Most domain investors say they have a pricing strategy. When you look closer, what they really have is a number. Sometimes two. Often neither makes much sense.
A price is not a model. A model explains why a price exists, when it should change, and how it behaves across a portfolio. Without that, pricing becomes reactive. You raise prices after a sale. You second guess them after silence. You hold firm because lowering feels like admitting you were wrong.
Pricing bands solve that problem. Maybe.
At a basic level, pricing bands are predefined ranges that group your domains by realistic market value. Instead of asking what a single name is worth in isolation, you decide what category it belongs in and price accordingly. Low, mid, and high. Wholesale, retail, premium. Fast movers and long holds.
This sounds simple. It changes everything.
Without pricing bands, every negotiation feels personal. Every inquiry forces a fresh decision. Every counteroffer becomes a moment of doubt. Over time, this leads to inconsistent outcomes. Two similar names sell for wildly different prices because they were priced on different days with different emotions involved.
A pricing band removes that emotion. You're not deciding the value of the domain in front of you. You already decided the value of domains like it.
Pricing bands start with pattern recognition. Length. Structure. Extension. Buyer type. Historical comps. You're not looking for the perfect comparable sale. You're looking for clusters. Names that tend to transact in similar ranges, even if the exact wording changes.
A clean two word .com with commercial intent might live in a mid five figure retail band. A niche three word brandable might live in the low four figures. A strong but narrow industry keyword could sit somewhere in between. The exact numbers matter less than the consistency.
Once you define those bands, pricing becomes mechanical in the best way. New acquisitions get slotted into a range. Existing names get reviewed against their band performance. If nothing happens after a meaningful amount of exposure, the question isn't "Is this name good?" It's "Is this band wrong for this name?"
Pricing bands also clarify the role of BIN pricing. A BIN is not a promise. It's a signal. It tells the market where the name lives. It filters tire kickers. It aligns you with distribution channels that require fixed pricing. Without bands, BINs are arbitrary. With bands, they're consistent and defensible.
Payment plans fit naturally here too. A name in a higher band can justify longer terms. A name in a lower band might be better served with a fast close discount. You're not inventing terms on the fly. You're applying rules you already trust.
One of the biggest benefits is portfolio awareness. When you look at your names through this lens, patterns emerge quickly. You see where most of your capital is concentrated. You see which bands convert and which ones just consume renewals. You see whether your acquisition strategy actually matches your sales reality.
A lot of investors discover their portfolio is top heavy. Lots of names priced like premiums, very few that behave like them. Pricing bands expose that imbalance fast.
They also make negotiation cleaner. When a buyer pushes back, you're not scrambling. You know the floor for that band. You know how often you deviate and why. That confidence shows. Buyers can feel when a counteroffer is grounded versus improvised.
The market isn't fooled by confidence alone, but it does respond to coherence. A seller who understands their own pricing logic is easier to do business with than one who's guessing.
If you don't have pricing bands, you're not managing a portfolio. You're managing a collection of hopes. Each name is its own debate. Each sale is a surprise.
A pricing model doesn't guarantee success. It does guarantee clarity. And in a market that rewards consistency over time, clarity is an edge.
My bands aren't perfect. But they're better than guessing every time.