Renewal fees are small one name at a time and large across a portfolio. Most portfolios of any size carry a long tail of names bought on an idea that did not happen, renewed every year out of habit or optimism.
Pruning is not admitting defeat. It is the part of portfolio management that pays for the rest of it.
Deciding what to release
- Has it had a genuine enquiry in the last few years?
- Would you buy it today, at today's price, if you did not already own it?
- Does it protect something you still use, such as a brand variant or a live product?
- Could you explain its value to a buyer in one sentence?
A name that gets a no to every question is a candidate for release. Be stricter still with names whose renewal price is set by the registry and can rise over time.
The cheapest renewal is the one you decide not to make.
Releasing it well
Letting a name simply expire returns nothing and, as the expiry timeline shows, may hand it to a registrar's auction rather than a buyer who would have paid you. A better release puts the name in front of buyers while it is still yours to sell, priced to move rather than to make a point.
DroppedNow exists for exactly this: names an owner no longer wants, shown to end users and investors before the expiry date, so the release recovers something instead of nothing.
