The 2026 AI Domain Price Index: What Premium .ai and AI-Themed .com Names Actually Sell For

The AI naming market changed permanently in 2024. By mid-2026 it has stabilized into something measurable. This index compiles publicly reported sale data from NameBio, DNJournal weekly reports, Sedo and Afternic disclosures, and observed BuyItNow pricing across the major marketplaces from January 2025 through June 2026.

The goal is simple: give founders and investors an honest anchor for what a premium AI-themed domain should cost in 2026 — no hype, no sales pitch.

Headline numbers

• Median reported .ai sale (2025–H1 2026): ~$14,500
• Median one-word .ai sale: ~$62,000
• **Median AI-prefixed .com sale (ai-* / *-ai):** ~$8,200
• Median AI-themed brandable .com (Neural-, Vertex-, Cortex- style): ~$4,900
• Top 1% .ai sales cleared: $500,000+
• Top 1% AI .com sales cleared: $250,000+

The gap between .ai and .com narrowed sharply in 2025. In 2023, buyers paid a 60–70% discount to pick .ai over the matching .com. By H1 2026 that discount is closer to 25–35% for one-word terms — and inverted for a small set of category-defining .ai names where the TLD carries the brand signal.

The four tiers of AI-themed inventory

Tier 1 — One-word .ai ($100K–$8M+) Category-defining single words. Public 2024–2026 comps include *you.ai*, *chat.ai*, *voice.ai*, *scale.ai*, *any.ai*. Buyers are funded companies acquiring the exact name of their product category. Supply is effectively fixed; every sale removes inventory permanently.

Tier 2 — Two-word .ai and one-word AI-prefixed .com ($10K–$100K) Names like *northstar.ai*, *aiharbor.com*, *neuralvault.com*. This is where most Series A / B companies actually transact. Median clearing price ~$18K, with a long right tail into six figures for names that map cleanly to a category (fintech AI, legal AI, medical AI).

Tier 3 — Brandable AI-themed .com ($2K–$15K) Coined or evocative names — *Vertex*, *Cortex*, *Synaptic*, *Neural*, *Prism*. Not literally "AI" in the string, but positioned for AI companies. This is the highest-velocity tier: hundreds of sales per quarter across Afternic, Sedo, and curated portfolios. Median ~$4,900.

Tier 4 — Descriptive AI .com ($500–$3K) Three-word constructions (*aiforlawyers.com*, *smartinvoiceai.com*). Functional, indexable, cheap. Fine for MVPs; rarely defensible long-term.

What actually moves price within a tier

Across ~800 tracked sales, four attributes predict clearing price better than anything else:

1. Length ≤ 8 characters adds a 2.1x premium vs. 9–12 character names in the same tier. 2. Zero-syllable-friction (name is unambiguously pronounceable in English on first read) adds ~40%. 3. Category legibility (name maps to a known vertical: fintech, legal, medical, security) adds ~55% vs. abstract names. 4. Prior use (name previously ran a real product, not a parked page) *reduces* price ~20% because of trademark residue.

Notably absent from the top of that list: keyword volume, exact-match SEO value, and TLD prestige beyond .ai/.com. Those matter, but far less than the four above.

2026 pricing benchmarks by category

Median observed BuyItNow / recent sale for a well-formed two-word brandable .com in each vertical:

| Category | Median 2026 price | |---|---| | AI / ML infrastructure | $8,400 | | Fintech / payments AI | $9,800 | | Legal / compliance AI | $6,200 | | Healthcare / medical AI | $11,500 | | Developer tools / agents | $7,900 | | Voice / audio AI | $6,800 | | Video / creative AI | $7,400 | | Security / privacy AI | $8,900 | | Enterprise / SaaS AI | $7,100 |

Healthcare commands the highest premium — a function of regulated-industry buyers with real budgets, not hype. Legal is the softest, which surprises most sellers.

What changed vs. 2024

• .ai renewal shock absorbed. The 2023–2024 spike in .ai speculation cooled after the Anguilla registry's fee structure normalized. Speculative flippers exited; end-user buyers dominate 2026 volume.
• "AI-" and "-AI" prefixes lost premium. In 2023 slapping "ai" on any word added ~2x. By 2026 the premium is ~1.2x — buyers now prefer brandable names that don't hardcode "AI" into the string, because their product roadmap outlives the acronym.
• Two-word brandables gained. As one-word .com inventory ran out, funded startups shifted budget to well-constructed two-word .coms. This is now the highest-liquidity segment of the market.

What founders should actually budget in 2026

• Pre-seed / bootstrapped: $500–$3,000. Tier 4 descriptive, or a Tier 3 brandable on aggressive negotiation.
• Seed: $3,000–$15,000. Solid Tier 3 brandable .com. This is the sweet spot for most funded startups.
• Series A: $15,000–$75,000. Category-legible Tier 2 name. Worth the spend — you'll pay this in one round of paid acquisition otherwise.
• Series B+: $75,000–$500,000. One-word or category-defining name. At this stage the name compounds every marketing dollar for a decade.

The wrong move at every stage is buying the *cheapest name you can tolerate*. The right move is buying the *most defensible name your current round can absorb without regret*. Names appreciate; regret compounds faster.

Methodology

Sale data pulled from NameBio (public disclosed sales), DNJournal weekly reports (Jan 2025 – Jun 2026), and observed BuyItNow prices across Afternic, Sedo, Dan, and Atom snapshot on the first business day of each month. AI-themed classification applied manually to filter false positives (e.g., "Thailand" contains "ai"). Sample size: 812 sales for .ai medians, 2,140 for AI-themed .com medians. This is not a complete census — private brokered sales are excluded and skew the true market upward.

Cite this data

Journalists and researchers are welcome to cite the 2026 AI Domain Price Index. Attribution: *BuyStartupDomains 2026 AI Domain Price Index* with a link to this page. For raw data or category breakdowns not published here, get in touch.