The math. Buyer fees and virtual bid fees at both houses are step functions — flat dollar amounts inside price brackets, converting to a percentage above $15,000. That means the total cost of a purchase jumps discontinuously as your bid crosses a bracket edge, so there is no algebraic solution for the maximum bid. Because total cost never decreases as the bid rises, a binary search over whole dollars finds the exact answer in about fifteen steps, landing precisely on the bracket edge.

Fee schedules. IAA figures follow the published standard licensed buyer schedule. Copart figures follow a high-volume licensed buyer schedule with secured payment; standard and low-volume accounts pay more, and unsecured payment (credit card, company check) raises the buyer fee substantially — the calculator applies an approximate uplift for that, but if your account differs, tick override buyer fee and enter the number from your own statement. Both schedules vary by yard, tier, and title status and change over time. Verify against a current invoice before you bid real money.

Comps and the exit price. The comp buttons build the searches for you from the year, make and model you enter — this page can't pull listing data itself, and scraping the marketplaces isn't on the table, so it takes you to the real thing instead. Lead with sold prices rather than asking prices: a car listed at $14,000 for six months is not a $14,000 car. Take the middle of what actually sold, not the best number you find. If the title is salvage, search rebuilt examples too, or use the haircut button to knock a percentage off a clean-title figure — 25% is a starting point, not a law, and you should tune it to your market. Every dollar of error in the exit price moves your ceiling by about a dollar, so it deserves more scepticism than anything else on this page.

Profit at what you actually pay. The ceiling is the most you can bid. What you want mid-auction is what you make at the number in front of you, so enter any bid and you get all-in cost, profit, ROI on cash at risk, and margin on the sale. The ladder below it shows what each step of discipline is worth, and the break-even bid is the one worth memorising before the lane opens.

Saving. Nothing is saved automatically. The queue and portfolio live in the page until you press Save, which stores them in this browser only.