Pay-as-you-go at 10%, or Auction Pro at $249 per active month with unlimited auctions and zero seller fees. No setup, no floor, no contract.
Casual tier: 10% per sale, no monthly fee, no setup, no per-sale minimum, no contract. BackyardAuction absorbs Stripe processing on Casual-tier auctions.
Auction Pro tier: $249 per active month — only billed in months you run an auction. Unlimited auctions per month. Zero seller fees — no platform commission, no auction minimum. Pro sellers handle standard payment processing (Stripe 2.9% + $0.30) through their own Stripe Connect Express account. Becomes cheaper than Casual above $2,490/month in sales.
Volume. Casual is 10% per sale with no subscription — pay only when you sell. Auction Pro is $249 per active month with zero per-sale fees and unlimited auctions, and you pay nothing in months you don't run an auction. The calculator above shows which is cheaper at your specific volume.
Any calendar month where one of your auctions goes live and accepts bids. Setup, drafts, and scheduled auctions don't count — only months where bidding actually happens. If an auction lists in one month and closes in the next, only the launch month counts as active. So a seasonal pro running auctions May–September pays for 5 active months, not 12.
When your monthly sales exceed about $2,500 in any given month. Below that, Casual's 10% beats Pro's $249. Above it, Pro saves you money — and the savings grow the more you sell. At $10,000/month in sales, Pro saves you about $750 vs Casual. And because Pro only bills in months you actually run an auction, seasonal pros don't pay during slow months.
No platform commission, no per-sale fees, no auction minimums. The only cost beyond the $249 per active month is standard payment processing (Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction), which Pro sellers handle through their own Stripe account. That's the same processing rate every other professional auction platform charges. And in months you don't run an auction, the $249 doesn't bill — most competitor subscriptions still do.
Yes, both directions, any time. Pro is month-to-month — cancel and you revert to Casual instantly with no penalty. If you cancel mid-month, you keep full Pro access through the end of the billing period — no partial refunds, but no cutoff either.
AuctionNinja charges 2.35% per sale with a $75 minimum per auction, plus $19.19/month every month, plus a $250 one-time setup fee. Pro is $249 per active month with unlimited auctions, no auction minimum, and no setup fee — and Pro doesn't bill in months you don't run an auction, while AN's $19.19/month keeps charging year-round. Above ~$10K/month in sales, Pro wins handily — and it's a flat number you can budget against, not a percentage that scales with success.
MaxSold's Self-Managed plan takes 30% per auction with a $99 minimum, pays sellers in 15 business days, and locks your items to their platform for the entire contract term (TOS §2.1(a)). Casual takes 10% per sale, pays out via Stripe in ~2 business days, and only locks items during the active auction window — you can cross-list elsewhere between auctions. On a $1,000 cleanout, Casual runs $100 in seller fees; MaxSold takes $300. The calculator above shows the head-to-head.
MaxSold runs two tiers — Self-Managed (you handle the photos and listings, $99 minimum or 30% per auction) and Managed (MaxSold's team stages, photographs, and lists everything for you: $500 deposit + a $2,000 flat fee + 30% commission, plus an 18% buyer's premium and 15-business-day payouts). The calculator above compares Casual against Self-Managed because that's the apples-to-apples match — you're doing the listing yourself in either case. If you'd genuinely prefer to pay $2,500+ to have someone else stage and photograph everything, MaxSold Managed is a different product BackyardAuction doesn't compete with directly. If you want the DIY-but-AI-assisted middle ground, BackyardAuction's AI Automated Auction Setup gets your listings done in minutes for 10% of what sells — no flat fee, no deposit.
Stripe deposits your seller payout directly to your linked bank account, typically within ~2 business days of an auction closing and the buyer's card being charged. Casual sellers use BackyardAuction's Stripe Connect; Pro sellers use their own Stripe Connect Express account. See the next FAQ for how new-seller payouts work in your first few auctions.
New sellers go through a brief verification period: your first 3 auctions release after pickup completes — we use 6-character pickup codes that buyers hand to you at handoff to confirm each item changed hands cleanly. After 3 successful auctions (sold + pickup completed + no disputes), your account graduates to standard 2-day payouts on every auction going forward. Pro sellers are pre-vetted via the application process and operate on standard payouts from their first auction.
No setup fees, no minimums, no commitments — month-to-month on either tier, cancel any time. Items are locked to BackyardAuction during the active auction window (otherwise concurrent sales elsewhere would invalidate live bids), but outside of that you're free to cross-list anywhere — no contract-term exclusivity.
Not currently. BackyardAuction is below the volume threshold where states require us to collect sales tax as a marketplace facilitator (Colorado's threshold is $100,000 in annual gross marketplace sales). Buyers see only the winning bid + buyer's premium at checkout. We'll add tax collection automatically when our volume crosses the threshold, and we'll notify both buyers and sellers in advance. Until then, sellers are responsible for their own sales-tax compliance under the laws of their state.
Pro is by application. Run 5 successful Casual auctions (sold + pickup completed + no disputes), and our team will review your record and approve manually. Most reviews complete within 1–2 business days. Active pros migrating from another platform can apply directly via [email protected] — share your auction history and we'll fast-track the review. Once approved, you'll complete a brief Stripe verification step.
On Pro, you're the merchant of record — buyers see your business name on their receipt, payouts go directly to your Stripe account, and you handle any chargebacks (industry standard for pros). On Casual, BackyardAuction handles disputes, refunds, and chargebacks — you sell and we deal with everything else. The Pro path is for sellers who already run an auction business and want full ownership of customer relationships.