Auction Buyer’s Premium: What You Really Pay
Revised September 8, 2026
How much is buyer's premium at auction?
It is a percentage of the hammer price that the auction house adds to your bill, set and published by that house in its own terms. Percentages commonly land somewhere in the teens to the twenties, and bidding through a third-party online platform usually adds a separate fee on top.
Keep reading ↓The hammer came down at a thousand dollars and Ray thought he was finished. It was a Saturday farm sale out past Hamel, cold enough that everybody kept their hands in their pockets between lots, and he had driven out for exactly one thing: a walnut dining table with six chairs that had been sitting in the lot since eight that morning. He had told his wife his ceiling was a thousand. He hit it on the nose and felt good about it. Then he walked over to the clerk’s trailer to settle up, the invoice came back meaningfully higher than the number he had just shouted, and he stood there reading it twice.
Carla learned the same thing at her kitchen table. She bid an estate sale through an online platform, won a box lot of Depression glass and a pair of table lamps, and watched every number land right where she wanted it. The confirmation email the next morning had four separate lines stacked under the hammer price. A buyer’s premium. A separate fee charged by the platform itself. Sales tax figured on the total. A card processing charge. None of it was hidden, exactly. All of it lived in the terms and conditions she had scrolled past in about two seconds.
Here is what this covers. What a buyer’s premium actually is, and why the number is different at every house. Who pays it, and what the seller is paying on the other side of the same sale. How a full invoice stacks up, with a worked example using round hypothetical numbers so you can see the arithmetic instead of guessing at it. What a seller really nets after commission and fees, and the questions worth asking before you consign anything. The mistakes that cost bidders real money, most of which happen before the bidding even starts. And at the end, a note to auctioneers and estate companies around the metro about what belongs in writing.
How much is buyer’s premium at auction?
It depends on the house, and the only figure that binds you is the one printed in the terms and conditions for that particular sale. A buyer’s premium is a percentage added on top of the hammer price, set and published by the auction house itself. Rates commonly land somewhere in the teens to the twenties. Treat that as the range you will run into, not a rule you can assume.
There is no governing body setting this number. Each house writes its own terms, and those terms can change from sale to sale at the same company. A weekly consignment auction may charge one rate. A curated estate sale run by the same auctioneer may charge another. A single-owner catalog can carry a different structure again, because the seller negotiated it that way. Reading the terms for the sale you are actually bidding in is not optional homework. It is the price tag.
The structures you will run into
Most premiums are a flat percentage of the hammer price. Some are tiered, so a higher rate applies to the first slice of the bid and a lower rate applies above some threshold, which matters on an expensive lot and almost never on a two hundred dollar one. Plenty of houses publish two rates side by side: a lower one if you pay cash or by check in person, and a higher one if you pay by card. Some do the same thing for bidding in the room versus bidding online.
Why online bidding usually costs more
When you bid through a third-party platform, you are usually dealing with two companies. The auction house charges its premium. The platform charges its own fee for hosting the sale and running the live feed, and that fee is separate, stated in its own terms, and added to your invoice. In our experience this is the most common surprise for people new to online bidding, because the number they compared against the room price was only half the story. If the sale is close enough to attend, the in-person rate is worth the drive more often than people think.
None of this is a reason to avoid auctions. It is a reason to do one minute of reading before you raise your hand. Find the terms, find the premium, find whether there is a discount and what it applies to, then set your ceiling with all of that already baked in.
Who pays buyer’s premium at auction?
The winning bidder pays it. It is added to the buyer’s invoice rather than deducted from the seller’s check, and it belongs to the auction house, not the consignor. If you win a lot, you owe the hammer price plus the premium plus whatever else the terms attach, and you owe it whether or not you noticed the line before you bid.
The confusion is understandable, because both sides of an auction pay the house. The buyer pays the premium. The seller pays a commission out of the hammer price, plus any fees the contract lists for photography, cataloging, moving, storage or unsold lots. Those are two separate agreements with two separate people, and the auctioneer collects from both. That is the business model, and there is nothing shady about it as long as both numbers are written down where the person paying them can read them.
What the seller is paying on the other side
A consignor’s commission is a percentage of the hammer price, and it varies enormously by house, by category, and by how much work the lot takes. A pallet of shop tools that arrives on the seller’s own trailer is a different job than a three-bedroom house that has to be sorted, photographed, packed and hauled. Some houses run a lower commission and lean on the buyer’s premium. Some do the reverse. When you compare two auctioneers on commission alone, you are comparing one number out of five.
When there is no premium at all
A few sales advertise no buyer’s premium, and that is genuine when it is stated in the written terms. It usually means the house is making its money entirely from the seller’s side, and it turns up more often at estate and farm sales where the auctioneer has the whole property to work with. Read it the way you read everything else: as a claim you can verify in the terms, not as a promise in the ad copy.
What does the whole invoice add up to?
Hammer price, plus the buyer’s premium, plus any third-party online fee, plus sales tax, plus whatever the terms list for card processing, packing, loading or shipping. Every one of those lines is disclosed somewhere before you bid. Added together, they can move the real cost of a lot well above the number you had in your head.
A worked example, using made-up numbers
This is an illustration, not a market rate, and no part of it should be read as what any particular sale charges. Say the hammer falls at $1,000 and the terms state a 20% buyer’s premium. That premium is $200, which puts the subtotal at $1,200. Now say the terms also state that sales tax is calculated on the hammer price plus the premium, which is common but is a detail the terms have to tell you. Whatever rate applies in that jurisdiction, it gets figured on $1,200 rather than on $1,000.
Keep going. If you bid through a third-party platform that charges its own fee, that comes off the same $1,000 and lands on the invoice separately. If you pay by card at a house that publishes a higher card rate, the premium is calculated at the higher figure instead of the cash one. If the lot has to be packed and shipped, that is another line, usually quoted after the sale. A thousand-dollar bid is comfortably a twelve-hundred-dollar obligation before tax, and more once the rest of the list applies.
How sales tax generally works here
Missouri and Illinois both tax most sales of tangible personal property, and auctions typically collect it at settlement unless the buyer has a valid resale or exemption certificate on file with the house. Rates are not uniform. They vary by jurisdiction and by what is being sold, so there is no single figure worth quoting in an article. For the current rate or the rules on an exemption, go to the Missouri Department of Revenue or the Illinois Department of Revenue, and talk to your own accountant about anything that touches a business. This is general information, not tax advice.
The practical takeaway is plain arithmetic. Decide what the item is worth to you delivered, in your house, all in. Then work backward through the premium, the fees and the tax to find the highest hammer price that still fits. That number, and not the one you feel like bidding, is your ceiling.
Is it worth selling stuff at auction?
Sometimes, and it depends almost entirely on what you have and what your alternative is. Auction is fast, it clears volume, and it puts your things in front of buyers who came specifically to buy. What it does not do is guarantee a price. You net the hammer price minus commission minus whatever fees the contract lists, and there is no floor unless you negotiated one.
The strongest case for auction is a house or a shop that has to be emptied on a deadline. Somebody is settling an estate, a shed near Livingston has to be cleared before a closing date, a business is winding down and the equipment has to go. Auction turns a mountain of stuff into one date, one crew and one check. Selling the same contents piece by piece online might bring more per item, and it will absolutely take months of your evenings.
What comes out of the check
The seller’s commission comes off the top, and it may be a flat rate or it may slide by lot value. Beyond that, contracts differ in what else they charge for: photography and cataloging, labor to sort and pack, hauling, storage between pickup and sale day, card fees, advertising, and a handling charge on lots that do not sell. Some houses fold all of that into the commission. Others itemize it. Neither approach is wrong. What matters is knowing which one you signed.
The questions worth asking before you consign
Shortlist two or three houses worth interviewing and talk to each one. Say plainly what you have, what you want out of it, and when it has to be gone. Then ask everybody the same handful of questions. What is the seller’s commission on a lot like mine? Do you charge for photography, cataloging, moving or unsold lots? When do I get paid, and in what form? What happens to anything that does not sell? Can I set a reserve, and what does it cost me if the lot passes?
Then listen for the gap. You are not shopping for the lowest commission. You are comparing what you told them you needed against what each one is actually prepared to deliver, and the distance between those two things is the whole signal. A house that says “we can be there Thursday, here is how the payout works, and here is what happens to the leftovers” is telling you something real. A house that answers every question with “we’ll take care of it” is telling you something too.
When auction is the wrong tool
If you have one genuinely valuable item and no deadline, a specialist dealer or a private sale may serve you better, because auction rewards volume and competition rather than patience. If your things are ordinary household goods in ordinary condition, expect ordinary results, and consider whether donation or a cleanout is the cheaper answer once your own time is counted. And if you cannot stomach a lot selling for far less than you hoped, an absolute auction is not for you. Say that out loud in the interview.
What not to do at an auction?
Do not treat the hammer price as the price. That one assumption causes more bad afternoons than anything else on this list. The rest are close behind: skipping the terms, skipping the preview, bidding on something you cannot move, and missing the removal deadline, which turns a bargain into a storage problem in about a day.
Do not skip the preview
Nearly every auction sells “as is, where is,” which means the condition you get is the condition it is in, whether or not anybody described it. Photos flatter. Box lots hide things. A preview or inspection window exists so you can open the drawer, plug the thing in, look at the back of the frame, and count what is actually in the box. If you cannot attend the preview, then bid like somebody who did not attend the preview.
Do not bid on what you cannot haul
Removal deadlines are real and they are short. Many sales expect everything gone within a day or two, and storage fees or forfeiture can follow if it is not. Before you bid on the sideboard, the safe or the shop compressor, know how it leaves the building, who is helping you lift it, and what you are driving. A friend of ours won a beautiful oak secretary at a sale near Benld and spent more getting it home than she did on the piece.
Won a big lot? You will need a moving truck and a plan.
Do not bid against yourself, either. Set the ceiling before the lot comes up, with the premium and the tax already figured in, and let it go when it passes that number. There will be another table. The room is designed to make you feel like there will not be, and that feeling is the product.
Do not assume you can undo it
A winning bid is generally a binding contract, not a reservation. Auctions rarely take returns, refunds are unusual, and “I changed my mind” is not a defect. Read what the terms say about disputes, about lot descriptions, and about what happens if you do not pay. If you hold a resale or exemption certificate, hand it to the clerk before settlement rather than asking for a tax adjustment afterward, which is a much harder conversation.
Not sure where the next sale is? You can browse auctions on St Louis Near Me Directory, then spend the one minute that actually matters: open the terms for the sale you are interested in, find the buyer’s premium, find whether there is a cash or in-person rate, and find the removal deadline. Set your ceiling from those numbers before the first lot crosses the block.
For St. Louis auctioneers and estate companies
Think about Ray at the clerk’s trailer, reading his invoice twice. He was not angry and he did not feel cheated. He felt embarrassed, which is worse, because embarrassed bidders bid smaller the next time or quietly stop coming.
So put the number where he cannot miss it. The buyer’s premium belongs at the top of the sale listing in the same size type as the start time, not four screens down inside a terms document. Say whether there is a cash or in-person rate and exactly what qualifies for it. Say plainly that a third-party platform adds its own fee, so nobody discovers that in a confirmation email. Say how sales tax is calculated, and say how somebody submits a resale certificate before settlement instead of after.
Do the same thing on the consignor side. Publish the shape of your seller agreement even when the rate is negotiable: what the commission covers, whether photography, hauling, storage and unsold lots are billed separately, when checks go out, and what happens to whatever does not sell. Consignors are usually handling an estate or a deadline, and they are choosing between two or three houses during a rough week. The one that answers the questions before they get asked wins that call. It costs an afternoon of writing, and it pays for itself the first time somebody with a full house picks up the phone.
Frequently asked questions
What is a 20% buyer’s premium in an auction?
It means the house adds twenty percent of the hammer price to your invoice. On a $1,000 bid that is $200, for a subtotal of $1,200 before sales tax and any other charges the terms list. Some houses publish a lower rate for cash or in-person payment and a higher one for cards. Twenty percent is an example here, not a standard.
What percentage does an auctioneer usually take from an estate sale?
There is no usual number worth quoting, because commission varies by house, by what is being sold, by how much labor the job takes, and by whether the auctioneer is also charging a buyer’s premium. Some rates slide by lot value. Ask the specific houses you are interviewing what the commission is on an estate like yours, and what else gets billed on top of it.
What sells most in an auction?
Items with a broad, active resale market tend to move fastest: tools and shop equipment, farm and outdoor gear, solid-wood furniture in good shape, jewelry, coins, sporting goods, and anything a dealer can resell. Bulk and box lots clear quickly too, because they are cheap to bid on. What moves slowly is bulky furniture in ordinary condition and anything needing a specialist buyer who did not come that day.
What is the 15 minute rule in an auction?
There is no industry-wide fifteen minute rule. People usually mean a soft close or extended bidding on an online auction: a bid placed in the closing minutes pushes the lot’s end time out, so nobody wins by sniping at the last second. The length of the extension and what triggers it are set by the platform or the house and stated in that sale’s terms. Check there rather than assuming.
What happens to stuff not sold at estate sales?
It depends on the contract. Common outcomes are a marked-down final day, a bulk lot sold cheap to a dealer, donation to a charity that will take it, return to the family, or a paid cleanout that hauls the rest away. Some agreements bill the seller for that last step. This is exactly why “what happens to anything that does not sell” belongs in the interview.
What sells well at estate auctions?
At a whole-house sale, the garage and the basement often outperform the living room. Tools, ladders, yard equipment, hardware and shop stock draw serious buyers. So do jewelry, coins, military items, advertising signs, and well-kept vintage furniture. Everyday kitchenware, books and linens usually sell as bulk lots rather than one at a time, which is fine, because the point of the day is to clear the house.
Is the buyer’s premium taxed?
Frequently, yes. Many jurisdictions treat the premium as part of the taxable sale price, so tax is figured on the hammer price plus the premium rather than on the hammer alone. The sale’s terms should state how it is calculated. Because rules and rates differ by state and locality, check the Missouri Department of Revenue or the Illinois Department of Revenue, and ask your accountant about anything business-related.
What is the difference between an absolute auction and a reserve auction?
An absolute auction sells the lot to the highest bidder with no minimum, whatever that bid turns out to be. A reserve auction has a confidential minimum the bidding must reach, and the lot can pass unsold if it does not. Absolute sales tend to draw more bidders, because everyone knows something will change hands. Reserves protect the seller. The listing should say which one you are in.
More St. Louis guides
- St. Louis Auction Houses: What to Know Before You Bid or Consign
- St. Louis Vintage, Thrift, and Antique Shops Worth the Trip
- Junk Removal Cost in St. Louis
Written by a dedicated team of St. Louis locals who live, work, and play right here in the St. Louis metro. Founder Lane Forman and team are committed to building the region’s most trusted directory by verifying listings and connecting local businesses with loyal customers across Missouri and Illinois.