Terms

Terms

What this is

A marketplace where people sell domain names to each other, across every extension. We run the auction and we handle the money. We do not buy, sell, or value domains ourselves.

• We take the payment and we pay the seller. The buyer pays us, we hold the money while the domain moves, and the seller is paid once the change of ownership is confirmed. Buyer and seller do not exchange money with each other.
• We do not guarantee that a seller will transfer, that a buyer will pay, or that any domain is worth what it sells for.
• What we do is run the bidding honestly, publish the rules, and remove people who waste other people's time.

Accounts

• One account per person, business, or household.
• Sign-in is by emailed link — there is no password. A link works once and expires 15 minutes after you ask for it.
• An account must be active to bid or to list. We can restrict or close an account that breaks these terms.
• Your balance is the running total of your ledger. Money shown as reserved is committed and cannot be spent; available is what you can actually use.

Listing a domain

• Listing is free, with no limit on how many domains you list and no approval queue.
• You must be the registrant of the domain, or be authorised by them to sell it.
• You have to prove you control the domain. We give you a token; you publish it as a DNS TXT record; we look it up. Until that record resolves your listing is invisible to everyone but you.
• Claiming a name does not reserve it. The listing goes to whoever proves control first. A claim nobody proves is deleted after 14 days.
• The lowest starting price is £20.

Holding

• A verified listing sits in Holding with no closing date until someone bids. There is no clock and no cost, for as many domains as you like.

When a bid arrives

• The bid is recorded, the owner is told, and the listing is marked pending. No further bids are taken while the owner decides.
• The owner has 7 days to pay £5. Paying opens a 7-day auction in Showcase; the bid that started it becomes the opening bid.
• The £5 is not refundable, under any circumstances. It is the only fee charged before a sale.

Showcase auctions

• Bidding is by proxy: you enter the most you will pay and the engine bids the least needed to keep you in front, up to that figure.
• Your maximum is private — never shown to the seller, other bidders, or the page. Only the current price is public.
• Where two bidders enter the same maximum, whoever entered it first leads. You can raise your maximum at any time; you cannot lower it.
• A seller cannot bid on their own listing.

Bid increments

The next valid bid is the current price plus the increment for that band:

From	Increment
£0	£1.00
£50	£5.00
£200	£10.00
£500	£25.00
£1,000	£50.00
£5,000	£100.00
£10,000	£250.00

Closing

• A bid in the final 10 minutes extends the auction — to 3 minutes from a bid you place, or 2 minutes from a proxy bid. There is no cap on extensions, so waiting for the last second gains you nothing.
• The advertised closing time never moves; the real one does, and both are shown. All timing is on our clock.

Reserves

• A reserve must be at or above the starting price.
• A visible reserve tells bidders whether it has been met, never the amount. A hidden reserve is not disclosed while bidding is open and is published at close.
• We publish a cryptographic commitment to a hidden reserve before bidding opens, and the amount and its nonce at close — anyone can recompute it and confirm the figure was fixed in advance.
• If the reserve is not met the domain does not sell, and the promotion fee is not returned.

Commission

• We charge 5.0% of the final price on sales above £100; at or below that, none. No surcharges, no difference between tiers.
• Commission is payable by the seller, calculated at close, and falls due only once the transfer has completed. If the sale fails, no commission is owed.

Removal and account closure

• If the owner of a pending listing does not pay within the 7 days, the bid is cancelled and the domain comes off the site — and that owner's account is closed. The bidder owes nothing.
• A closed account cannot bid, list, or promote; running auctions are left to finish. We also remove listings for domains you do not have the right to sell.

Changes to these terms

The figures above are settings, and we can change them; a change applies to listings and auctions started after it. Two things are fixed for the life of a lot: the promotion fee you paid, and the commission rate at the moment your auction closed.