Renewal season is not administrative housekeeping. Every renewal is a new capital-allocation decision.
Rank before you rationalize
Score the entire portfolio before looking at individual emotional favorites. Surface the top names, the bottom names and the domains whose quality is being masked by low acquisition cost.
Add renewal exposure
A weak $12 renewal does not feel material in isolation. Hundreds of weak renewals become a meaningful annual drag. Calculate the total and identify how much belongs to low-score or DROP candidates.
Know where the value sits
Many portfolios are highly concentrated: a small number of names account for most modeled value. Protect those assets first. Do not sacrifice strong renewals to keep dozens of names you would not register again today.
Use the re-registration test
If you did not own the domain and saw it available today at the renewal price, would you register it? That question cuts through sunk-cost bias quickly.