Pricing
Pricing rebuilt around the bidder networkyou didn't have to build.
One plan. A take-rate that descends as you grow. The bidder network is in the price — not an upsell.
Run the numbers
What would your house pay?
Drag the slider or type your annual hammer sales (your GMV). The figure to the right is your all-in cost on the Standard plan — base plus take-rate plus any add-ons you switch on. No accounts, no email capture.
In the price
- Shared bidder pool + verified-buyer badge
- Listed in the cross-house marketplace
- Lot alerts — local by default, cross-house when bidders opt in
- Public-collection link-outs to your lots
- Every auction type — live, timed, Dutch
- Asset management, cataloguing, condition reports, provenance
- Consignor settlement, buyer invoicing, Stripe payments
- Shipping with landed-cost preview, Xero + QuickBooks bundled
- Bidder import + tamper-proof 7-year audit log
The kind of capability you'd otherwise stitch together from five separate vendors.
£250k
Drag to your size — or type the exact figure above.
At £250k in hammer sales a year
Calculated annual cost
£208/ month, all-in
≈ £2,500 / year. Billed monthly. Ask about annual prepay for a discount.
- Base
- £99/mo
- Take-rate on hammer sales
- £208/mo
- Platform charge (take-rate flows)
- £208/mo
The bands
A smaller percentage as you grow.
Take-rate applies per band, not flat. A house doing £1M a year pays 1.0% on the first £500k and 0.75% on the next £500k — never 1.0% across the whole £1M.
- 1.0%£0 – £500kper year
- 0.75%£500k – £2Mper year
- 0.5%£2M – £20Mper year
- Bespoke£20M+bespoke
Measured on hammer only — never your buyer's premium. That's your fee, not ours. Rolling 12 months.
Above £20M, or need bespoke?
Enterprise is a conversation.
Multi-region houses, reseller groups, multi-room consolidators, and houses turning over £20M+ in hammer. Bespoke contract with negotiated take-rate cap, dedicated account manager, premium SLA, full white-label depth wherever your payment and login providers allow. Houses that cannot accept any Bidstrap presence at identity moments are looking for bespoke development — that's not us.
In the contract
The clauses that protect you.
Three standard MSA clauses ship with every Bidstrap contract — not just Enterprise. They're the answer to “what stops you raising prices” before you ask.
- Pricing locked for the contract term
- Take-rate, base, and band thresholds are fixed for your 24-month initial term. On renewal we can raise the take-rate by at most UK inflation year-on-year, and the base by at most inflation plus 5 percentage points — with 60 days written notice. The percentage you sign at is the percentage you pay.
- We never charge your buyers
- Bidstrap takes its fee from you, not from the bidder. We won't introduce buyer-visible fees without your written consent. You can choose to pass platform fees on through your buyer's premium — your call, not ours.
First 90 days
Onboarding is on us.
Zero base. Zero take-rate. Zero per-lot fee. For your first 90 days, or your first £100k of hammer sales — whichever comes first. Third-party costs (Stripe, identity checks) still flow at-cost. One holiday per house.
FAQ · The honest answers
- Why a take-rate? Most platforms charge flat.
- The take-rate funds the shared bidder pool — warm leads from every other Bidstrap house, flowing into your sales. A flat-fee platform doesn't grow that network for you. It also aligns our incentives: if your hammer doesn't fall, we don't get paid.
- What stops you raising the take-rate in year three?
- The contract. Take-rate, base, and band thresholds are fixed for 24 months. On renewal we can raise the take-rate by at most UK inflation, with 60 days written notice. (CPI-capped.)
- What does the 90-day holiday actually cover?
- Your first 90 days, or first £100k of hammer sales — whichever comes first. No base, no take-rate, no per-lot fee. Third-party costs (Stripe, identity checks) still flow at-cost. One holiday per house.
- Can I cancel or downgrade?
- Month-to-month on the Standard plan. Cancel or remove add-ons from your billing portal — takes effect next cycle. No exit fee.
- What about VAT and tax?
- UK B2B VAT (20%) on your subscription and take-rate. We capture your VAT number at signup for EU reverse-charge invoices. Buyer-side VAT on hammer and premium runs through your own tax setup — separate, fully under your control.
- Do other auction houses get my bidder list?
- No. The shared pool shares trust signals — verification status, payment reputation, fraud flags — not contact data. No other house can list, search, or market to your bidders.
- What about charity sales? Won't the take-rate eat penny lots alive?
- No. Charity sales are self-marked at the clerk console — the per-lot fee drops to £0.025 and the take-rate maths on sub-£1 hammers is negligible anyway. Charity sales are welcome; they're goodwill marketing for your house.
- Can I opt out of the marketplace?
- Yes, on every plan. Your lots appear in the cross-house marketplace only if you opt in. The premium analytics add-on adds granular controls: anonymise your house name, geo-restrict visibility, suppress specific lots.
- What about my AML responsibility if identity checks are shared?
- Verification is canonical at Bidstrap; acceptance is your call, per auction. Require Bidstrap-verified identity, add your own checks on top, or refuse imported attestations entirely. Your regulator sees a regulated supply chain, not a delegation.
- Can I bring my own accounts, shipping, or insurance providers?
- Yes. Modules are sticky defaults, not lock-in. Every action is published as an event you can route into Sage, your existing carrier, your underwriter — anywhere. We document the contracts; you swap in what you need.