Guides
Guides to buying and valuing usernames
Practical guides on choosing, valuing and buying rare and premium usernames — by length, by platform and by use case.
How to buy a rare username safely, step by step
Buying a username is not like buying a domain. There is no registrar, no public WHOIS record and no central authority that will move a handle from one account to…
5 min read
How to value a username: the factors that actually move the price
There is no price list for usernames. There are, however, consistent factors that explain most of the variation between a handle that sells for $300 and one that…
4 min read
How escrow works for a username transfer
Every username deal contains one dangerous moment: the point where one party has both the payment and the asset. Escrow exists to remove that moment. Understanding…
4 min read
How to sell a username without getting scammed
Selling a username is mostly a filtering problem. There is no shortage of people who will express interest; there is a shortage of people who will actually pay. This…
4 min read
How to spot a username scam before it costs you
Username fraud is not creative. The same handful of structures repeat, because they work on the same predictable pressure: a buyer who wants a scarce thing and is…
3 min read
3-letter usernames: why 17,576 combinations set the price
Three-letter usernames are the point where scarcity stops being a talking point and becomes arithmetic. There are 17,576 possible three-letter combinations using the…
3 min read
4-letter usernames: the practical sweet spot
Four-letter handles are where most serious buyers end up. They are short enough to feel deliberate, long enough that real words are still obtainable, and priced far…
3 min read
OG usernames: what the term means and what it costs
"OG" gets applied loosely enough that buyers often pay a premium without a clear idea of what they are paying for. It is worth defining precisely, because the…
2 min read
How to buy a Telegram username
Telegram has the most developed username market of any major platform. Handles are treated openly as transferable assets, which means more liquidity, more comparable…
2 min read
How to buy an Instagram username
Instagram has the largest demand for short handles of any platform and some of the highest friction in moving them. That combination — heavy demand, awkward supply —…
2 min read
How to buy an X (Twitter) handle
X carries two decades of accumulated registrations, which means the good handles were claimed early and many now sit on dormant accounts. That backdrop shapes the…
2 min read
How to buy a TikTok username
TikTok is the youngest of the major handle markets, which cuts both ways. Supply of short names is thinner than on older platforms because growth was so fast, and…
2 min read
How to buy a Snapchat username
Snapchat is the most constrained of the major handle markets. Usernames there historically could not be changed at all, which created a market defined almost…
2 min read
2-letter usernames: 676 names, almost none for sale
Two-letter handles are the scarcest category that still trades at all. There are 676 possible combinations using the Latin alphabet — fewer than the seats in a…
2 min read
5-letter usernames: where meaning beats scarcity
Five-letter handles sit at the point where the scarcity argument runs out. There are 11,881,376 five-letter combinations — enough that supply alone no longer sets…
2 min read
Brandable usernames: what makes a handle work as a brand
"Brandable" is used loosely enough to mean almost nothing. Used precisely, it describes a handle that can carry a business's identity without friction: sayable,…
3 min read
How a username transfer actually works
Every username deal resolves into one of two structures. They look similar from the outside and behave very differently when something goes wrong, so agreeing which…
3 min read
Trademark risk when buying a username
Owning a handle and having the right to use it are different things. Platforms operate trademark complaint processes, and a valid claim can remove a handle from your…
2 min read
Buying a handle versus renaming what you have
Before spending anything on a handle, it is worth being precise about what buying gets you that renaming does not — because for a large share of cases, the answer is…
2 min read
How to check whether a username is really available
Typing a handle into a signup form tells you one thing: whether the platform will let you take it right now. It does not tell you why not, and the why is the whole…
3 min read
How to negotiate for a username
Most attempts to buy a handle from its holder fail at the first message. Not because the price was wrong — because the message read like the twentieth identical one…
3 min read
Aesthetic usernames: what the term means and what drives price
"Aesthetic" is the loosest label in the handle market, which makes it the easiest to overpay inside. Used with any precision it means a handle whose appeal is how it…
2 min read
Gaming usernames: what carries value and what does not
Gaming handles are the part of the market where the rules differ most, and where assuming social-platform norms will cost you. Some games treat a name as fully…
2 min read
Choosing a username for a startup
A startup's handle is chosen once, early, usually in a hurry, and then carried for years. The cost of choosing badly is not the handle — it is every mention that…
3 min read