A few weeks ago I launched NotRenewing.com, and I'll be honest. I wasn't totally sure what I was going to get.
The premise is simple enough. Every domain investor has names they're not going to renew. That doesn't automatically make those names worthless. Sometimes they don't fit the portfolio anymore. Sometimes the timing's off. Sometimes you're just tired of carrying them. But a lot of those domains still have value to someone. They just never found their way to that person before disappearing into the expiration cycle.
That's the gap I wanted to close.
NotRenewing isn't a premium marketplace. It's not built around auctions or bidding wars or dragged-out negotiations. The whole premise is: if you're probably dropping it anyway, give it one clean shot before it's gone. Every name is listed at a flat $99. Buyer pays, transfer starts within 72 hours, seller gets paid once the buyer confirms receipt. That's the whole process.
A few weeks in, here's where things stand: 6 completed sales, 350+ active listings, 4 sellers with completed payouts.
For something this early, I'll take it. But the number that matters more to me is that the process is working. Listings are going up. Transfers are getting done. Payouts are going out. No one's getting stuck waiting or wondering what happens next. That's what I was most worried about. Not whether the concept was interesting, but whether the mechanics held up under real use.
They have. So far.
One thing I was genuinely uncertain about was whether the inventory would be worth anything. My concern wasn't that sellers would list junk. It was that "not renewing" is a vague signal that could mean a lot of things, and I didn't know if buyers would trust it. What I've found is that the structure helps. Sellers verify ownership. Domains have to meet age and expiration requirements. The listings are standardized. And maybe most importantly, buyers know the seller has already mentally moved on from the name. That changes the dynamic in a way I didn't fully anticipate.
None of this works without people actually using it, and a lot of domainers stepped up early. Listed names, bought names, passed the link around. I'm grateful for that more than I can probably say.
There's also a broader point here I keep coming back to. Portfolio cleanup doesn't have to mean dead inventory. There's a middle ground between renewing everything indefinitely and just letting names drop quietly. That middle ground has always existed. There just haven't been many clean, simple tools built around it.
That's what I'm trying to build.
Six sales isn't proof of anything permanent. I know that. But the use case is real, the buyers are real, and the mechanics work. That's enough to keep going.
Still figuring out the inventory mix. Still getting the word out. Still giving names a shot they wouldn't have had otherwise.
That part feels right.
Check out NotRenewing.com
Browse expiring and dropping domains, all at a flat $99. No auctions, no negotiations.