Knowing how much your website is worth is important, whether you plan to sell it or just want to track its growth. Buying and selling websites is a big business, and understanding your site’s worth can help you make smarter decisions.
Even if you’re not planning to sell, knowing your website’s value can be super motivating. It shows you how far you’ve come and what your site has achieved.
In our 16+ years of helping WordPress users around the globe, we’ve seen that understanding a site’s worth helps owners stay focused on their goals. As a result, they become more strategic about their investments.
So, the big questions are: how do we find out how much our website is worth, and where do we start?
In this article, we’ll guide you through how to figure out the real value of your website. We’ll also cover some basics about buying and selling websites.
Here’s a quick overview of the topics we will cover in this article:
Ready? Let’s begin.
Why Find Out Your Website’s Worth?
Buying and selling websites is one of the most popular online business ideas. Each day, thousands of people make websites to launch their businesses online.
If you keep working on growing your WordPress website and business, then with each passing day, the value of your website will keep increasing.
So, finding out the true market value of your website helps you achieve the following:
- Motivation: You can visualize your website’s potential market value in real numbers. This information can be a motivational tool to help you grow your online business to the next milestone.
- Strategize: You can see what makes a website particularly attractive for potential buyers and start adding value to your own website.
- Compare offers: Perhaps someone has already offered to buy your website, and you want to see how much your website is worth in the market.
- Make a Selling Decision: Maybe you’re just exploring your options and want to move on to some other project if you can get the right price for your website.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at what factors affect a website’s potential worth.
What Factors Affect a Website’s Value?
The following are some of the most important factors that affect a website’s worth and potential value on the market.
These are the most common elements that a potential buyer will look into to determine the potential worth of your website.
However, some factors may be less or more important than others depending on your website’s niche and the buyer’s interest in your business.
- Website Earnings
Website earnings refer to the amount of money your website earned during the last few months. Potential buyers will look at this information to see how much money they will be able to make after buying your website.
They will also look into your site’s sources of income, which can include AdSense or other advertisement revenue, affiliate marketing income, products sold in your online store, and more.
Typically, potential buyers consider websites with more than one source of income to be more valuable.
A potential buyer may also consider a website’s profits. Profit is usually calculated by subtracting operating costs from total revenue.
Websites with no earnings are usually harder to sell. However, a buyer may still be interested in overall traffic, subscribers, and other factors that could potentially bring them good business.
2. Traffic Analytics
Websites with higher traffic attract more interest from potential buyers and are generally considered more valuable.
To get an idea of your website’s traffic analytics, you can use a plugin like MonsterInsights. It is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It helps you collect historical traffic analytics data, which will be useful in determining your website’s worth.
First, you need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. For more details, you can see our tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, the plugin will ask you to connect MonsterInsights to your Google Analytics account. Simply follow the on-screen instructions to finish the setup.
Once connected, you can view your website’s traffic reports by visiting the Insights » Reports page in the WordPress admin area.
However, pageviews and website visitors alone do not guarantee a higher price for a website. Other traffic analytics also affect a website’s potential market value.
For instance, the geographic location of website visitors, how much time they spend on your website, conversion rates, and other factors may also be considered during the evaluation.
Another important factor is the type of traffic you are getting to your website.
For instance, organic traffic coming from search engines is considered more valuable than paid traffic coming through advertisements and affiliate partners.
MonsterInsights will help you capture all this data, present it in human-readable format, and let you export it as PDF files to share with potential buyers.
For more information, you can see our guide on how to track website visitors to your WordPress site.
3. Domain Authority
Domain authority (DA) refers to a website’s potential reputation on search engines. Websites with higher reputations have more authority and are often ranked higher much quicker than other websites.
Search engines like Google don’t generally offer data like domain reputation. However, several third-party services, such as Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz, offer their own domain authority testers.
For example, let’s quickly look at how to check your domain authority using Semrush.
Once you have signed in to your Semrush account, you’ll want to go to the ‘Domain Overview’ section and enter your domain name.
You will then find your domain authority score under the ‘Authority Score,’ along with the ‘Semrush Domain Rank’ value. The higher the number, the better your domain authority.
Here are some basic factors that these tools consider to determine your domain authority:
- Age of a domain name, which means when your domain name was first registered.
- Backlinks from third-party websites pointing to that domain name.
- Internal links pointing to different areas of a domain name.
- How often search engines rank your website.
- The average of your search engine ranking positions (SERPs).
Generally, it takes a lot of time and consistency to build a higher domain authority.
If you are just starting a blog or a website, then you should first focus on establishing your brand reputation and domain authority.
A good place to start is our WordPress SEO guide for beginners, which walks you through the proper SEO setup for your website from day one.
Other ways to improve your website’s SEO:
- Optimize your top articles for SEO
- Boost WordPress performance and speed
- Follow Google E-E-A-T Guidelines to build authority
4. Additional Assets Accompanying Your Website
Selling a website means selling the business associated with your website, its brand reputation, and other digital and physical assets.
All of them add value to your website’s potential worth on the market.
For instance, a typical WordPress blog may have an active email newsletter, social media profiles, a YouTube channel, a Facebook group, and more.
Let’s say you are selling digital downloads. The rights to those digital downloads will add more value to your website.
Similarly, if you run an eCommerce store with an inventory to manage, then that stock will add more value to your website.
Additionally, your business contacts with vendors, suppliers, and affiliate partners will add more value to your website if they are willing to work with the new owner.
Buying and Selling Website Domains
Often, a potential buyer may want to purchase a website just to get the domain name. Your website’s domain name could be worth a lot more than the contents of the website itself.
Here are some scenarios when a potential customer may want to get a domain name:
- The domain name matches the name of a startup and growing brand.
- Some domain names are meaningful and more marketable for some other businesses.
- Businesses may want to use clever domain names as short URLs.
- It’s a high-authority domain name with healthy backlinks and an excellent SEO reputation.
These domain names are often referred to as premium domain names. Your website may seem not particularly profitable, but the domain name could still be valuable and attract potential buyers.
There are several domain appraisal tools available online that can help you find a rough estimate of your domain name’s potential value.
For instance, GoDaddy’s domain appraisal tool generates an estimate by considering a domain’s age, uniqueness, extension, and other factors.
You simply need to visit the free GoDaddy domain appraisal tool and enter your domain name.
However, domain appraisal tools are not perfect, and your domain’s actual value could be a lot higher or lower than the appraisal value.
You can even sell your domain name separately using platforms like GoDaddy Domain Auctions. This is a domain name marketplace where interested buyers can bid on listed domain names to buy them.
To list your domain name, you’ll need to sign up for a GoDaddy Auctions membership, which costs $4.99 per year.
Here are some other domain name marketplaces that you can explore to sell your premium domain name:
Website Worth Calculator
A website value calculator is an online tool for calculating your website’s potential worth based on the information you provide.
This information includes website traffic analytics, estimated earnings, social media profiles, email lists, and more.
However, keep in mind that these website value calculators are appraisal tools and only provide an estimate. You need to carefully use this information to make your own business decisions.
Quick Website Value Calculation Formula
Before you use an online website value calculator, you can use the following formula to get a basic estimate of your website’s potential worth.
Basically, a website’s potential worth can be anywhere between 20-50 times the monthly website earnings.
For instance, if a website makes $1000 per month, then its potential value could be anywhere between $20,000 to $50,000.
Now, that’s a huge range, and an online website appraisal tool can help you narrow it down.
Online Website Value Calculators
Let’s take a look at some popular website appraisal tools on the market.
1. Flippa
Flippa is the largest online marketplace to buy and sell websites and online businesses. They offer a free website valuation service where you can answer a few questions to get an estimated worth of your website.
Just go to the Flippa website and click the ‘Get a Free Valuation’ button at the top.
This will launch Flippa’s free online website valuation tool.
Simply answer a few on-screen questions to continue. Flippa will ask you questions like the age of your business, how much monthly revenue you make, the number of monthly visitors you get, and more.
After completing the survey, Flippa will calculate an estimated value for your website based on the information you provided.
It will show you the information and a preview of what your website listing on Flippa would look like.
You can activate your Flippa listing by paying the listing fee. This will make your website appear on Flippa’s site for sale listings.
Note: Apart from the listing fee, Flippa will charge a commission fee when your website is sold.
Empire Flippers is another popular marketplace for buying and selling online businesses. Their free website valuation tool is fast and helps you get a quick estimate of your website’s worth.
You simply need to choose your main monetization method and then answer some questions about your website’s age and how long you spend on your business per week.
Empire Flippers will then ask you your average monthly gross revenue and monthly net profit. Finally, you will be asked about your monthly website visitors, email subscribers, revenue channels, and social media followers.
Empire Flippers will then send you an email with an estimated low and high price for your website. The low price can be set as a starting point when you want to sell your website quickly. You can use the higher price if you can wait for a higher bid.
Where to Sell Your Website
Selling your website is similar to selling any other business. It has potential legal and financial aspects that you need to get right to protect your interests.
We recommend using a trustworthy online marketplace platform to sell your business. Here are some of the popular website marketplaces that you can check out:
- Flippa: The biggest online marketplace for buying and selling online businesses. It has a large community of prospective buyers and sellers, which makes it easy to get a better offer for your website.
- Empire Flippers: Another popular online marketplace where you can buy and sell websites. It has a smaller community than Flippa and doesn’t accept websites earning less than $500 in profits per month.
- MotionInvest: A growing marketplace for online businesses and websites.
How to Sell Your Website at the Highest Price
Selling a website can be a complicated process. A beginner user may end up selling their website at a much lower price than its true potential.
Here are a few tips to help you get the best offer for your website.
Reach Out to Potential Buyers on Social Media
There may be potential buyers in your own network that could be interested in your business. You can try advertising on your social media accounts. The advantage of this approach is that you can reach a deal much quicker than waiting for offers in an online marketplace.
Know Your Website’s True Worth
Online website worth checkers can only give you an estimate of your website’s value. However, your site could be worth more than that.
Consider the potential earnings of your website over the months and years when setting an asking price for your it.
Set a Realistic Buy Now Price
The buy-now price is the minimum price that you are expecting for your website. Setting it too high will make it difficult to sell your website.
If you don’t need to sell your website urgently, then you can set it a bit higher and wait for better offers.
Grow Your Website to Get Better Offers
Are you not getting any good offers for your website? Maybe your website needs a little more work to be more attractive to potential buyers.
You can start by growing your website traffic, boosting your sales, increasing your revenue, and more.
You can also add more value to your website with email marketing, growing social media following, and adding user-generated content to your website.
Frequently Asked Questions About Selling Websites
The following are some of the most commonly asked questions by users trying to calculate their website worth.
1. What is my website worth?
Your website’s worth can be calculated using its monthly revenue and profits, number of visitors, and accompanying digital assets like its domain name, social media and email list subscribers, backlinks, and more.
2. Which website-worth calculator is the best?
Flippa‘s website worth calculator is the best free website valuation calculator on the market. It uses the information you provide and compares it with historical data from its website marketplace. Then, it comes up with an estimated value of your website’s market worth.
3. How can I improve my website’s worth?
You can improve your website’s worth by growing its revenue and making it more profitable. Additionally, growing your organic traffic, building an email list, growing your social media following, and getting high-quality backlinks can also help increase your website’s potential value.
We hope this article helped you answer how much your website is worth. You may also want to see our guide on easy ways to make money online with your website and our expert picks of the best WordPress ad management plugins and solutions.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Dennis Muthomi
I own five blogs and two of them are test sites,as someone looking to potentially sell one of my site in the future….
my question is :- how important is the website’s age and history when assessing its worth?
does an older, more established site typically command a higher price than a newer site with similar metrics? thanks for the informative post!
WPBeginner Comments
The age is not the only factor that adds value; other factors, such as the traffic and sales from the site, can be important as well.
That said, the age of the domain can play a role in the site’s value.
Dennis Muthomi
got it, thanks for the additional context! It’s good to have a well-rounded view of what drives a website’s value. Sounds like age, while relevant, is just one piece of the bigger picture.
thanks for taking the time to clarify and reply!
Jiří Vaněk
The age of the website or domain also plays a role in so-called domain authority. This is a metric from the company MOZ, which some might consider. Domain authority includes factors such as the age of the domain, traffic, SEO, and many other aspects. So yes, in some cases, the age of the domain and website can work in your favor.
Oyatogun Oluwaseun Samuel
Great Question Dennis, The age and history of a website can indeed play a significant role in its valuation. Generally an older, more established website with proven track record of organic traffic and revenue is seen as less ricky and more attractive to buyers because it demonstrates stability and reliability which are key factors in assessing a website worth. However other factors like niche relevance, growth potential and revenue streams also heavily influence the final valuation. So while older site might have an edge, a newer site with strong metric and high growth potential can still command a competitive edge.
Jiří Vaněk
Thanks for the great article. I immediately tried to estimate the price of my own website, at least out of curiosity. I didn’t even know such tools existed. Also great for estimating the price of work on a website, or when buying a website.
Moinuddin Waheed
Selling website is just as amazing as creating it for generating revenue as it has all the potential to give you one time capital that you can utilise for other businesses.
I was not aware about the fact that websites are buy sold in the marketplace and has such a demand.
it means we can open an online store for selling affiliate products and when want to transition we can easily sell it online like we do with physical stores.
thank you wpbeginner for creating awareness around this business.
WPBeginner Support
You’re welcome, glad we could share how find a site’s worth
Admin
A Owadud Bhuiyan
Informative article, and it will really helpful for beginners and bloggers.
Thanks
WPBeginner Support
You’re welcome
Admin
Ahmed Omar
Thanks for this comprehensive guide.
The breakdown of factors affecting a website’s value, such as earnings, traffic analytics, domain authority, and additional assets, provides a clear understanding of what potential seller might consider.
I appreciate the practical tips on strategizing, comparing offers, and making informed selling decisions. The insights on domain authority and the importance of various assets accompanying a website add valuable depth to the discussion.
WPBeginner Support
Glad you found our guide helpful
Admin
Ram E.
Very interesting read. Reminds me of the time when I sold my first ever blog and I didn’t know all these information back then.
For average traffic sites that rely on Adsense revenue, I think using Adsense earnings as the main basis for worth calculation would result in underestimation. Instead, one should put more weight on the quality of the traffic and how the potential buyer can monetize it.
A blog with lots of good content can become the content marketing arm of an ecommerce store after the acquisition. There is already an overlap of interests in the users of both sites, allowing the store to attract more potential buyers.
Ralph
Really interesting article. I’m in the proccess on creating new portal just for ads and affiliate marketing that is not connected to me personally. I want to make it my passive income and don’t care about comments “Ralph why you are not posting anything new”. I want to post when i want and if i lose interest, sell it as working business. This is great guide for it.
However my personal blog was valued for less than $100 by go daddy and 75-89k by flippa. So better just use such tools for first impression, but do the math yourself.
WPBeginner Support
Using best judgement and having what the tools tell you as starting points is normally a good plan
Admin