This calculator converts three inputs — an estimated outright sale value, a target annual yield, and a term in months — into an indicative monthly rate and a total across the term. The arithmetic is a single line: monthly rate equals value multiplied by the annual yield divided by twelve. A 12% target on a $100,000 domain is $1,000 a month. A 24% target on the same name is $2,000.
Everything difficult about domain leasing is in the words "estimated," "target" and "indicative."
There is no market rate, because there is no market data
State this before anything else: there is no public dataset of domain lease rates comparable to DNJournal or NameBio for sales. What exists is content marketing, forum anecdote and practitioner rules of thumb. Nobody publishes audited lease transaction data, and this calculator cannot tell you what similar domains actually lease for, because that information is not public.
The most-cited heuristic is a percentage of estimated sale price per month. DomainCashflow puts it at "commonly 1 to 3 percent of the estimated sale price per month," illustrated with a $10,000 domain at $100 to $300 per month and a $50,000 domain at $500 to $1,500 per month. Notice what that implies: 1% a month is a 12% annual yield on asset value and 3% a month is 36%. Those are extremely high yields for any asset class, which tells you the band is a seller's asking-price convention rather than a clearing price.
Other published figures are weaker still. Odys offers tiers of $50–$200 monthly for entry-level names, $200–$500 for mid-range and $500–$5,000+ for premium, with no methodology given. A NameSilo blog post from June 2025 works a scenario of a $20,000 domain leased at $300 a month, generating $3,600 a year and $18,000 over five years — implying about 1.5% a month, consistent with the band, but explicitly a hypothetical rather than a reported deal. DomainSherpa has published far lower figures — renting "can start at about $20 a month," leases of "about $200 to $300 a year" — which are so far out of line with every other source that they can only describe near-worthless names. And a worked example from Zak Muscovitch of a $10,000 domain at "$2,000 deposit and $1,000 per month for 8 months" is a lease with a purchase option, which is a financed sale, not a rental rate at all.
So: use the calculator to price a position, not to discover a market. The number it gives you is what you would ask, tested against a yield you have chosen deliberately.
The setup cost has to be recovered before the lease earns anything
This is the single most important practical fact about leasing, and the one most leasing content omits. Elliot Silver's arithmetic on the hidden costs of domain name leasing is the most useful published guidance: an inexpensive attorney "might charge you a couple hundred dollars an hour, while most attorneys will charge more," total pre-revenue legal cost runs "several hundred dollars (perhaps over $1,000)," negotiation adds "several hundred dollars" more, and a licensed escrow service "might add hundreds of dollars more to your bill." His conclusion: "before you have even started collecting payments for the domain name, you will likely be hundreds or quite possibly thousands of dollars in the hole."
Domainwheel independently estimates attorney rates at $150 to $350 an hour with a full lease agreement review costing between $500 and $2,000, and puts lease brokerage at 10% to 20% of the lease's value. Treat those as indicative secondary figures rather than a price list.
Now put that against the monthly rate this calculator produces. At $200 a month, a setup cost anywhere inside the range Silver describes consumes the better part of a year's rent before the lease earns a cent — and Silver's own threshold is that the costs may be justified for "6 figure names with a $5k/month+ lease" but are a serious problem for "low value names with $xx-xxx/month lease deals," where "it will take almost a year to cover the legal fees alone." That is why leasing rarely makes sense at low monthly rates. It is not a question of margin; it is a question of whether the deal ever gets past its own overhead.
The practical floor most practitioners work to is a domain worth well into five or six figures and rent clearing roughly $1,000 a month, at which point legal and escrow are a rounding error rather than the entire margin. Below roughly $10,000 to $20,000 of domain value, the transaction costs make leasing irrational and selling the better answer.
What the term length changes
The Internet Commerce Association's Annotated Domain Name Lease Agreement — the best free reference on the subject — uses a three-year term as its illustration and warns explicitly that longer terms expose the lessor to greater risk. Muscovitch's practical range is 12 to 36 months. A longer term spreads your setup cost across more payments, which is what the total column of this calculator shows, but it also lengthens your exposure to a lessee you may come to regret. The ICA template also allows the lessee to terminate on five days' notice, liable only for payments already due — a default that lessors should understand is negotiable rather than a law of nature.
Costs the monthly rate has to absorb
Someone must pay the annual registration renewal every year or the asset evaporates; in the escrow-held structure that sits on the lessor's side and should be in writing with proof of payment. The ICA template requires the domain be moved to a neutral escrow account controlled by the escrow provider, with the lessee getting exclusive nameserver control through the provider's panel — Escrow.com productises exactly this as Domain Name Holding — and the template provides that the lessee typically pays the escrow fees. Domainwheel puts indicative escrow DNS administration at roughly $40 a month for managed DNS, or $25 if the buyer takes it over. If any of those land on you rather than the lessee, subtract them from the monthly figure this calculator gives you.
What this calculator does not tell you
It does not tell you that anyone will lease your domain, at this rate or any other. It does not know your domain's value — you supply that, and if the estimate is wrong every output is wrong in the same proportion. It does not price the risk that a lessee spams the name, gets it blacklisted or attracts a search penalty, damage that Elliot Silver notes "can persist long after the lease ends." It does not account for the goodwill and trademark clauses that make a lease safe, or for the possibility that a lessee transacting through a shell company simply stops paying. And it cannot tell the difference between a true rental and a lease-to-own plan, which is the product most platforms actually sell. Leasing is not passive income; it is a small operating business with legal exposure attached.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a domain actually lease for?
Nobody can tell you reliably, because there is no public dataset of domain lease rates comparable to sales databases. The most-cited practitioner heuristic is 1–3% of estimated outright sale price per month (DomainCashflow), so a $50,000 domain might be quoted at $500–$1,500 a month. Published tiers elsewhere range from $50–$200 monthly for entry-level names to $500–$5,000+ for premium. Treat all of it as asking-price guidance.
Where does the 1–3% per month rule come from?
From seller-side content and practitioner convention, not from measured transactions. It is the only figure with any cross-source support, and it implies an annual yield on asset value of 12% to 36% — very high, which is the tell that it describes what owners ask rather than what lessees pay. Present it to a prospective lessee as your position, and expect a negotiation.
What annual yield should I target?
That is a judgement about your alternatives, not a market fact. The commonly quoted band works out to 12–36% a year on estimated value. Lower yields make the domain easier to lease and the lease slower to repay its setup cost; higher yields do the reverse. Whatever you pick, check the resulting monthly figure against the legal and escrow overhead before treating it as viable.
Why doesn't leasing work on a $5,000 domain?
Because the overhead eats it. Elliot Silver puts pre-revenue legal cost at "several hundred dollars (perhaps over $1,000)" with escrow adding hundreds more, and warns that on low-value names "it will take almost a year to cover the legal fees alone" (DomainInvesting). At a few hundred dollars a month you spend the first year working for your own lawyer. Sell it instead.
Who pays the renewal and the escrow fees?
Whoever the contract says, which is why the contract matters. Under the ICA's annotated lease agreement the domain moves into a neutral escrow account controlled by the escrow provider, the lessee gets nameserver control through the provider's panel, and the lessee typically pays the escrow fees. The annual registration renewal sits on the lessor side in that structure. Get it in writing and get proof of payment, every year.
Is a lease the same thing as lease-to-own?
No, and most platform products are the latter. A lease is a rental: payments buy use, and the domain returns to you at the end. Lease-to-own is a financed sale: payments buy equity and the domain transfers when they complete. Afternic's product is literally named Lease to Own. If you want recurring revenue and to keep the asset, the purchase-option clause is the single biggest fork in the negotiation — and lessees will fight for it.