How Much Do I Make Domaining? I’ll Share

I’ve decided to do my best sharing how much and to a point, how I make my money,  domaining.  I completely understand why many people can’t or won’t share what they are making in domaining but I don’t make my living doing this so I am not as protective as others may have to be.  You ask me my finances of my brick and mortar and I’ll respond with a “doing fine” and no more details.  I’ll be a little ambiguous in some instances for a few reasons.  One, I do have a few ways I make money that I won’t go into exact details because if I shared them I wouldn’t make as much.  Secondly, I have to respect the buyers.  They don’t want a high profile blog (kidding here) putting out the price of their recently purchased domain.

I wrote this blog to share my experiences with domaining and developing as I see them.  I knew nobody when I started,  I had a $10K bankroll, and to this day, have very little insider news to share.  So all I have for you is how I do things and their results.  Here are Septembers results so far and my feelings about each.

Advertising Revenue for the Blog: $200 for the month Peanuts for some but I’ll take it.  I think at $40 a month for a $125 X $125 my blog is a great deal but not as many takers as I would like.  I do have an advertiser in the works and fall is when I start to post more as my business becomes a bit slower.  I also have a blog redesign coming this winter.  Maybe more people will be interested.

Adsense:  Roughly $350...for 21 names. Was at $550 halfway through last month.   I actually saw a huge decline in my plant name ad revenue during the Google live switch. For 3 days almost nothing.  Seems to be back to normal the last few days.  My plant domains are very seasonal so June, July, and August were great and normally start dropping off anyway.  My next build out is donatecarcharity.org  I love the CPC and I believe I can move this name up Google with a bit of effort.

Domain Sales:   $3800 from sales on Sedo, Namepros, and NameJet.    This month I moved some of my 4L dot coms.  I had a few CVCVs, some pronounceable like Yibz, and a few “collectibles” that were triple letter repeats. 4Ls are picking up steam again and thought I would free up some cash.  Some didn’t reach reserves but overall, a good start to the month.  I had a little over $1800 in these so a nice return although I had many of these names for over 5 years so not that great.  I also have 5 or 6 domains up for auction over the next week or so but they are all $XXX domains so nothing real exciting. I received a boatload of offers from Sedo and they all were crazy low.  A few I pushed. One thing I realized and I really appreciate is that Sedo pays very very quickly most of the time.  If the buyer pays, they get you the money right away.  On the contrary, the domain conference auctions take forever.   If you need quick money keep that in mind.  When was Vancouver again?

Purchases: None so far this month

Expenses: I haven’t done squat developing so far this month so I haven’t spent a penny on anything.  Some times laziness saves you money.

In the Kitty: I now have $13,400 from domain sales available for purchase.   I keep a separate account for domain purchases and sales and presently am looking for 1 or 2 decent generic names.  I also am looking at a 3L dot com at a decent price that I may be able to flip.  On the side I am adding 4Ls and 4 letter dot coms to flip but haven’t really found anything that appeals to me.

So there you go, $4350 in revenue for this part time domainer so far this month.   I figured I made about $2550 in profits unless the IRS is reading and then I’m pretty sure I lost money.  It makes me glad I don’t have to make a living doing this as $2550 is nice EXTRA money, but would be tough to pay the bills with. Then again,  I only put in about 30 hours a month doing it.  My worst investment in time is probably my blog but it’s introduced me to so many great people I figure I might as well keep doing it.