrar — it does not have to be registered with Resmi.ID. The buyer pays Resmi.ID, and the funds are only released to you once the domain has moved. The steps:

1. Sign in to the client area, open Sell Domains, and click Sell a new domain. Enter the domain, the asking price (minimum Rp50,000), and whether you accept offers.
2. Prove ownership by adding the TXT record shown to the domain's DNS. If your DNS is on Cloudflare or Resmi.ID, the record can be added automatically with one click.
3. Click Verify now. Once the record is read, the listing goes live on the domains for sale page and shows as *Premium · For sale* in domain search and WHOIS results.
4. When a buyer pays, you get an email. Hand over the domain within 3 days: unlock it at your registrar and enter the EPP/auth code in the client area.
5. Once the domain is active under the buyer's name, the funds minus the 10% commission are paid out to your registered bank account.

How to buy a domain safely

In the global domain market, deals usually go through escrow: the buyer pays a third party, the seller transfers the domain, and the funds are released once the transfer is confirmed. Resmi.ID applies the same flow to every domain in the marketplace:

• Every seller has proven ownership through a DNS record, and that proof is re-checked daily while the listing is live.
• Your money is held by Resmi.ID, not sent to the seller, until the domain officially moves to your name.
• If the seller does not hand over the domain within 3 days, the Resmi.ID team reviews the transaction and the funds can be refunded.
• You can make an offer. Many sellers accept offers; they can accept, decline, or counter.
• The domain price is paid once. From the next year you only pay the normal renewal, like any other domain.

Tips for pricing your domain

• Start from the estimated market value in the domain search results as a baseline, then adjust for your domain's situation.
• Enable offers so buyers feel comfortable starting a conversation, and set a minimum offer so lowball offers are rejected automatically.
• Write a description that sells: how long the domain has been used, what business it suits, and whether it already has visitors.
• Be patient. Great names often wait for the right buyer — Pizza.com sold fourteen years after it was registered.

Have a domain you no longer use? List it in Sell Domains. Looking for the right name for your business? Browse domains for sale or check a new name.

Sources

1. Man in US sells pizza domain name for $2.6m — Gulf News — gulfnews.com
2. Man sells Pizza.com domain for $2.6 million — TechSpot — techspot.com
3. Business.com — Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
4. Block.one pays $30M for Voice.com — FXStreet — fxstreet.com
5. OpenAI acquires Chat.com — Verdict — verdict.co.uk
6. AI.com sells for $70 million — DNJournal — dnjournal.com
7. AI.com sells for $70 million in record-breaking domain deal — BetaNews — betanews.com
8. Facebook paid Farm Bureau $8.5 million to acquire FB.com — TechCrunch — techcrunch.com
9. Tesla's Musk gets Tesla.com domain name after waiting a decade — Bloomberg — bloomberg.com
10. Tesla finally acquires Tesla.com — Domain Name Wire — domainnamewire.com
11. The man who bought Google.com for $12 — CNN Money — money.cnn.com
12. List of most expensive domain names — Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
13. Domain aftermarket — Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
14. Termahal, domain forex.id terjual Rp 150 juta — detikInet — inet.detik.com
15. Domain Rp 500 juta .id baru laku satu — detikInet — inet.detik.com
16. How domain name escrow works — Escrow.com — escrow.com

Written from the sources above as of 31 October 2026. Third-party policies and figures can change — check the original sources for the latest.