Hi everyone!
I’ve had some 3K domains listed with Dan a long time back but never bothered to add the remaining one’s because I’ve never had a sale through them until yesterday.
I’ve bought several domains through Dan by private sellers and always had a smooth and overall great experience.
But last week I concluded my first domain sale via Dan and I wanted to share my experience with you all.
Unfortunately I cannot share the domain name because the buyer requested not to do so which is not an important thing in sharing all this. The domain had a BIN of $2,988 at Afternic/Sedo and the buyer tried negotiating but I remained firm and sold it for the BIN price.
Buyer paid via bank transfer and Dan offered him a 1% discount for making the payment with this method which is good. However, I was charged the same 9% which is still not bad since I had to pay 20% to Afternic and 15%-20% to Sedo commission. Payment was well received and processed in no time which I admire their quick service and even the payout was done in hours. The entire process took just several hours which was great to see.
The problem I found was that when Dan informed me that “Unfortunately, we can’t process transactions above $2k through PayPal without charging an extra fee of 4% (Which PayPal is charging us). Can you please update your banking details so we can proceed with the payout?”
And my response was “That’s not done. This is my first transaction as a seller with your company and you’re asking to charge me 4% just for sending payout via PayPal!
I’m receiving much larger payouts from Sedo and Afternic and they charge me nothing. I would like you to send in full or in batches but I don’t want to pay any fee.
Then Dan responded this “We understand this was unexpected and have made an exception this time. This payment has been sent to your PayPal account without the extra fee.
Could you please update your banking details for future payments over $2k.“
Payment was received in a flash without any deduction for which I thanked them and wanted to share it with you as well.
I’ve always had the reservations for not trying Dan landers which I’ve already discussed several times over NamePros and privately but I wasn’t aware of this problem where they charge 4% for sending payouts of over $2,000. And anyone following my blog is well aware that most of my payouts are over $2,000. Sedo and Afternic don’t charge anything for any amount of payouts sent to PayPal.
So in short, anyone selling a domain via Dan and willing to receive payouts by PayPal will end up paying 13% of your sales amount. 9% commission on the sale price plus 4% PayPal fee charged by Dan.
I wonder why the domain sellers at Dan say of paying only 9% commission whereas you pay 13% commission in total who’re receiving the payouts of over $2,000 via PayPal.
And here comes the gimmick from Dan which was the most frustrating part dealing with Dan and I’ll NEVER use them as a seller in the future. I’ve gone ahead and deleted my entire portfolio from Dan.
So what happened is I came to know that Dan with their new model is offering 1% discount to the sellers IF the buyer is going to pay Dan via bank transfer.
Here is the exact quote copied from NamePros under clause 3:
“In the new model, the seller even gets a 1% discount when the buyer pays with Bank Transfer.”
As per 8% commission, I should’ve received $2,748.96.
As per 9% commission, I should’ve received $2,719.08
I received $2,721.47 which is close to after the deduction of 9% commission.
Now calculate this. The sale happened for $2,988 – 8% commission = $239.04
$2,988 – $239.04 = $2,748.96
But in actual, I received $2,721.47 which is short of $27.49
For this, Dan gave me silly explanation copied below:
“We offer buyers a 1% discount on their purchase when they submit the payment via Bank Transfer. Only when the buyer opts for this discount payment method do we discount our commission by 1% as to the seller.
This applies to the final price the buyer pays and not the price before the buyer’s discount.
Our standard commission is 9%. If the buyer does not opt to pay via Bank Transfer, we charge 9% commission.
In this transaction, if the buyer paid via a different payment method, the buyer would not have received a discount and our fee would have been 9%.
This would have been calculated as follows:
Full price: $2988,00
Our fee: 9% (268,92)
Your Payment: 2988-9% = $2719,08
The buyer however paid via Bank Transfer. We therefore provided the buyer a 1% discount.
This is calculated as follows:
Full price: $2988,00
Buyer’s discount: 1% (29,88)
Buyer’s final price: 2988-1% = $2958,12
Since the buyer received a 1% discount, we charged you a discounted commission of 8%. Please note that this is calculated from the final price the buyer paid after the buyer’s commission was applied.
In this transaction, the total paid by the buyer was $2958,12 after the discount was applied. Your payment is therefore calculated from this value and not the initial price before the buyer’s discount.
This is how your payment was calculated:
Buyer’s final price: $2958,12
Our discounted commission: 8% (236,65)
Your payout: $2958,12 – 8% = $2721,47
Important to note your payment is calculated from the final fee after the buyer’s discount was applied.”
If this was the case that Dan mentioned, then why the hell did they say at NamePros that in their new model, the seller even gets a 1% discount when the buyer pays with Bank Transfer? Because no matter how the buyer pays with, the seller was already getting their cut after 9% commission.
So Dan charged me 9% on the sale amount or 8% commission on the buyer’s final price. In short, I actually received the amount after 9% commission.
So they should either take back their 1% commission they’ve started offering without actually giving or give it in real.
Feel free to give your feedback no matter how good or good it is 😉


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These are all things that have been known for years as far as extra charges for PayPal payments over 2K. Not sure how you weren’t aware. They still have one of the lowest commision rates in the business and pay pronto not like Afternic and Sedo. Many of us love DAN.
The reason I wasn’t aware is already shared in my post that it was my first experience using Dan.com as seller.
Yes, definitely still the lowest than both Sedo and Afternic which I said it as well.
Anyways, thanks for sharing 👍
Most of the members know about this, i prefer wire, payout wise they are fast. I love dan
I agree their payout was super quick. And like I said it was my first experience so I wasn’t aware of this situation and wanted to share and make aware at least to those who haven’t tried their service yet.
Blown out of proportions.
It sounds like the 1% is wire transfer is for buyers and how they pay, shouldn’t even be related to how it affects Sellers.
I’m not a BIN seller on any marketplace, rather have my own landers and deal directly with buyers. Dan so far seems like the most innovative and most determined option out there. wish them the best.
I prefer to receive many payouts to PayPal.
No doubt even with 4%, they’re under Sedo/Afternic but like you said it shouldn’t affect the sellers and so they should not mention it as well.
Hi Reza,
I do not think it is worth the reply…. I have much respect for Abdulbasit but in this situation he’s been unreasonable
Hi AbdulBasit, So effectively you made more money because of the new checkout introduced by Dan but that’s a bad thing? If the buyer had paid with a different payment source, the commission would have been 9% and the total payout would have been lower as well. In that case, you wouldn’t have left us a 1-star review and used tags in this post like “Never use Dan.com” for SEO ranking. But when you do get a bigger (the benefit for the seller isn’t huge but still present) payout because the buyer opted for a bank transfer, then you portray… Read more »
With your so-called new checkout system, I received a bonus of $2.39 which is what you’re calling it I made more money!
If the buyer would’ve opted with any other payment method, I was going to receive $2.39.
Seems like an overwhelmingly positive Dan transaction to me: – Your customer saved money without costing you anything by paying via bank transfer. Very cool. – As a result, a couple of extra dollars were added to your bottom line. Bonus. – You had a pretty smooth and quick transaction. Nice. – Dan even granted your PayPal request and removed the 4% fee. Very accommodating. – You also received payment faster and paid less than half the commission you would have at most other marketplaces. Sweet. – The 1% discount issue was misleading to you and you feel shorted out… Read more »
Thanks for your detailed analysis and feedback. I appreciate that. I’ll keep it short because I’ve already explained several times in other responses. It’s not that 1% discount is misleading to me but Dan is misleading to the sellers who’ve it seems many have no problem because they’re already paying 9% commission which is one of the lowest in the industry. “anyway as it’s such an insignificant amount and Dan already offers one of the lowest commissions in the industry” The above attitude is what I don’t accept for myself. It has to be the exact amount I should receive.… Read more »
“It has to be the exact amount I should receive. Nothing more, nothing less.” I feel you did receive the exact amount you were supposed to. You just weren’t clear on how the payout was calculated. I appreciate your blog. I’m sorry to give you this tough love, but I do it because I feel strongly that your article is unfair and unwarranted. I’m not a big Dan user either but they have been great for the industry. They are learning, growing and constantly taking feedback into consideration and making improvements. They are one of the reasons marketplaces like Afternic… Read more »
I’m sorry, but according to your article and comments, you seem very confused. You keep seeing your selling price and fail to see how much the buyer actually pays. You seem angry because you were announced a 8% commission, and you would want this on your selling price in the end. But that amount was never paid by the customer! You would want Dan to pay the additional 1% the customer didn’t pay AND lower their commission 1%!? They are doing it ONCE (paying what the customer didn’t pay through their reduced fee), not TWICE. You can’t have your cake… Read more »
There is an easy solution to all of this…
List on marketplaces at a slightly higher price, point the domain to your lander and sell at a lower price. Specify your payment of choice. Most clients check out the domain in the URL bar before they buy so in a lot of cases they will pick the lower price and engage through your lander. So even if they see it on marketplace you have higher odds of selling commission free via your lander.
Thanks for your suggestion 🙂
I’ve tested with several landers in the past but so far the most effective one is what I’m currently using it.
Thanks for sharing this information and reviews. Good to know this. Hope more DAN sellers can search and found this reviews on Google before listing in DAN.
Thank you Albert!
Trash
Dan has been good so far, this is BS
you are bad boy Don’t use Dan.com
Thanks for your feedback. No worries, I’m not going to use their services.
Seems a bit harsh on Dan they were trying to help you out ultimately. Paypal is the one you should have an issue with if anyone, that’s a obscenely high commission rate for moving some money ripe for a new startup to come in and disrupt if you ask me.
Yeah, I shared everything including my good and bad experience with them. Not only the bad one.
This sounds like a sponsored post and very unreasonable. What point are you trying to prove here. That Dan pays PayPal fee? Even with the extra 4% it’s still cheaper than the companies you mentioned so what’s your point?
You go this far to right a blog post for something this trivial really?
I’m disappointed
Sponsored post! Ah well, then you must not know me for sure.
Also it seems you haven’t understood my main concern from the post. It was not the 4% PayPal fee but the last part of the post which is the disturbing one.
You may want to read it again especially the last part.
Sorry Abdul but a very poor article in my opinion. Everyone knows there are extra charges for payout about $2K at Dan. They have one of the lowest commission rates in the market. They are constantly innovating. And also, they listened to your request and did not charge you extra 4%. The article is in very poor taste in my opinion.
Thanks Michael for your feedback and I appreciate you said very openly.
Like I’ve mentioned, it was my first experience so knowing their extra charge for payout above 2K wasn’t the case. Also I appreciated their exception of 4% on my payout. However, the main concern for me is the last part of the post where they say “In the new model, the seller even gets a 1% discount when the buyer pays with Bank Transfer.” and still don’t provide the discount the way it should be given.
I was not also aware of the 4% Paypal fees for my 1st ($2000 sales). But they have a superfast bank transfer which has no fees at all for me. I used my Payoneer ( SEPA) which takes only 24 hours for most of my payouts.
Thanks Bipul!
Did GD pay you to bash DAN?
So Dan charges you 9% and GD charges you 20%…..so what are you bitching about?
When my client wants to pay me $90K for my consulting fees via pay pal, and get dink by the fees, I told them I rather have a check and wait for a week. No biggie.
I rather have the check.
That’s funny!
It’s not only about the PP fee man. You need to read it again especially the last part of the post.
I realized that your trustpilot 1 star feedback and after that saw your post.
This is not the kind of gentlemanly behavior that befits you. I request you to change the comment. Giving 1 star is unfair in my opinion. You also didn’t explain why you gave 1 star. I hope you realize that you are hurting not the company but the sellers trying to sell their domains.
Thanks for your feedback. I’ll see what I can do 🙂
Highly biased post with full intention, who doesn’t know that PayPal charges 4% on business payments, if other companies don’t
Get charged or pay the fee could be special arrangements but quite strange!
Nobody deletes all names and bashes a great
For this nonsense, go to other platforms that play with people’s money for days or weeks
Pure bs.
Your love for Dan is totally understandable and that’s fine.
It’s weird to see many of you just not reading the entire post and jumping to the conclusion. It’s not mainly about the PayPal fee but the other issue which is mentioned in the last part of the post.
If that still doesn’t ring any bell for you, have fun with Dan.
Hello Abdul, how are you doing? I hope you and your family are fine.
The domain industry is a learning game, and even yourself an advanced domainer, you are still learning by experiencing platforms and landers.
Great find and thanks for sharing it with your fans
Matt Morgan
All good here, thank you Matt! 🙂
I totally agree with you. The best we all can do is to learn from our experiences, no matter how good or bad they’re. And also sharing makes others aware and learn from it.
Hello AbdulBasit. Thank you for sharing this but I find it misleading. Though for the sake of ambiguity in the said quote concerning the commission stated by Dan, your thought is understandable. But a clear understanding of part 2 and 3 of Dan’s sales processing structure which you quote would have prevented this.
I hope you reconsider your review of this.
Thanks.
Hi there!
Thanks for your feedback and suggestion. I appreciate it.
No personal agenda against Dan but just wanted to share my experience. I knew some would disagree with it but that’s fine.
Hi Abdul, I admire you but this is not right. You just made a mountain out of A molehill, didn’t expect that from you.
Thanks for your feedback Samuel.
I totally understand the love and respect you’ve for Dan 🙂
I think you are unhappy with 1% extra you want dan should take 8% if buyer pay bank transfer but i think it’s dan standard policy for seller they will take 9% commission it’s not our issue if dan give his buyers extra discount so $2k+ we all known about this..
Love Dan.. lowest commission and nicest landing pages.
It’s about ETHICS. If they say of offering 1% to the seller as well if the buyer pays with bank transfer then they should give it and not twist their words to make it 9% either way.
Hi Abdul, Thank you for sharing I use Paypal to receive money from sales domains if it is not higher than $400. In DAN I preferred Bank Transfer, the same as Afternic, Sedo and finally Uniregistry (which is still in their market after my last comment on their blog, it was feasible and everything worked for the better). We have a lot to choose from to buy and sell domains, now each of us choose the place that best goes well for sales. Hate DAN for the sales of domains in BIN $ 1200 could from $ 100 to my… Read more »
Thanks Jose for sharing your experience.
Yeah, the payment plan is a good option with them and many benefits from that.
Good luck!
Maybe I failed to understand that last part of 1% but to me looks like the 1% discount goes to the buyer not the seller? And in this case if the company gives the buyer 1% it means they have reduced there commission but but there charge of 9% stands?
I could be wrong though but it how I understood it and have used Dan without issues
You’ve understood correctly. The 1% discount goes only to the buyer and not the seller. But at NamePros they’ve mentioned “In the new model, the seller even gets a 1% discount when the buyer pays with Bank Transfer.”
9% commission is fine and one of the lowest in this industry but then they don’t need to mention what they did at NamePros and on top of that they’re sticking with what they’ve said and don’t budge at all.
It’s their loss because they lost one of their clients and I’ll keep buying/selling domains from other platforms.
With this I definitely feel what they said was right. Though the calculation could be wrong(not sure either)
Here is my point.
Did you get exact fee after 9% for selling = No (You got slightly higher by about $2.8, Would you consider that not a benefit with the 1% discount given to buyer?)
Maybe you would just be interested in knowing how much the seller benefits from the buyers 1% discount?
I should’ve received the $2,748.96. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s not about I received some $2.8 bonus so I should be happy with it. Also 1% won’t change the world for me but it’s about the ethics. They should follow to what they’ve offered.
I don’t understand why people without reading the post completely but support DAN.
Abdul is sharing his bad experience and it is not mainly about paypal but the 1% discount they claim to offer for sellers.
Thanks for understanding.
Had I only shared my bad experience, that would not be good from my side. I shared the entire thing what happened. One was good and Dan went out of the way and gave the exception but in the other they did it bad.
Many of the readers who published comments just read the first part and started commenting without going through the entire post!
Hi, I thought the 1% is offered to buyer and in the process the seller benefits though by a small amount in $ from the 1% discountered to buyer and thats the $2.8 he got in addition?
If you read their clause 3, paragraph 3 which states “In the new model, the seller even gets a 1% discount when the buyer pays with Bank Transfer.”
That EVEN clearly means the seller will separately get a 1% discount when the buyer pays with bank transfer which in my case the buyer paid via bank transfer.
Here is my point and my understanding.
1% benefit for the seller is on commission Dan was to get(In this case $268.92) and now instead of them taking all that your given your discount of 1% of the commission ($268.92*0.01=$2.7).
So that $2.7 is topped on your initial amount you where to receive.
Does this make sense?
In such case, they should clearly state in their terms in a different wordings.
As per their message which says the seller “EVEN” gets 1% discount. Now anyone would assume that 1% discount is for the buyer and 1% discount is for the seller.
For a $2,988 sale, giving some $2.7 extra is nonsense. It’s better they keep it for themselves and don’t write such terms which are twisted in words.
Maybe they need to explain it better for everyone to understand!
Just curious would it be “nonsense” if it was a big sale ($300k)and your 1% yielded say $300 in addition to the actual amount?
Definitely I would call it nonsense for $300 extra on a 300K sale as well because in actual I should receive $3,000 in addition.
Taken aback by the tone of this post – I usually look up to you as a measured resource of wisdom in the domaining community, but this is anything but wise or measured. There have been many questionable enterprises in the domaining industry, and while Dan has its imperfections, they’ve pushed the industry forward in many ways (commissions, landers, user experience, speedy payouts and transfers). You’ve lost a fan.
I’m disappointed of one of my fans and similarly I was disappointed after using Dan which made me to share it exactly what happened. The good and the ugly both.
Thanks for your feedback and I hope one day you’ll realize how I went through and understands it.
Best wishes!
Hi Abdul Basit,
What do you mean by “I’ve had some 3K domains listed with Dan”
Do you mean pointing your domains to dan? Or just listing? Have you ever used their nameservers?
Thanks.
I just added my 3K around domains with Dan under my account.
Never pointed to Dan nameservers.
Removed them now already.
Thanks!
Okay, so which lander of afternic do you use now a days? NS3/NS4? Or NS5/NS6?
I point to ns3/ns4 and don’t plan to use ns5/ns6 and the reasons I’ve shared it on my previous blogpost.
Abdul, my friend….I think you should try and relax. Dan.com is one of the fastest, smooth, lowest commission and secure service you can use. This time around I think you’re depressed because you have lots of domains listed with Dan.com but your conversion is really low.
Thanks for your feedback. Like I shared both my experiences, the good and the bad part. Also I’m not at all depressed and never was dependent on selling a single domain via Dan. It was just I listed with them in the past with no hopes of selling and it was a surprise sale to me. And I’ve no regrets of removing my portfolio from Dan. It’s okay as we all have sometimes a bad day in our lives and it was one of them for me that day. Once again, there is no point of disappointment of selling only… Read more »
Thanks, A. Basit for sharing. This helps us with domain Research.
Thanks for your feedback Zaman 🙂
Hi Abdul… I hope you and family always in good condition. Its not about 1 % discount good or worse for all, I think DAN only need to focus to build a large network like afternic / sedo than change the commission model after 1% discount to buyers. DAN should build a large network with top registrar worldwide to beat afternic / sedo and dominate the domain market globally. Why ? As a domain sellers may be we want to answer 2 very simple question : “When we didn’t point the NS to DAN , is it possible the domain… Read more »
Hi Rieza,
Everything is well and thank you for your comment with feedback.
Yes, it’s possible the domain will sell through Dan if the domain is listed with Sedo/Afternic and using any of those landers. The same thing happened in my case as well.
I don’t believe any platform would force that way. You can list at as many platforms you want, any from any place the domain gets sold, that platform gets their cut.
“its about attitude and trust” – That’s very well said!
Many thanks and wish you all the very best!
Hey Abdul –
I just discovered your blog. Great content!
Quick question as I am fairly new to this. It seems like uniregistry has most attractive commission rates, unless there are some hidden fees I’m not aware of. Is there any reason why dan.com is so popular, when uniregistry has such attractive rates? Makes me wonder what I may be missing.
Thanks Dylan!
Until I used their services, there were no hidden fees other than wire fee which every company charge. If you handle your own lead and completes the deal yourself without using their brokerage then you’ll not be paying any commission to them.
If you use their BIN lander and the sale happens, you’ll be paying 10% commission on the sale amount. If the sale happens via their broker, then 15% and if the lead comes via partner like DomainTools or any other then their commission is 20% on the successful sale.
DAN.com is #1, DAN.com is #1!
Give me a D!
Give me an A!
Give me an N!
Put a dot com on the end and what does that spell?
DAN.com!! YEAH!!
Good if it’s working well for you!
Hey Abdul, thanks for sharing this story. I think some people are missing the point. Not being afraid to post these things no matter how small it may seem is how we can improve these companies.
May I ask in your experience how Afternic/Sedo deals with larger payments such as more than $5000 when payment method is Paypal? Are there any issues or fees when receiving larger payments through Paypal? I also read they may use Escrow.com for larger payments, is that something you have dealt with on Afternic/Sedo?
Thanks for your feedback Maxwell!
I’ve received 4-5 figures of amount from Afternic in PayPal. Sedo has the limit of sending $10,000 in PayPal. More than that, they’ll send via wire only.
GoDaddy uses Escrow.com for domains over $5,000 if the domain is sold via GoDaddy Auctions.
Avoid PayPal
Not everyone can avoid it because many countries give not much options for sending/receiving payments.