Hand-Reg vs. Aftermarket: Where the Real ROI Lives

Hand registration is the cheapest ticket in domaining: registry fee, a idea, and a year of hope. The aftermarket is the opposite — real money for names with demonstrated demand. Most portfolios blend both, but the blend should be deliberate, not accidental.

The case for hand-regs

Your cost basis is trivial, so a single four-figure sale pays for hundreds of attempts. Hand-regs are also the only way to ride a trend from day one — the investors who registered strong AI-adjacent brandables in 2022 were not smarter than everyone else, they were simply earlier.

The catch: sell-through on hand-reg portfolios is brutal. Expect well under one percent annually unless your naming instincts are genuinely sharp.

The case for the aftermarket

An expired or investor-listed name with existing backlinks, type-in history, or prior inquiries arrives with evidence. You pay for that evidence — but evidence is what shortens hold time. A $500 aftermarket acquisition that sells in eighteen months often outperforms fifty hand-regs that never move.

Our allocation rule

We suggest capping hand-regs at twenty percent of annual spend until your trailing twelve-month sell-through justifies more. Let the portfolio tell you which game you are actually good at, then press that edge.