Education
How Domain Drops Work and How to Catch One
Founder, Notify.domains · ex-GoDaddy Director of Education · founder, DomainSherpa & DNAcademy
You saw a domain you want is about to drop and you want to be the person who registers it. Here is what really happens in those final seconds: the registry releases the name at a scheduled time, and professional drop-catchers fire thousands of register commands per second to grab it. Understanding the drop tells you why refreshing at your registrar almost never wins — and what does.
The drop itself
The drop is a scheduled registry event. For .com and .net, Verisign processes deletions daily, usually between 11am and 2pm Pacific. The names in pending delete that hit their five-day mark get released in a batch. The instant a name is released, any registrar that has a connection to the registry can register it again.
The race takes milliseconds. A drop-catcher with, say, 100 ICANN-accredited registrars can submit 100 register requests at once. A second drop-catcher with 200 accreditations can submit 200. The registry processes requests in the order they arrive. Whoever gets in first wins.
Who the drop-catchers are
A handful of companies dominate the drop-catching market. Each takes backorders from customers, tries to catch the name at the drop, and charges you if they win.
- DropCatch. The largest dedicated drop-catch operation, with hundreds of ICANN accreditations. Strong catch rate on .com. Backorder fee is charged only if they win.
- Gname. Major drop-catch and backorder player with broad gTLD and ccTLD coverage.
- SnapNames and NameJet. Both are Web.com brands; they share a large backorder and auction pool. Most competitive buyers place backorders at one or both alongside DropCatch and Gname.
The practical takeaway: do not pick one. Put backorders at several. If multiple drop-catchers catch the name from different backorderers, it often ends up in a private auction among them.
What it actually costs to try
Most drop-catchers charge nothing up front. You place a backorder for $59 to $99 and only pay if they catch the name. If multiple customers backordered the same name, they run a private auction among those customers, and you pay the auction result (which you can set a ceiling on).
The catch rate on a specific popular name from any single drop-catcher is often in the single digits. That is why people who chase drops seriously spread backorders across three or four services and keep a maximum-bid budget in mind.
When the drop is not the play
Most valuable names never drop. They get pulled into a registrar auction in the grace or redemption phase and sell to the highest bidder there. If you only watch the drop, you miss the window.
The right move is to watch status changes across the whole lifecycle. When a name appears on GoDaddy Auctions during grace, you can bid there. If it ends up in pending delete, you place backorders. If the name changes hands silently, you get notified so you can decide whether to approach the new owner.
Solution
Catch Dropping Domains Before Your Competitors
Know the exact moment a domain enters pending delete, when the drop happens, and whether a drop-catcher caught it. Watch any name for free for 7 days.
Frequently asked questions
What time do domains drop?
How do I catch a dropping domain?
How much does it cost to backorder a domain?
Can I beat drop-catchers myself?
Related reading
What Happens When a Domain Expires
A plain-English walkthrough of what happens after a domain expires: auto-renew grace, redemption, pending delete, and the drop. Timelines and who controls what.
Domain Backorders: How They Actually Work
What a domain backorder is, what it costs, which drop-catchers to use, and why placing backorders at several services is the standard play on competitive names.
Why You Did Not Get the Domain Even Though It Expired
You watched a domain expire, refreshed for days, and someone else got it. Here is exactly what happened, and what you can do to catch the next one.