Bid Ladder Reference
The bid you place and the amount you actually pay pull apart fast as the price climbs. This table walks eight representative hammer prices up the ladder and shows, at each one, the minimum increment, the buyer’s fees, an illustrative shipping cost, the true total cost to win, and the resale price you’d need just to break even.
Hammer price → increment → fees → shipping → true cost → break-even resale
| Hammer price | Increment | Next bid | Buyer’s fees | Shipping | True total cost | Break-even resale |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $18 | $0.5 | $18.5 | $4.73 | $12 | $34.73 | $53.71 |
| $60 | $1 | $61 | $15.76 | $12 | $87.76 | $114.67 |
| $150 | $2.5 | $152.5 | $39.39 | $25 | $214.39 | $275.16 |
| $400 | $5 | $405 | $105.04 | $25 | $530.04 | $637.98 |
| $800 | $10 | $810 | $210.08 | $45 | $1,055.08 | $1,264.46 |
| $1,800 | $25 | $1,825 | $472.68 | $45 | $2,317.68 | $2,715.72 |
| $4,000 | $50 | $4,050 | $1,050.4 | $85 | $5,135.4 | $6,000.46 |
| $8,000 | $100 | $8,100 | $2,100.8 | $85 | $10,185.8 | $11,805.52 |
Buyer’s fees and true total cost assume an 18% buyer’s premium and 7% sales tax on hammer plus premium — illustrative example inputs, not a current or universal rate. The break-even resale price assumes a 13% selling-platform fee and the same shipping cost outbound. Rerun any row with your own numbers in the calculators linked below.
Why the gap widens instead of staying proportional
At an $18 hammer price in this table, the buyer’s fees add a few dollars and shipping is the bigger line item — the true cost is almost double the bid, but the absolute dollars at stake are small. At a $4,000 hammer price, the same 18% premium and 7% tax add over a thousand dollars on their own, and even a generous shipping estimate is a rounding error next to that. The percentage markup from fees stays roughly the same across the ladder; the dollargap between what you bid and what you pay does not — it grows every step up, which is exactly what the table’s totals show.
That has a direct consequence for how carefully you should check the numbers before you bid. Getting the fee percentage wrong by a couple of points on a $20 lot costs you pocket change. Getting it wrong on a $4,000 lot costs real money — which is precisely when bidders are most tempted to skip the arithmetic because the auction feels urgent. Read the terms and run the number through the calculators before the bidding starts, not after you’ve won.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do the numbers in this table come from?
Every column is computed by the same functions behind the calculators on this site: the increment and next-bid columns come from the Bid Increment & Proxy Bid Table's logic, the buyer's fees come from the Auction Fee & Buyer's Premium Calculator, the total cost comes from the Total Cost-to-Win Estimator, and the break-even resale price comes from the Resale Profit & Margin Estimator. Nothing here is a separate, hand-typed table that could drift out of sync with the calculators.
Why do the buyer's premium percentage and sales tax rate stay fixed across every row?
To isolate one variable at a time. Holding the premium at 18% and tax at 7% across every hammer price lets you see, cleanly, how the dollar gap between the bid and the true cost grows simply because the hammer price grows — even before you consider that real auctions charge different premium rates at different price tiers. Use the calculators above to re-run any row with your actual auction's terms.
Why does shipping jump instead of scaling smoothly with price?
The shipping figures here are a simple illustrative banding (higher hammer prices tend to mean bulkier, more fragile, or more insured lots), not a formula the calculators compute — there's no reliable way to derive real shipping cost from a price alone. Treat every shipping number on this page as a placeholder for an actual quote, which is exactly what the Total Cost-to-Win Estimator expects you to enter yourself.
What does the break-even resale price actually mean?
It's the minimum price you'd need to sell the item for, after typical selling-platform fees and outbound shipping, just to get back what it truly cost you to win — with zero profit. It is not a prediction that the item will sell for that much, and it isn't investment or financial advice; it's arithmetic on the total-cost figure to its left, using the Resale Profit & Margin Estimator's own break-even formula.
This page is general educational information, not financial or investment advice. Premiums, tax rules, shipping costs, and selling-platform fees vary by auction house, marketplace, and location — confirm the actual figures before you bid or sell. See our disclaimer for more.
Use it with
- Total Cost-to-Win Estimator— plug in the real premium, tax, and shipping for a specific lot instead of this page’s illustrative assumptions.
- Bid Increment & Proxy Bid Table — get the full proxy ladder from any current price up to your own maximum bid.
- Resale Profit & Margin Estimator — work out profit, margin, and ROI for an actual planned sale price, not just the break-even floor.
- Why Identical Hammer Prices Can Cost Very Different Amounts — the guide version of this table’s middle rows, with the fee structures spelled out.