Type a handle, yours or one you want. Our engine compares it to 100+ documented handle sales and gives you a price range in about a minute.
Get a price range, accept it, prove the handle is yours with a short code in your bio, and your listing goes live to verified buyers. Listing is free. We charge a fee only when it sells. We list handles worth $5,000 and up.
Sell My HandleBrowse verified listings, or tell us what you want and we match you when it appears. For purchases of $50,000 and up, the Private Office does everything for you: we find the owner, negotiate without naming you, and run escrow and transfer.
The first thing an owner does is look at who sent the message. A funded brand, a growing startup, a verified account: the asking price multiplies before you have said a number. Handlebuy approaches the owner without naming you. Your name stays out of it until the purchase agreement is signed, so the price stays grounded.
The best evidence comes from domain names, where the same dynamic is better documented. When an owner learns a well-funded company is the buyer, asking prices jump 30 to 300 percent overnight. In one documented case a $20,000 ask rose past $100,000 after the seller identified a Fortune 500 buyer. In another, a seller quoted $75,000 to a visible startup, and an intermediary who never named the client closed the same domain at $42,000. Handles work the same way, and that gap usually covers our fee several times over.
Sources: BuyerAxis – anonymous domain acquisition records · Name Experts – 2026 domain pricing guide
A professional negotiates every deal, licensed escrow holds the money, and the number you see is the number you wire. Buyers pay the price and nothing else. Sellers pay a fee only when the sale closes.
Typical price ranges by kind of handle, based on our 100+ documented sales.
Illustrative ranges modeled from documented third-party sales, not Handlebuy transactions.
We keep a record of 100+ documented handle sales and fitted a valuation model to it. Every negotiation starts from what similar handles have actually sold for, so we know the right price before the first conversation.
For purchases of $50,000 and up, a senior broker runs the whole thing: finding the owner, approaching them without naming you, negotiating, contracting, escrow and transfer. Below $50,000, place a free demand order and we match you automatically when the right handle appears.
We work out who actually controls the handle, whether that is the original owner, whoever runs it now, or an estate, and make contact even when there is no public way to reach them.
Your identity is never disclosed while we negotiate. The owner quotes a price to a broker, not to your company.
Offers anchored to comparable sales, made in stages, plus creative structures such as earn-outs, package deals and handle swaps when cash alone will not move an owner.
A purchase and transfer agreement written for handles, signed before any money moves. Your lawyer can review it.
Your money is held by a licensed escrow company. It is released only after our team confirms you control the login, recovery email, phone number and two-factor settings.
After handover we lock the account down: sign out every old session, change every credential, set up hardware-key two-factor and check every recovery path. The handle stays yours.
The engagement fee is credited in full against the success fee when the deal closes. If we cannot get your handle, we tell you quickly and tell you why.
Type your handle and our engine gives you a price range on the spot. Accept it, prove the handle is yours with a short code in your bio, and your listing goes live to verified buyers. The whole thing takes under five minutes.
Type the handle. The engine compares it to 100+ documented handle sales and gives you a price range in about thirty seconds. We list handles worth $5,000 and up. If yours prices below that today, we hold your place and re-price it every quarter.
Accept your price range, then put a short code in your bio so we can confirm the handle is yours. No passwords, no account access. Your listing then goes live to verified buyers with the handle hidden.
Verified buyers sign an NDA to see your handle, and open demand orders are matched to it automatically. Every offer comes with a deposit behind it, a 72-hour window to respond, and our recommendation.
When you accept an offer, the buyer pays into licensed escrow before any transfer begins. Our team supervises the handover, confirms the buyer has control, and escrow pays you. As little as two days from offer to paid.
Our fee is a percentage of the sale price, taken out when escrow pays you. No listing fee, no renewal fee, and no fee if it does not sell.
Example: a $60,000 sale pays you $52,800. The buyer pays into licensed escrow before you hand over anything, and you never write us a check. The fee comes out when escrow pays you. You are paid by wire or ACH; crypto on request.
Every buyer has verified their identity and signed an NDA, and every offer comes with a 5% deposit behind it. When your phone buzzes, it is a real buyer.
Your handle is shown only to verified buyers, and your name only on the purchase agreement.
The buyer pays into licensed escrow before you hand over anything. Our team walks both sides through the transfer step by step.
A standard Private Office purchase takes about seven days from your brief to a verified handover. Escrow is set up in advance and the transfer steps are fixed, so the time goes into negotiation, not paperwork. Hard-to-reach owners can take longer. You will know that at step two, not on day six.
You tell us the handle you want, any alternatives you would accept, your maximum budget and your timeline. Both sides sign an NDA before anything else happens.
We look at the handle: how active it is, who appears to own it, and what comparable handles have sold for. You get a written go or no-go, an expected price range and our estimate of the odds. Only then do you decide to proceed and pay the engagement fee.
We identify the real owner and reach them, directly or through people who know them. The first message never mentions you. We find out whether they would sell and get an opening number.
We make offers in stages, each anchored to comparable sales. You approve every number before it goes to the owner. Nothing is committed without your written sign-off.
Both sides sign the purchase agreement. Your money goes to a licensed escrow company, never to us and never straight to the seller. Escrow is set up on day one, so this step is a signature, not a wait.
The seller hands over the login, recovery email, phone number and two-factor settings under our supervision. Our team confirms you alone control the account, locks it down, and only then does escrow pay the seller.
It varies enormously. Six-character niche handles can sell for a few thousand dollars. Short dictionary words, first names and three- or four-character handles routinely reach five and six figures, and a handful of category-defining handles have sold for more. In the end the price is set by one person’s willingness to sell, which is why how you approach them matters more than any appraisal. Run the valuation for a free price range, or for a Private Office purchase, our feasibility review gives you an expected range before you spend anything beyond the engagement fee.
Candidly: most platforms’ terms of use, including Instagram’s and X’s, prohibit selling or transferring usernames, and a platform can reclaim or disable a handle it believes was sold. There is no way to make that risk zero, and we will not pretend otherwise. What we do is structure every deal to keep it as low as possible: full account transfers rather than username swaps where the platform allows it, a clean handover of every credential, a gradual change to the profile, a purchase agreement that stands on its own, and escrow terms that protect your money until control is confirmed. You should weigh this risk before you start, and we discuss it openly in every feasibility review.
Some searches end in a clear no. When that happens you keep everything we learned, who owns it, what they said and what might change their mind, and we move to your alternative handles at no extra engagement fee. We never pester owners. A firm no closes the file.
No. Anonymous outreach means we do not reveal who our client is. It does not mean we hide who we are. We introduce ourselves as a brokerage with a qualified buyer. Deception poisons a negotiation and creates legal risk for you.
After the purchase agreement is signed, the buyer’s money goes to a licensed escrow company, not to us and not to the seller. The seller hands over the account under our supervision. We confirm the buyer alone controls it (login, recovery email, phone number and two-factor settings) and run a security check. Only then does escrow pay the seller. If the transfer fails that check, the money goes back to the buyer. Payment is by wire or ACH, with crypto (USDC or BTC) on request. Buyers pay the price and nothing else: no buyer premium and no escrow surcharge.
Sellers: listing is free. Our fee comes out when escrow pays you: 15% on sales under $25,000, 12% from $25,000 to $100,000, and 8% above that. Marketplace buyers pay nothing beyond the price. A Private Office purchase ($50,000 and up) carries a $10,000 engagement fee, credited back at closing, plus a 10% success fee. Demand orders are free until you buy.
Because escrow, a supervised transfer and buyer verification cost the same on a $2,000 handle as on a $200,000 one, and below $5,000 that cannot be done properly at any fair fee. Rather than do it badly, we put handles below the floor on a waitlist and re-price them every quarter. Short and single-word handles have gone up 20 to 30 percent since 2024, so the floor tends to come to you.
Either one. You choose when you run the valuation. A full account transfer includes the handle, the followers and the content, and is priced accordingly, because the size of the audience is one of the biggest drivers of value. A handle-only deal means you get the name and nothing else, so the engine prices it as if the account had no audience. Sellers who want to keep their followers under a new name choose handle-only and get less. Buyers who want a running start pay for the full account. Some platforms do not allow a handle to be passed to another account at all, and the valuation tells you when that applies. Both kinds of deal close through the same escrow and supervised transfer.
Because it makes your offer real. Every offer comes with a 5% deposit (minimum $500), so the seller sees money behind the number. That is why sellers here answer within 72 hours instead of going quiet. The deposit counts toward the purchase at closing, is refunded automatically if the offer is declined or expires, and is at risk only if you walk away after both sides have accepted. It works like earnest money in real estate, for the same reason. Private Office purchases carry an engagement fee instead, and demand orders stay free.
We give you a short code and you put it in your bio. Our team checks it within one business day, and you delete it once your listing is confirmed live. We never ask for passwords, never send login links and never message you first. If someone claiming to be Handlebuy does, it is not us. We work this way because handle owners are prime phishing targets, and a verified owner is what lets buyers trust a listing they cannot fully see.
Active accounts are harder and more expensive than inactive ones, but they sell all the time. Owners rebrand, consolidate, or simply hear the right number. How active the account is goes into the feasibility review.
Consumer brands about to launch or rebrand, funded startups matching their handle to a trademark, talent and their managers, and funds buying digital assets. Most clients come by referral. All are verified and under NDA.
Your price range appears here in about a minute, based on 100+ documented handle sales.
Every price range on this site comes from a valuation model fitted to 100+ documented username sales: public auctions, platform enforcement filings, marketplace records and on-chain sales, each recorded by length, type, category, activity and age. The summary numbers are published below. The individual comparable sales are shared with clients.
A representative sample. The full evidence set runs from everyday handles to seven-figure auction sales.
Three characters and up are the median documented sale at that length. One and two characters have no documented closes, so the engine re-prices every documented handle at that length and takes the median. Your own price range moves with type, category, activity and age.
The Handlebuy valuation engine is a statistical model (a log-linear regression) fitted to 100+ documented sales. It learns how much each feature of a handle is worth: its length, its type (a word, a name, initials), its category, how active the account is and how old it is. Out of sample it explains about 96% of the variation in price. Each estimate is then blended with the most similar documented sales. Crypto-auction prices are scaled down before fitting because that premium does not carry over to other platforms. First-name handles get a demand multiplier based on how common the name is in U.S. Census data, tilted toward names popular today. One- and two-character handles have no documented sales, so their ranges are extrapolated and shown wider.
The sales on this page come from public records and third-party marketplaces. They were not brokered by Handlebuy and are shown only as market evidence.
Sending a brief commits you to nothing. We reply within one business day with an NDA and a link to book a call. The engagement fee is due only if you decide to proceed after the feasibility review.
Your brief is with our team. Expect an NDA and an invitation to a feasibility call at within one business day.
Every listing is owner-verified and priced by our engine. The profile and price range are public. The handle itself is shown to verified buyers who sign an NDA. Six-figure listings require a refundable deposit. Do not see what you need? Place a demand order and we keep looking for you.
The middle of your price range sits under our $5,000 floor, but the top of it clears it. A pricing analyst will review it within one business day. Leave an email and we will come back with a decision.
We list handles worth $5,000 and up, and yours prices below that today. Markets move: three-letter and single-word handles are up 20 to 30 percent since 2024. Join the waitlist and we re-price it every quarter and tell you the moment it clears.
Our fee: 15% under $25,000 · 12% from $25,000 to $100,000 · 8% above. Taken out when escrow pays you. Listing is free.
Add this code anywhere in your profile bio, then continue. Our team checks it within one business day and emails you the moment your listing is live – keep the code up until then. We never ask for credentials, and we never DM you first.
Your listing goes live with the handle hidden. Buyers see the profile and price range, and the handle only after they verify their identity and sign an NDA. You approve every offer, and the buyer pays into licensed escrow before any transfer begins.
If we reached out, it is because our engine priced your handle above our $5,000 floor, often by a lot. Enter it below to see the appraisal we have on file. No obligation, and no account needed to look.
Verified buyers and open demand orders are active in this price range right now. Listing takes under five minutes and costs nothing until it sells.
Describe the handle you want, or roughly what it should look like. Every new listing and every private submission is checked against your order. When one matches, both sides get an automatic, anonymous introduction. It is free until you buy, and your name stays out of it, which matters: owners quote a broker a lower number than they quote a visible buyer.
Your demand order is now checked against every current and future listing. You get an automatic introduction the moment something matches. No fee unless you buy.
Working draft · effective September 10, 2026 · formal counsel review scheduled. Questions: desk@handlebuy.gg
Information you submit through the site: your email address, the handles you value or list, account details you provide about those handles (followers, vintage, category), offers and demand orders, and correspondence with our team. With your consent, minimal analytics data about how the site is used. To effectuate and document a transaction, we also collect information about transaction counterparties – the other party's name, contact details, wallet or payout information, and identity-verification records – whether provided by you, by them, or by our escrow provider.
Handlebuy uses AI systems in operating the service: our valuation engine prices handles algorithmically against documented sales, and we use AI-assisted tooling for screening, drafting, and support. Automated valuations are estimates, not offers, and material decisions – listing approvals, trademark screens, transaction terms – are reviewed by a human before they take effect.
Records live in access-controlled databases; the public website can write submissions but cannot read them, and we maintain no public storage buckets. We share data only with the processors needed to run the service – hosting (Cloudflare), database (Supabase), payments (Stripe), analytics (PostHog, consent-gated), scheduling, email delivery, and the licensed escrow provider handling your transaction. We do not sell personal data, and we never disclose a client's identity to a counterparty except as the transaction documents require.
Email desk@handlebuy.gg to access, correct, or delete your data, or to opt out of communications; every marketing email also carries an unsubscribe link. We retain transaction records as required for legal and escrow-documentation purposes, and delete or anonymize the rest when no longer needed.
Working draft · effective September 10, 2026 · formal counsel review scheduled. Questions: desk@handlebuy.gg
Handlebuy operates a brokerage and marketplace for social media handles. We are not a party to any sale except as the broker of record. Money moves only through a licensed third-party escrow company and never through our accounts. You must be 18 or older and legally able to enter a contract.
Sellers warrant that they lawfully own and control what they list. Hijacked or stolen accounts, trademark-infringing handles, and misrepresentation of account history are prohibited and result in removal and a ban. Contacting a counterparty outside the platform to circumvent fees is a breach of these terms.
Listing is free. A tiered seller fee (15% under $25,000, 12% to $100,000, 8% above) is deducted at escrow release. Offers carry a 5% deposit (minimum $500) held as a card authorization: released automatically on decline or expiry, credited at close, and forfeited only if a buyer withdraws after mutual acceptance. "Acquire at Ask" constitutes a binding intent to purchase at the seller's pre-authorized ask, subject to escrow funding.
Valuations are algorithmic estimates, not offers or guarantees, and no sale outcome is promised. Most platforms' terms of use restrict username sales or transfers; participants acknowledge and assume this platform risk, which our transfer protocol mitigates but cannot eliminate.
The service is provided as-is; our aggregate liability is limited to fees you paid us in the prior twelve months. We may update these terms with notice on this page. Governing law and venue: to be designated on counsel review.