Auction Fee Calculator
Enter a lot ID to see every fee the auction house charges on it.
Fill in the form to see the fee breakdown.
What auction fees are made of
An auction fee is not one payment. It is five separate charges Copart and IAAI add to every lot you win. Four of them are fixed or close to it, which is why a cheap lot always costs proportionally more than an expensive one.
Auction Fee
The platform's main charge, and the only one that really tracks your bid. At low and mid bids it is not a percentage but a staircase: each bid range carries its own fixed amount. Above a threshold the steps end and the charge becomes a percentage of the bid. That is why one dollar more on a bid occasionally costs tens of dollars in fees — when that dollar crosses a range boundary.
Virtual Bid Fee
A charge for bidding online rather than from the yard. It is also stepped by bid size and can be zero on the cheapest lots. Since essentially every dealer bids remotely, treat it as mandatory.
Gate Fee
A fixed charge for physically handling and releasing the car: preparing the lot, loading it, processing the exit. It does not track the price of the car at all — it is the same on a $500 lot and a $30,000 one. On some platforms the amount differs depending on whether the title is clean.
Environmental Fee
A small fixed environmental charge the platform adds to every lot. The amount is minor, but it is always there and it belongs in the total.
Title Handling Fee
A fixed charge for processing and forwarding the car's title document. Applied once per lot.
What changes the total
- Bid amount
- The main charge and the online-bid charge are both banded by bid range rather than smooth. A bid that crosses into the next band steps the fee up — which is why a bid ceiling only means something alongside the fees it triggers.
- Vehicle class
- Copart and IAAI publish more than one fee sheet. Ordinary vehicles, heavy trucks and equipment, and powersports are priced from different tables, and the gap between them is not cosmetic.
- Title type
- On some platforms the charges differ between a clean-title lot and a branded one. One more reason to check the title before you bid rather than after.
- Your buyer tier
- Your account tier at the platform is a separate fee sheet, not a discount. Copart also splits its sheets by settlement method: paying by bank transfer and paying by card are priced differently, and on expensive lots the gap is real. They appear as separate entries in the tier list — pick the one your account actually settles under.
- Platform and country
- Copart, IAAI, Copart Canada and IAAI Canada each have their own fee sheets. On the same bid the total can differ by tens or hundreds of dollars, so the platform is worth weighing while you are still shortlisting lots.
The fees in more depth
A worked guide to how Copart and IAAI charges are calculated, what changed in 2026, and why a cheap lot eats your margin.
Read the fee guideCommon questions about auction fees
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