Yes. HiBid charges auction houses a percentage of sales. According to HiBid's published AuctionFlex 360 pricing (2026), the platform takes 2% of gross auction proceeds from online bidders, on top of per-bid and setup fees. If you are evaluating HiBid — or already run sales on it and want to understand where your margin goes — here is the full 2026 fee breakdown, what each fee actually buys, and how it compares to the separate cost of cataloging your lots.
In short
HiBid charges 2% of gross auction proceeds from online bidders, plus $0.25 per bid (capped at $150 per auction), a $75 webcast setup fee, and a $195 listing-only option (AuctionFlex 360 pricing, 2026). These are bidding-platform fees — what you pay to run the auction and reach online bidders. They are separate from cataloging. Cataloging software like Gavelist takes 0% of your sales: a flat $0.15 per lot to produce the catalog, and you keep 100% of the hammer price.
The HiBid / AuctionFlex 360 fee breakdown (2026)
According to HiBid's published AuctionFlex 360 online-bidding pricing (2026):
- 2% of gross auction proceeds from online bidders. This is the headline percentage-of-sales fee.
- $0.25 per bid, capped at $150 per auction. A per-bid charge with a ceiling so high-activity sales do not run away.
- $75 webcast setup per auction, if you run a live simulcast webcast.
- $195 listing-only option, for auctioneers who want their catalog listed without the full online-bidding package.
- $1 per authorization, capped at $50, for bidder payment authorizations.
Pricing changes, and packages vary by how you run your sales. Always confirm current terms directly with HiBid or AuctionFlex before you budget — treat the numbers above as the published 2026 baseline, not a quote.
What those fees actually buy
It is worth being clear: this is a normal, legitimate marketplace model, and the fees buy real value. HiBid is one of the most widely used online auction platforms in North America. The percentage and per-bid fees pay for bidder reach, the bidding engine, payment processing, simulcast webcasting, and the marketplace audience that shows up to bid on your lots. For most auctioneers, that reach is the entire point of being on a platform like HiBid.
So the question is not "are HiBid's fees fair?" — they are priced like a marketplace because HiBid is a marketplace. The more useful question is understanding which costs are for running the sale and which are for preparing the catalog, because those are two different jobs with two different cost structures.
Cataloging is a separate cost — and it does not have to be a percentage
Before any lot reaches HiBid, someone has to photograph it, identify it, write a title and description, set a starting bid, assign a category, and format the upload file. That is cataloging, and it is the single most expensive, time-consuming part of running a sale. According to Auction Item Manager (AIM), manual cataloging works out to approximately $3 per lot at a fully loaded labor rate of $60 per hour and 20 lots per hour. On a 300-lot estate sale that is roughly $900 before the gavel falls — and it has nothing to do with HiBid's fees.
This is where the percentage-of-sales model and the cataloging cost diverge. HiBid's 2% scales with how much your sale brings in. Cataloging cost scales with how many lots you have. A cataloging tool charges you to make the catalog, not to sell it — so it has no reason to take a cut of your hammer price.
Gavelist is built exactly this way. It is platform-independent cataloging software, not a marketplace. It charges a flat $0.15 per lot to catalog, takes 0% of your auction sales, and you keep 100% of the hammer price — on HiBid, or on any other platform you sell through. You catalog with Gavelist, export a HiBid-ready file (see AI software that exports to HiBid), and run your sale on HiBid exactly as you do now, paying HiBid's normal bidding fees and nothing extra for the catalog beyond that flat per-lot rate.
And it runs fast at scale: Gavelist catalogs roughly 1,000 lots in about 10 minutes, cataloged 10,235 lots in six weeks for one high-volume auctioneer, and has cataloged more than 24,436 lots across live sales to date — see the 10,235-lot case study.
What this means for your margin
Put the two cost structures side by side on a 300-lot sale that hammers at $60,000 in online proceeds:
- HiBid bidding fees: roughly 2% of $60,000 = about $1,200, plus per-bid and any webcast/setup fees. This is the cost of running the sale and reaching bidders.
- Cataloging the same 300 lots with Gavelist: about $45 (300 x $0.15), with 0% of the sale taken.
- Cataloging the same 300 lots manually: roughly $900 in labor (Auction Item Manager).
The marketplace fee is what it is — it is the price of the audience. The lever you actually control is the cataloging cost, and that is where the difference between a flat per-lot tool and manual labor (or a bundled platform that wraps cataloging into a percentage) shows up on your bottom line.
Does HiBid's new AI cataloging change this?
HiBid is adding native AI cataloging to the platform, which speeds up the catalog step inside HiBid. The fee structure above still applies to running the sale, and a marketplace-native cataloging tool keeps your catalog data inside that marketplace. For how native AI compares to platform-independent cataloging — and why portability and the fee model both matter — see HiBid AI cataloging: what auctioneers need to know. If you are weighing HiBid against a dedicated cataloging tool, the HiBid alternative breakdown lays out the comparison.
Frequently asked questions
Does HiBid take a percentage of auction sales?
Yes. According to HiBid's published AuctionFlex 360 pricing (2026), HiBid charges 2% of gross auction proceeds from online bidders, plus $0.25 per bid (capped at $150 per auction) and a $75 webcast setup fee. These are bidding-platform fees for running the sale, separate from cataloging.
How much does HiBid cost auctioneers in total?
It depends on your sale's volume and value, because the main fee scales with proceeds. The published 2026 baseline is 2% of gross online proceeds + $0.25 per bid (cap $150/auction) + $75 webcast setup, with a $195 listing-only option and $1-per-authorization (cap $50). Confirm current terms with HiBid before budgeting.
Is the 2% a cataloging fee?
No. The 2% is a bidding-platform fee on sales — it pays for HiBid running the auction and providing the bidder audience. Cataloging (photographing, identifying, and writing up lots) is a separate job. Gavelist catalogs for a flat $0.15 per lot and takes 0% of your sales.
Can I avoid HiBid's percentage fee?
The percentage is the cost of selling on HiBid's marketplace, so if you sell on HiBid you pay it. What you can control is the cataloging cost. Using a platform-independent cataloging tool that takes 0% of sales (a flat $0.15/lot with Gavelist) keeps the catalog cost off your hammer price and keeps your lot data portable to other platforms.
Does Gavelist charge a percentage of my sales?
No. Gavelist is cataloging software, not a marketplace. It charges a flat $0.15 per lot and takes 0% of your auction sales — you keep 100% of the hammer price, on HiBid or anywhere else.
The bottom line
HiBid does charge a percentage of sales — 2% of gross online proceeds plus per-bid and setup fees (AuctionFlex 360, 2026) — and that is a fair price for what a marketplace provides. The cost you have the most control over is cataloging, which is a separate job that does not need to scale with your sale price. Catalog with a flat-rate, platform-independent tool, sell on HiBid, and you pay the marketplace for the audience and nothing extra for the catalog beyond a predictable per-lot rate. To see what that looks like end to end, run a small test through Gavelist.
Sources
- HiBid / AuctionFlex 360. "Online Bidding Pricing (2026)." trial.auctionflex.com
- Auction Item Manager (AIM). "Tracking Cost Per Lot: The KPI Every Auctioneer Should Know." aimhq.com