2026-10-13

Atom vs Afternic vs Sedo: Net Proceeds After Commissions

What each marketplace actually takes: Atom's 7.5 / 15 / 30-to-15% ladder plus its 1.35-4.5% AtomPay rate, Afternic's 30 / 25 / 20 / 15% grid and its $15 floor, and Sedo's 10 / 15 / 20% split - run through three sale prices, with the settings that decide which rate you pay.

Every marketplace page ends with a number, and that number is almost never the one you pay. Atom advertises three listing tiers plus a payment product. Afternic publishes a grid that changes with a setting most sellers never open. Sedo splits its commission three ways depending on which door the buyer walked through. All three are public, all three are different, and the gap between the cheapest and the most expensive route on the same sale is measured in hundreds or thousands of dollars.

We sell out of a 158-domain portfolio, which means the same name can be priced on three venues at once and still net three different amounts. This is the comparison we actually run: the published schedules, the settings that decide which line you land on, and the net proceeds on three sale prices.

The three schedules, as published

None of the numbers below are estimates. Each comes from the platform's own fee page.

Atom publishes one ladder for listings and one rate for its payment product:

• AtomPay: 1.35% to 4.5%, based on selling price — and 4.5% standard on premium domain transactions, 2.25% for Atom Edge members.
• Standard listing: 7.5%
• Plus listing: 15%
• Premium listing: banded by sale price — $4,998 and below: 30% (the alternative no-coin option is 35%), $4,999 to $49,999: 25%, $50,000 to $74,999: 20%, above $75,000: 15%.

Atom also states that the minimum amount supported for retail transactions is $100, and points sellers below that to its Wholesale Marketplace or reverse auctions.

Afternic does not publish "a" commission. It publishes a grid:

• Default (Afternic Boost on): 30% standard — 25% plus the 5% Boost benefit — or 20% when the domain's primary nameservers point to GoDaddy Aftermarket Nameservers at the time of the initial purchase hold and the sale.
• Afternic Basic (Boost removed): 25% standard, or 15% with those same nameservers. Opting down also reduces distribution exposure.
• Every sale carries a $15 minimum commission.
• Custom Checkout Link, for deals you close yourself: 5% on a Buy Now transaction and 10% on lease-to-own, with a $15 minimum, and it applies regardless of where the nameservers point.

Sedo charges by route:

• 10% of the gross sale price when a Buy Now or Buy Now/Best Offer listing sells directly through the Sedo marketplace and the domain is parked with Sedo using the ads page or the sales landing page.
• 15% for a Make Offer listing or an auction sale through the Sedo marketplace — and also for a Buy Now sale that is not parked or using the landing page.
• 20% when the buyer comes from the SedoMLS partner network, which all listed names are promoted through.
• A Direct Auction costs a $59 setup fee; a Push to Auction started from an existing offer is free. For external transfers the minimum fee is $60 in the largest TLD category and $200 in the next one.

The rate is decided by configuration, not by the domain

Read those three schedules together and a pattern appears: on all three platforms, the commission is a function of settings you control, not of how good the name is.

On Afternic the single most expensive default in the industry is shipped on. Boost adds five percentage points and is applied by default, which is why the headline rate is 30% rather than 25%. Pointing the domain at GoDaddy Aftermarket nameservers removes another ten points. Between the two, the swing is 10% of the sale price — $1,000 on a $10,000 sale — decided by a checkbox and a DNS record.

Sedo's ten-point spread runs on the same logic. A name parked with Sedo and sold from a Buy Now price pays 10%; the identical name sold from a Make Offer listing pays 15%, and the same sale reaching a SedoMLS buyer pays 20%. Parking the domain properly is worth five points on its own.

Atom's spread is wider still, because its tier is a marketing decision as much as a fee decision — and, as we wrote when we repriced our Premium listings, the tier also carries a nameserver commitment that outlives the listing itself.

Net proceeds on three sale prices

Here is where the schedules stop being rates and start being money. Every figure below is arithmetic on the published percentages.

A $1,500 sale:

• Atom Standard (7.5%): $1,387.50
• Atom Plus (15%): $1,275
• Atom Premium (30% band): $1,050
• Sedo, parked Buy Now (10%): $1,350
• Sedo, Make Offer or auction (15%): $1,275
• SedoMLS (20%): $1,200
• Afternic Basic with GoDaddy nameservers (15%): $1,275
• Afternic Boost with GoDaddy nameservers (20%): $1,200
• Afternic Basic, non-qualifying nameservers (25%): $1,125
• Afternic Boost, non-qualifying nameservers (30%): $1,050
• AtomPay at 4.5%, buyer sourced by you: $1,432.50

A $5,000 sale:

• Atom Standard (7.5%): $4,625
• Atom Plus (15%): $4,250
• Atom Premium (25% band): $3,750
• Sedo, parked Buy Now (10%): $4,500
• Sedo, Make Offer or auction (15%): $4,250
• SedoMLS (20%): $4,000
• Afternic Basic with GoDaddy nameservers (15%): $4,250
• Afternic Boost with GoDaddy nameservers (20%): $4,000
• Afternic Basic, non-qualifying nameservers (25%): $3,750
• Afternic Boost, non-qualifying nameservers (30%): $3,500
• AtomPay at 4.5%: $4,775

A $25,000 sale:

• Atom Standard (7.5%): $23,125
• Atom Plus (15%): $21,250
• Atom Premium (25% band): $18,750
• Sedo, parked Buy Now (10%): $22,500
• Sedo, Make Offer or auction (15%): $21,250
• SedoMLS (20%): $20,000
• Afternic Basic with GoDaddy nameservers (15%): $21,250
• Afternic Boost with GoDaddy nameservers (20%): $20,000
• Afternic Basic, non-qualifying nameservers (25%): $18,750
• Afternic Boost, non-qualifying nameservers (30%): $17,500

Two things fall out of those lists. First, the cheapest retail route in every case is Atom's 7.5% Standard listing, and the most expensive default is Afternic with Boost active and the wrong nameservers — a $1,125 gap at $5,000 and a $5,625 gap at $25,000 between the same two sales. Second, commission is a percentage, so the argument that "the venue with the best marketing will get a higher price anyway" has to clear a specific bar: on a $5,000 name, a 30% venue has to close at $6,607 to match what a 7.5% venue nets on a $5,000 sale.

The price-band inversion at Atom

Atom's Premium ladder hides a reversal that surprises sellers repricing a portfolio. Below $4,998, Premium takes 30% while Standard takes 7.5% — a 22.5-point difference.

• On a $2,000 sale: Standard nets $1,850, Premium nets $1,400. The tier costs $450.
• At the top of that band, $4,998: Standard nets $4,623.15, Premium nets $3,498.60. The tier costs $1,124.55.

Above the band the two converge fast: once a sale crosses into the 25%, 20% and 15% bands, Premium's cut falls to Premium-plus levels, and above $75,000 it matches Plus at 15%. So the honest reading is not "Premium is expensive" or "Premium is worth it". Premium is a marketing purchase financed out of your commission, and it is most expensive exactly where most of a small portfolio lives — the low four figures. We run the arithmetic before submitting a name for review, not after.

Minimums are a tax on small sales

Percentages flatter small numbers. Minimums do not.

• Afternic's $15 minimum is 30% of a $50 sale — the same effective rate as its worst advertised tier, on a name that should probably not be on a retail venue at all.
• Atom does not support retail transactions below $100, directing those names to wholesale.
• Sedo's $60 minimum for external transfers in the largest TLD category is 60% of a $100 sale, and the $200 minimum in the next category is worse.

That is the real answer to "where do I list a $75 name". You do not. It goes to a wholesale or reverse-auction channel, or it goes to the expiry list, and the retail schedules were never designed for it.

The own-lead route is where net proceeds actually jump

The least-discussed line in all three schedules is the one for sales where you brought the buyer.

AtomPay prices 1.35% to 4.5% on the selling price for sellers who arrive with their own lead. On a $5,000 sale that is $4,932.50 net at 1.35% and $4,775 at 4.5% — against $4,625 on Atom's own cheapest retail tier. Afternic's Custom Checkout Link does something similar at a flat 5%, with the same $15 minimum and a $99 minimum transaction value, and explicitly ignores nameservers.

Read that against the Sedo brokerage line at 15% and the gap is not marginal. When a buyer comes from our own outreach rather than a marketplace's search results, the correct fee is a payment-processing fee, not a distribution fee. The venue that lets us pay the first is worth keeping as the closing rail even when the name is listed elsewhere.

The rules we run

1. Compare net, never rate. A ten-point difference is $500 on a $5,000 sale. Read the fee page before the listing page, every time.
2. Audit the defaults. Afternic Boost is on until you turn it off, and it costs five points on every sale. Sedo's ten-point rate needs the name actually parked with Sedo.
3. Point the nameservers where the discount is — and count the lock-up. The GoDaddy nameserver discount is worth ten points on Afternic; on Atom, an auction requires the nameservers to stay on Atom for the duration. The discount and the restriction are the same decision.
4. Keep an own-lead rail open. AtomPay and the Custom Checkout Link both price below any marketplace tier. Buyers you find yourself should not be taxed at distribution rates.
5. Do the band maths before Premium. Below $4,998 you are paying 30% for exposure. Know what that exposure is worth to you before it is deducted from your sale.
6. Log the net number, not the sale price. A portfolio spreadsheet full of gross prices hides which venue actually paid.

The commission is the one variable in a domain sale that is published, fixed in advance and entirely yours to choose. Everything else — the buyer, the timing, the final price — is negotiated. Ten points of net proceeds is not.

If you are working through the same decision, our write-ups on the Atom Premium ladder and its nameserver rule and where to list a domain for sale cover the adjacent half of it, and the names in the portfolio all carry published buy-now prices so the maths above can be checked against a real listing.