How To Sell A Website In 2025

Selling a website can be a bit like auctioning off a house you built with your own hands. It might not have looked like much at first, but over time the property can increase significantly in value. If you own a profitable website, it can make a lot of sense to consider putting it on the market.

The process of selling a website takes time. You’ll need to determine its value, prepare it for listing, and then hand it off once it has sold. That said, it can be highly lucrative. And, the more successful your site is, the more people will be willing to pay for it.

In this article, we’ll go over some of the most common reasons why you might want to sell your website. Then we’ll walk you through how that process works. Let’s get to it!

Why Sell Your Website

There are a lot of reasons why you might want to sell a successful website or even one that is still in the process of finding an audience. Some of the most common reasons to sell websites include:

• A lack of interest in maintaining the website or online business
• Wanting to capitalize on the website’s success
• Receiving offers from interested parties

In any scenario, creating and growing a website involves a lot of work. Therefore, if you’re working on a site with the intent of making a significant profit from it, selling it can be a smart option.

How to Sell a Website (5 Steps)

Now, we’re going to explain how to sell a website in five steps!

1. Research and Assess Your Website’s Value

Before you can put your website up for sale, you need to have an idea of how much it’s worth. That figure can vary depending on several key factors, including the following:

• The website’s traffic (and traffic sources). The more traffic your website gets, the more attractive it can be to prospective buyers. Where these visitors come from also matters (with organic traffic being the most valuable).
• Monthly revenue and total revenue generated. This means how much money the site brings in on average per month, and how much it has made over its lifetime.
• How long the site has been around for. “Older” sites may sell faster because buyers have access to more data.

Potential buyers will want to see all of this information. Therefore, whichever third-party service or website marketplace you use to connect with interested buyers will also likely request access to this data to check if your site is legitimate.

There are formulas you can use to calculate a rough website sale price. The most common approach is to take the site’s monthly profit and multiply that by 12-36 months:

Monthly earnings x Variable Multiplier = Website Value

The multiplier will vary depending on the website’s age, niche, and how “attractive” the website is overall. You can use this formula to get a rough estimate of how much money your site can bring in, but you’ll also want to get an official appraisal.

2. Get an Official Appraisal of the Website and Domain

You can get appraisals for websites and domains, just as with other kinds of properties. There are professionals who focus on offering these services, typically with the hope that you’ll choose to sell your site through them and give them a cut of the final sale price.

These professionals are called website brokers. A website broker can give you an unbiased assessment of your website’s value that will be more accurate than the rough calculations we discussed in the last section. In most cases, this is a paid service.

Website brokers will know what multiplier to apply to the sales price formula. They’ll also help you determine other factors that can affect your site’s sale price and give you insights into how to increase it (if possible).

Note that you can also choose to get a domain appraisal separate from the site. This can be useful in cases where your site is not worth too much on its own, but the domain is valuable enough to sell separately. In these cases, you’ll want to consult with a domain broker.

3. Prepare the Website Before Listing It

Once you have a solid grasp of your website’s value and potential price, it’s time to prepare for listing it. When your site goes up for sale, you want it to be in the best shape possible. This way, you can give a good impression and avoid having to deal with technical issues post-sale.

By preparing your website, we’re referring to optimizing its performance and improving its user experience. Some ways to do this include:

• Ensuring all key features on the site work, such as contact forms, navigation menus, and other core elements
• Updating all of the site’s components before listing it if you’re using software such as WordPress
• Testing the site’s loading times and figuring out how to reduce them, like by compressing images

If the website’s overall performance is good and the site works, then it’s ready for listing. However, if you find that you can’t improve website performance, there might be an issue with your web host.

Some web hosts, like NameHero are optimized for performance. So, if you’re not happy with your web host, it can make sense to migrate to a better option before listing the site. This way, your fast-loading pages can help attract potential website buyers.

The good news is that moving a website doesn’t have to be intimidating. NameHero offers free migrations for all plans, so you can let us handle the transition for you:

Lastly, in terms of website preparation – if your website involves complex features or processes, it can make sense to prepare documentation for it. That can be as simple as writing down instructions for how to use the site, which will help buyers hit the ground running.

4. List the Website and Wait for Potential Buyers

Next, it’s time to focus on listing your website. The most straightforward way to do this is to publish it on website marketplaces. Here are some of the most well-known options:

• Flippa:This is one of the best-known website marketplaces for selling a website. There are typically hundreds of listings available, with prices ranging from hundreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
• Empire Flippers:This website requires you to submit your site for approval before they can list it. They’ll help you figure out the right price for selling, but they generally only focus on high-income sites.

The listing process will vary from platform to platform and they can have specific requirements before you can put your site up for sale. If you’ve had interested parties approach you in the past, you can also skip the marketplace and reach out to them directly.

Note that most of these marketplaces will ask you for either access to the site or reports that back up the numbers you show them. If you tell them that your site is getting thousands of visitors per month, they’ll want to see traffic reports that can back that up. You can get this type of report from Google Analytics:

When waiting for potential buyers, keep in mind that the sales process can take time, particularly if the listing price is high. You might need to be patient to find the right buyer.

5. Hand Off the Website to the Buyer

Once you find a buyer and close the deal, all that’s left is to hand over the website. If you use third-party services or a marketplace to sell the site, they’ll likely handle the transition.

In most cases, this involves using an escrow service. You’ll hand over access of the site to the escrow, who will hold onto it until they receive payment. If you need help with this step, Escrow.com is a popular option:

Once the payment is in, the escrow service will hand over the website and transfer the money to you. This mostly eliminates the risk of someone taking off with your site’s credentials and not paying for it.

Conclusion

Websites, like other types of property, can appreciate in value. Several factors can influence how much your website is worth, including its organic traffic, revenue streams, popularity, and more. Since acquiring a website can be major purchase, potential buyers will want to have as much information as possible about your site before signing anything.

If you’re interested in this process, here’s an overview of our step by step guide on how to sell a website:

1. Research and assess your website’s value.
2. Get an official appraisal of the website and domain.
3. Prepare the website before listing it.
4. List the website.
5. Hand off the website to the buyer.

If you want to sell your website, it’s best to use a performance-focused web host to put your best foot forward. Moving your website to a better web host before putting it up for sale can lead to a smoother transaction and NameHero offers free migrations. Check out our web hosting plans today!