My First Domain Sale Took 5 Years - Here’s What I Learned
How a $14 impulse buy in 2019 turned into a $500 domain sale in 2024
Back in 2019, Google launched .dev domains.
I was a student at the time, almost broke, but decided to risk some of my money on registering a few domains. It felt like one of those “maybe this will pay off someday” moments.
No plan. No research. I just sat there checking different keywords, trying to find something that sounded half-decent before someone else did.
I ended up buying these:
Backlink.dev
Terabyte.dev
Grapefruit.dev
Godfather.dev
It wasn’t a lot of money per domain, but at that point, it wasn’t nothing either. I kept renewing them year after year, even when it started to feel pointless.
Then in 2024 - five years later - something actually happened.
I sold one.
Here’s how something that started as a random gamble ended up working out.
A Bit of Background: What Even Are .dev Domains?
Before .dev domains were publicly available, developers often used them locally - for testing projects on localhost. They weren’t supposed to be real domains, just something you’d add to your /etc/hosts file or local DNS.
That changed when Google bought the rights to .dev from ICANN in 2015 and launched it publicly in February 2019. All .dev domains are now real, public-facing domains - and they require HTTPS by default.
This caused issues for devs who used .dev locally without HTTPS. Suddenly, browsers started throwing errors unless you set up a valid SSL cert — even on localhost.
If your site doesn’t use HTTPS, browsers will block access to it.
Since then, .dev has become a niche TLD. Mostly used by tech projects, developer portfolios, and companies securing brand domains (like indeed.dev, which just redirects to indeed.com). But there are also non-tech projects using it - there’s no strict rule.
My Domains + Yearly Costs
I got the domains in Feb 2019, soon after official launch.
I didn’t overthink it. I just searched around to see what was available. Most of the good stuff was already taken, but these four felt like they had potential.
Here’s how much I paid over the years:
The One I Dropped: Grapefruit.dev
You might be wondering why grapefruit.dev has a short life on the chart.
In 2021, I decided to drop it. The renewal costs were starting to sting a bit, and I wasn’t seeing any real interest in the domains. So I figured I’d cut my losses and let go of the one that felt the least promising.
Of course, someone picked it up. And now it’s listed for sale at almost $2,000.
Ouch.
The One That Sold: Godfather.dev
You’ll also notice godfather.dev doesn’t show up in 2025. That’s because in 2024, I finally sold it.
I woke up one morning, opened my inbox, and saw this email from Sedo:
“Your domain godfather.dev has been sold.
I had completely forgotten that I listed all four domains there years earlier, each for $500.
Earlier, I’d tried Flippa and paid $50 to list a domain - with no sale. After that, I switched to Sedo, since they only take a commission if something sells. No upfront costs.
Turns out, that was the better call.
The Numbers
So, did I make a profit?
Technically, yes.
But after Sedo’s commission, and VAT, I ended up getting 379 Eur, which converted to $408.11 USD on that day.
Now, if we also include the $50 listing fee I paid to Flippa years earlier (when trying to sell backlink.dev unsuccessfully), the math changes:
$408.11 (revenue) - $363.99 (renewals) - $50 (Flippa fee) = -$5.88
A whopping $-5.88 in profit.
Hooray.
But to be fair - if you calculate profit as of the day I sold the domain, before I renewed anything for 2025, then I was in the green.
Was it worth it?
The famous question.
It wasn’t the best decision financially. But I did get lucky - that one sale covered all my expenses.
More importantly, it gave me experience.
A Guide for Anyone Thinking About Domain Flipping
I took what I learned and wrote a two-part guide based on real experience:
Part 1: The Ultimate No-Fluff Guide to Domain Flipping (2025 Edition)
Part 2: Coming soon
If you’re planning to try this, read it — it’ll save you a lot of frustration (and money).
As for me — I still own backlink.dev and terabyte.dev, both listed on Sedo. Maybe they’ll sell. Maybe I’ll use them for something else.
Either way, that one sale was enough to make the whole thing feel (almost) worth it.
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