The 4 letter domain name value question has two answers, depending on whether the four characters are digits or letters. The GGRG Liquid Market Report for Q3 2026 (July to September), built on public sales data provided by ShortNames.com, puts the median four-digit .com sale at $25,000 with a floor of $9,210. The median four-letter .com sold for $252, with a floor of $99. Same length, same extension, roughly a hundredfold difference.
4 letter domain name value: the Q3 2026 figures
GGRG’s floor is its 5th percentile, defined in its glossary as “a value at two standard deviations below the mean sales price” and “a reasonable category price floor in any given time period”. The table copies its figures as printed, with one row from our own registry check.
| Q3 2026 (GGRG) | 4-letter .com | 4-digit .com |
|---|---|---|
| Possible combinations | 456,976 | 10,000 |
| Registered (our check, 23 Oct 2026) | 999 of 1,000 sampled | 10,000 of 10,000 |
| Public sales in quarter | 1,338 | 25 |
| Median public sale | $252 | $25,000 |
| 5th percentile (“floor”) | $99 | $9,210 |
| Public sales volume | $4,540,524 | $794,349 |
| Escrow.com volume | $9,367,939 | $110,800 |
| Top public sale | STAN.com $750,000 | 9799.com $133,000 |
On our arithmetic, the four-digit median is about 99 times the four-letter median, and the four-digit floor about 93 times the four-letter floor. Two cautions. The four-digit median rests on only 25 public sales, so a few results can move it. And GGRG prints the four-digit percentage changes without a sign, so we cannot say whether that median or floor rose or fell this quarter. For letters the direction is clear: GGRG says four-letter values “held steady at the 5th percentile this quarter”, with a 1% decline over the past year.
Volume tells a different story from price. Four-letter .coms led public sales with $4,540,524 against $794,349 for digits, and their Escrow.com volume was larger again. Letters trade in bulk at low prices; digits trade rarely at high ones.
Why the gap is so wide: supply and liquidity
There are 456,976 possible four-letter .coms (26 to the fourth power) and only 10,000 four-digit ones, 0000.com to 9999.com. Every digit name is held. On 23 October 2026 we queried Verisign’s .com RDAP service for all 10,000, and every one returned HTTP 200, meaning registered. None came back as not found.
For letters we drew a random sample of 1,000 four-letter .coms with a seeded generator and ran the same lookup. 999 were registered. The exception, imso.com, returned HTTP 404 on two checks, which may mean it is deleted or pending re-registration rather than free to take. So virtually all four-letter .coms are registered, in line with WhoAPI’s finding that all of them were, though that check dates from December 2013.
Almost all (9,888 of 10,000) were first registered before 2010; the median year is 2003. Of the 10,000 digit names, 1,433 were created before 2000 and 8,455 between 2000 and 2009; the median creation year is 2003, and the earliest is 1776.com, created on 30 April 1992. Only three were created in 2026, re-registered after a drop: 8682.com, 5219.com and 3231.com. The letter sample’s median creation year was 2004.
Scarcity alone does not explain the price, because both sets are taken. What differs is how interchangeable the names are. Ten thousand digit names behave like one asset class with a recognisable floor; the Domain.News compiler calls them “highly sought-after collectibles” with “a limited total supply and high liquidity”, which is opinion rather than data. Nearly half a million letter strings are mostly random combinations that only another investor wants.
Recent 4-digit and 4-letter sales
Four four-digit .coms sold at GoDaddy in the week of 12 to 18 October 2026, for a total of $130,016; the full list is in domain sales this week. The table adds sourced sales from the rest of 2025 and 2026.
| Domain | Type | Price | Venue | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6364.com | 4-digit | $43,500 | GoDaddy, 14 Oct 2026 | NameBio via Domain.News |
| 7121.com | 4-digit | $32,508 | GoDaddy, 14 Oct 2026 | NameBio via Domain.News |
| 9135.com | 4-digit | $27,008 | GoDaddy, 14 Oct 2026 | NameBio via Domain.News |
| 7570.com | 4-digit | $27,000 | GoDaddy, 13 Oct 2026 | NameBio via Domain.News |
| 9799.com | 4-digit | $133,000 | Not given | GGRG Q3 2026 |
| 2606.com | 4-digit | $9,250 | SnapNames | DNJournal |
| vyra.com | 4-letter | $50,500 | Namecheap, Oct 2026 | NameBio via Domain.News |
| Stan.com | 4-letter | $750,000 | GetYourDomain/Lumis.com | DNJournal 2026 |
| Twig.com | 4-letter | $695,000 | Apex Moon | DNJournal 2026 |
| Icon.com | 4-letter | $12,000,000 | ATM Holdings/Hilco Digital/Lumis | DNJournal 2025 |
| FFSN.com | 4-letter | $75,000 | Saw.com | DNJournal 2025 |
The ceilings differ by orders of magnitude. By our scan, no four-digit .com appears in DNJournal’s Top 100 charts for 2025 or 2026 to date, where the cut-off sits around $100,000. Four-letter names that spell a word or a first name go much higher: Icon.com was DNJournal’s top sale of 2025. The biggest names of the year are in top domain sales of 2026.
Chinese demand, and why the 4 is not a rule
The numeric premium is usually tied to Chinese buyers. In a 2020 interview with Domain Name Wire, investor Yue Dai said: “Chinese people like to have 8, 6, or 9 in domain names.” He added: “The Chinese don’t like 4 because it’s a homonym for death.” He also claimed that “China accounts for 30 percent or more of domain name transactions”, which was his view in 2020, not a current measurement.
The cultural effect has been measured outside domains. Fortin, Hill and Huang’s 2012 University of British Columbia working paper, “Superstition in the Housing Market”, studied close to 117,000 house sales in Greater Vancouver and found that “houses with address number ending in four are sold at a 2.2% discount and those ending in eight are sold at a 2.5% premium”. That is houses, not domains, and the paper covers 4 and 8 only.
The domain data does not treat the 4 as a dealbreaker. Our count of GGRG’s 25 Q3 2026 four-digit sales finds 10 that contain a 4, including 4489.com at $25,000, exactly the category median. This week’s top four-digit sale, 6364.com at $43,500, contains one too. Avoiding the 4 is a preference some buyers hold, not a rule the market enforces, and nothing here measures a “4 discount” for domains. The buyers of this week’s names were not reported.
Dai also explained the letter side. He said Chinese investors led a 2015 run that “pushed four letter .com’s up from $200 to $3,000. It was a bubble, and now prices are basically stuck at $300 to $400.” His reason: “The number of four letter .com domains is too large, so the price between investors is difficult to go up.” GGRG’s Q3 2026 median of $252 sits below even his 2020 range.
What to pay for a four-letter or four-digit name
Start from the category floor and adjust for the name. A four-digit .com under GGRG’s $9,210 floor would be unusual this year; the quarter’s lowest public sale was 9465.com at $6,700. A random four-letter string trades from $99 to a few hundred dollars, and paying thousands needs a reason: a word, a name, or an acronym with an obvious buyer. The next tier up behaves differently again, as the 3-letter domain value figures show. If you only need a short name rather than this exact length, where short domain names are still available covers the cheaper options.
The Domain Worth Calculator scores a name factor by factor and maps it to a value band rather than one exact number. It is not a market appraisal and cannot see the category floors above, so use it to check a name’s traits and use the sales to set the price.
Frequently asked questions
How much is a 4-letter .com worth?
A random one, not much: GGRG’s Q3 2026 median public sale was $252 and its floor $99. Words and names sell far higher, such as Stan.com at $750,000 this year.
Are all 4-digit .com domains taken?
Yes, as of our Verisign RDAP check on 23 October 2026: all 10,000, from 0000.com to 9999.com, were registered.
Do buyers avoid domains with a 4?
Some do, according to investor Yue Dai. But 10 of GGRG’s 25 Q3 2026 four-digit sales contain a 4, so it is a preference rather than a rule.
The takeaway Four-digit .coms are a small, liquid class with a floor in the thousands; four-letter .coms are a long tail priced in the hundreds unless they spell something. If you want names with registry age and spam history already shown, browse aged domains on the SERPHeroes marketplace.
