Every auction platform has a pricing page. Almost none of them tell you what you will actually pay, because the largest number is usually a percentage of an amount you have not raised yet.
If you are comparing tools for your school or nonprofit, here is a worksheet you can fill in for each one. It takes about ten minutes and it will usually change your shortlist.
The four places cost hides
1. The platform fee. Sometimes flat, sometimes a percentage of gross auction revenue, sometimes both. A percentage is the one to watch: it scales with your success, so the better your event does, the more you owe.
2. Payment processing. Card processing runs around 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction almost everywhere, because that is what the card networks charge. That part is not the platform's fault. What varies is whether the platform adds its own margin on top of it.
3. Add-ons. Text message notifications, mobile bidding, extra admin seats, live-event displays, and check-in hardware are often separate line items rather than parts of the base product.
4. The billing shape. Per-event pricing looks cheap if you run one auction a year and expensive if you run three. Annual pricing is the reverse. Count your real events before you compare.
The worksheet
For each platform, fill in:
- Base fee (per event or per year): $______
- Percentage of revenue, if any: ______%
- Your realistic auction total: $______
- Percentage cost (total x rate): $______
- Add-ons you actually need: $______
- Events per year: ______
Total annual cost = (base fee x events) + (percentage cost x events) + add-ons.
A worked example
Say your PTO raises $18,000 across one spring auction, and you are looking at a platform charging 5% with no base fee, versus one charging a flat $299 a year.
- Percentage platform: $18,000 x 5% = $900
- Flat platform: $299
The gap is $601, and it grows every year your auction grows. Run the same math at $30,000 and the percentage platform costs $1,500 while the flat one still costs $299.
Now run it the other way. If your event raises $3,000, the percentage platform costs $150 and the flat one costs $299. Percentage pricing is genuinely cheaper for very small events. That is a real finding, and it is worth knowing before you decide.
Three questions to ask any vendor
- What is my total cost if we raise twice what we expect?
- Which features on your marketing site cost extra?
- Can we use our existing payment method, or must we use yours?
Pricing changes, so check each vendor's current pricing page rather than trusting a comparison article, including this one. What does not change is the shape of the question: a percentage means your fundraiser's success is also the software company's payday.
MyGiveKit charges one flat annual fee with no percentage of what you raise, and you can run a full trial auction before paying anything.