Domainagents is cheap, just $20. The owner can check the offer and ignore/decline it, and then your money is gone; but if the domain owner never checks your offer, you get a credit to try again (or another domain). That's the "gamble" but it's cheap enough to try, I think. Most other brokers I've seen charge at least x3.

I've made offers on maybe ~10 domains and bought 2 domains through them. Both .io, one mid-3 figures and one low 4 figures usd.

But the amount you should be ready to spend really depends on the owner. You might encounter domainers who don't build anything and just consider themselves 'investors' who are talentless digital squatter scum and completely fucking insane with prices, and will counter with 5-6 figures.

There's always a back and forth so you should try to open with an offer that's low for you but not low enough that the owner ignores it.

I think @marc was considering publishing a book about this if there was enough pre-order interest twitter.com/marckohlbrugge/st…