What is the best way to get paid for a domain sale?

The best way to get paid for a domain sale is the method under which the money is final, or held by a third party you both accept, before the name leaves your account: a marketplace checkout, an online escrow service, a broker who handles the payment, a direct bank wire with a written sale agreement, a card or online payment processor, an instalment or lease-to-own plan, or an onchain payment. The criterion that separates the seven is whether the buyer can still reverse the payment after you have transferred the name, and that depends on who holds the money at the moment of the transfer.

No method wins on every sale. The right one depends on the price, on whether you know the buyer, on whether a broker or a co-owner shares the price, and on whether the buyer pays at once or over time.

Which payment methods exist for a domain sale, and what separates them?

Seven families of payment methods are used for domain sales, and they differ on three points: who holds the buyer's money, when the seller transfers the name relative to the payment, and whether the buyer can reverse the payment after the transfer.

The name and the money cannot change hands in the same instant, so one side is exposed for a moment unless someone or something covers the gap, and each method is one way of covering it. Where the last column of the table says "no", the seller's only job is to transfer after the event named in the third column.

How do the methods compare on time, cost and buyer protection?

The custodial methods take the longest and cost the most, and they are the ones that protect the buyer; the direct methods are faster and cheaper, and they protect the seller's money while leaving the buyer to rely on the seller's word and the contract. Time, cost and protection move together, because protection is what the fee and the delay pay for.

Costs are described here in kind, not in dollars, because each provider publishes its own schedule and the batch this article belongs to has a separate article on what domain escrow costs at three price levels.

"Time to completion" also depends on the transfer route, which no payment method controls. For generic extensions such as .com, ICANN's Transfer Policy provides that a transfer to another registrar is approved by default five calendar days after the request if the seller's registrar does not respond, and many registrars let the seller approve it sooner.

What do a marketplace checkout and an online escrow service do with the money?

A marketplace checkout and an online escrow service both collect the full price from the buyer, hold it while the name is transferred, and pay the seller once the buyer has the name. The difference is in what else they do: a marketplace also found the buyer and often carries out the transfer itself, while an escrow service holds the money for a sale the two sides arranged on their own.

With a marketplace checkout, the buyer pays the marketplace by whatever means it accepts. The marketplace tells the seller the payment is in, the seller moves the name, often into an account the marketplace controls, and the marketplace passes the name to the buyer and the price, less its commission, to the seller. If the buyer paid by card and later disputes the charge, the dispute is usually between the buyer and the marketplace, under the marketplace's terms, which is the main thing the commission buys beyond the listing.

An online escrow service does the holding without the selling. The two sides agree the terms on the service's platform, including who pays its fee; the buyer funds the transaction; the service verifies the funds and tells the seller to transfer; the buyer confirms receipt or lets an inspection period run out; the service releases the money. Licensing and the handling of client money differ from one service and one country to another, so ask where the service is licensed and where the funds sit while it holds them.

Escrow suits a sale between two parties who do not know each other. Its limits are the days it adds, the identity checks it must run on both sides before a large transaction, and the fact that a dispute it cannot resolve within its own procedure goes to a court or an arbitrator with the money still held.

What changes when a broker handles the payment?

When a broker handles the payment, the buyer pays the broker or an escrow account the broker has opened, the seller transfers once the broker confirms the money is in, and the broker pays the seller the price less the commission. The seller receives one net payment and has nothing to pay out afterwards.

Some brokers receive the money themselves, into a client account kept apart from their own funds; others open a transaction with an escrow service that pays the seller and the broker separately at release. The method removes coordination from the seller, and the commission already agreed normally covers it. Its limit is that the seller's protection is the broker. Before the buyer pays, ask in writing where the money will sit, whether that account is segregated from the broker's operating funds, when the remittance to the seller is due after the transfer, and what happens to the money if the sale falls through. An established broker answers these without difficulty, and the brokerage agreement is the place to record the answers, along with the commission rate and the base it applies to.

When is a direct bank wire with a written sale agreement enough?

A direct bank wire with a written sale agreement is enough when the seller can wait for the wire to be credited before transferring and the buyer is willing to pay first on the strength of the contract and of what is known about the seller. It is the cheapest of the bank methods and gives the seller the firmest money, and it gives the buyer the least.

The two sides sign an agreement that identifies the name, the price, the currency, the account to be paid, the deadline for the transfer after receipt, and what happens if either side fails. The buyer wires the price. The seller sees the credit on the account itself and then transfers. A credited wire cannot be pulled back by the sender acting alone: the sender's bank can ask for a recall, and the funds return only if the recipient agrees, if the banks are correcting their own error, or if a court or an authority orders it.

Once the wire is credited, a buyer whose name does not arrive has a contract claim against a seller who may be in another country. This is why the method fits a repeat buyer or a sale small enough that the buyer accepts the exposure, and why an unknown buyer paying a large price will usually ask for escrow instead. For the seller, the points to plan are the account number, which belongs in the signed agreement because payment details sent by email can be altered in transit, and the receiving bank, which may hold a large wire from an unfamiliar sender for review.

Why is a card or online payment processor risky for a seller who has already transferred?

A card or online payment processor is risky for a domain seller because the buyer can dispute the charge after receiving the name, and a successful dispute takes the money back out of the seller's account while the name stays with the buyer. The payment is fast, and it is the only method in this comparison that stays reversible for months after the sale.

"Reversible" has a precise meaning here. The cardholder asks the card issuer to cancel the charge, giving a reason from the card network's list, such as goods not received or not as described. The seller's processor debits the disputed amount, often with a dispute fee, and the seller then has to prove the sale to get it back. The time limits are set by each card network's rules and run to months, not days. A domain name is an intangible item delivered by a change in a registry record, which is harder to evidence in that procedure than a signed delivery receipt, and a processor's seller-protection terms may not cover intangible goods at all. Balance-based online payment services work in a similar way through their own claims process.

For the seller, the dispute right means the sale is not finished when the name moves: getting a transferred name back from a buyer who has reversed the payment means a claim under the contract or a complaint to the registrar, with no certainty of the result.

The method has a reasonable place: a low-priced name sold to many buyers at a fixed price, where speed matters more than the occasional loss.

How does an instalment or lease-to-own plan pay the seller?

An instalment or lease-to-own plan pays the seller the price in periodic payments while the buyer uses the name, and ownership moves to the buyer only after the last payment. The seller trades time for a sale that might not happen at a single price, and keeps the name as security in the meantime.

During the plan, the name stays registered to the seller or sits in a holding account run by a plan administrator, and its name servers point where the buyer wants, so the buyer can build on it. Each instalment is paid by a method of its own: a card charge, a bank debit, a wire or an onchain payment. The plan is therefore as reversible as that rail, instalment by instalment.

The contract governs months or years, so it needs to say what happens on a missed payment, how long the buyer has to cure it, whether the payments already made are kept, who renews the registration and who pays for it, what the buyer may and may not do with the name during the plan, and whether the buyer can pay the balance early.

For the seller, the limits are the wait and the unfinished state: the full price arrives only at the end, a broker's commission is normally earned instalment by instalment, and a default returns a name that has carried someone else's website for a while.

How does an onchain payment work, alone or through a payment router?

An onchain payment for a domain is sent from the buyer's wallet to the seller's, becomes final once the network confirms it, and is followed by the transfer of the name; when the price is shared with a broker or a co-owner, an onchain payment router sends each party their share out of the single payment the buyer makes. In both forms the seller transfers after settlement and nobody holds the money in between.

Paid directly, the method resembles a wire with a shorter wait: the agreement states the amount, the asset it is paid in and the receiving address; the buyer pays; the seller checks the payment on the public record of the network, not on a screenshot; the seller transfers. A confirmed payment cannot be recalled by the sender or disputed through an issuer, so the buyer's position is the one a wire leaves: the contract and what the buyer knows of the seller.

It stops at several points. Both sides must already be able to pay and receive onchain, and the seller must be able to turn the proceeds into bank money, with the records an accountant and a bank will ask for. The price must be fixed in an asset both accept. A payment sent to a wrong address cannot be corrected afterwards, so the address belongs in the signed agreement. And a buyer who wants an inspection period before the money is released will not get one from a final payment.

A payment router adds one thing to a direct payment: the split. With a router, the shares are fixed first and the buyer's one payment reaches every recipient in the same transaction.

Shaka is one such router. Each party's share is set as a percentage of the deal, and each recipient can sign their share before the buyer pays, at no cost to the parties. The buyer pays once, through a payment link. Destinations are fixed and signed before the payment, so the money cannot be redirected at the last minute, every party is paid at the same moment, and each can see on the onchain record that the others were paid. Shaka routes the payment and never holds the funds, and a deal has at most 20 recipients. It is not an escrow service: it does not hold the price while the name moves and it has no inspection period, so it does not fit a buyer who needs the money held until delivery, and it does not fit a sale where either side cannot pay or be paid onchain.

What risk does each method leave with the seller and with the buyer?

Every method leaves one main risk with each side: the custodial methods leave both sides depending on the third party, the final-payment methods leave the buyer depending on the seller, and the card leaves the seller depending on the buyer for months. No row of the table is empty: choosing a method is choosing which risk to carry, and the sale agreement is where the remaining one is managed.

What does the seller receive on a $45,000 sale with a 15% commission?

On a $45,000 sale with a 15% broker commission, the seller keeps $38,250 and the broker earns $6,750 under every method; what changes is whether the seller receives $38,250 directly or receives $45,000 and pays the $6,750 out, and how long the money takes to be both in hand and final. The example is a worked illustration: one two-word .com name, one buyer, one broker entitled to 15% of the price, each method's own fees left out, and timings that are illustrative, not any provider's schedule.

The commission is $45,000 × 15% = $6,750, and the seller's share is $45,000 − $6,750 = $38,250. For the instalment version, the price is paid in 12 equal monthly instalments of $3,750, each split in the same proportion: $562.50 to the broker and $3,187.50 to the seller.

In the marketplace row, the 15% is the marketplace's own commission, since the marketplace stands in the broker's place; a sale with both a marketplace and an outside broker is not modelled here.

In the wire, card and direct onchain rows, the seller holds the broker's $6,750 for a time and makes a second payment. On the card that adds exposure: if the buyer disputes the charge after the commission has been paid and the dispute succeeds, the seller is debited $45,000 having kept only $38,250, and is out the name and a further $6,750 until the brokerage agreement settles who bears a reversed sale.

In the instalment row, half-way through the plan the buyer has paid 6 × $3,750 = $22,500, of which the seller has received $19,125 and the broker $3,375, with $22,500 still to come. A default at that point leaves the seller with the name and whatever the contract lets the seller keep of the $19,125.

Which method fits your situation?

The method that fits depends on four things: whether you know the buyer, the size of the price, whether the price is shared, and whether it is paid at once. The table gives a starting point for six common situations, which the other side has to accept too.

Whatever the method, put it in a signed agreement with the account or address and the transfer deadline, and treat the payment as received only when you see it yourself at the source: your bank account, the escrow service's own platform, or the network's public record.