What the hammer price does not include, at every price point

Update — 2026-09-21. IAA's service fee is $105 per unit, not $95. It moved with the schedule effective 1 July 2026 while the buyer-fee and bid-fee brackets stayed on the one effective 4 November 2024, so the change does not show up in the tables most people check. Every IAA figure here was recomputed: the total at a $5,000 bid is $1,040, not $1,030, and the gap to Copart is $28 rather than $38.

The single most common way to lose money on a first salvage purchase is to budget the bid. Auction fees are not a percentage — they come out of a bracket table that steps up as the bid rises, which means the fee is a huge share of a cheap car and a modest share of an expensive one. Everybody knows that in the abstract. Almost nobody has seen the actual curve.

Here it is. Every figure below is computed from the auctions' own published buyer-fee schedules, using the same implementation that runs the SalvageAlert calculator.

Copart US, licensed member, live bid

IAA US, licensed buyer, live bid

What the curve actually means

A $500 car costs $900. Not approximately — that is what the schedule says. If your plan depends on buying cheap cars and parting them out, the fee is your largest single input cost and the margin you modelled on the hammer price does not exist.

The two houses are within a few percent of each other at every point. At $5,000 the gap is $28 on a $6,000 purchase. Choosing between Copart and IAA on buyer fees alone is choosing on noise; choose on which one has the car, where the yard is, and what the title says.

The curve flattens around $8,000–12,000 and then turns back up. Both schedules switch from a bracket table to a percentage of the bid at the top, which is why the $20,000 row is higher in absolute terms than the $12,000 row but lower as a share.

The cheapest bracket is where the percentage is brutal and where beginners shop. If you are learning, the lesson the curve teaches is to learn on a $3,000 car rather than a $600 one: the mistake costs about the same and you get a car out of it.

The lines that make up the fee

At a $5,000 bid, Copart US:

And IAA US at the same bid:

The buyer fee is the bracket table and it is most of the total. The rest are close to fixed: on a cheap car those fixed lines are what make the percentage look absurd.

How you bid changes the fee

Copart US at a $5,000 bid, same car, three ways of buying it:

The virtual bid fee is the whole of the difference: $99 on a pre-bid, $109 bidding live, and nothing at all on Buy It Now, because there is no auction to attend.

That does not make Buy It Now cheaper — the asking price is usually above what the car would fetch in the lane. It does mean that when you have decided a Buy It Now price is fair, the $109 you are not paying is real.

The other markets, same $5,000 bid

Not comparable as prices — different currencies, different inventory — but the shape of each schedule is worth knowing before you assume the one you know applies everywhere.

The UK and German figures include VAT on the fees at 20% and 19% respectively; the schedules themselves are published ex-VAT. The Copart UK figure is the non-dealer (Fee B) table — a trade account pays the lower Fee A. Copart Germany's is the private-buyer table.

What is still not in any of these numbers

Everything after the sale, which on an export is most of the cost:

• Storage, if you do not collect in time. Both houses start charging within days.
• Late payment. IAA UK adds a £40 charge; the US houses relist and keep the deposit.
• Broker fee, if you buy through one because you have no licence in that state. Copart Canada's published note puts it at $100 and it is not in the table above.
• Inland transport from the yard to the port.
• Ocean freight, then customs duty and VAT at the other end.
• Loading, terminal handling, and the destination port's own charges.

Those are separate threads. The point of this one is narrower and worth keeping: the number on the screen while you are bidding is not the number you pay, and the gap is at its widest exactly where a beginner is most likely to be bidding.

Where these numbers come from

The tables are the auctions' own published buyer-fee schedules, transcribed into lib/auctionFeeCalculator.ts and covered by an automated test so a transcription error shows up as a failing build rather than as a wrong answer. The calculator is public at salvagealert.com/calculator and will do the same arithmetic for any bid, including the sales tax for a US state or a Canadian province.

Schedules change, and they change in pieces. IAA publishes its buyer-fee and bid-fee brackets as tables effective 4 November 2024, and separately lists the service, environmental and title-handling fees with their own effective date of 1 July 2026 — the service fee moved from $95 to $105 there, which is the kind of change that does not announce itself. Copart Germany's table is dated January 2025.

If you are reading this long after the verified date, check the schedule before you budget, and reply here if you find a figure that has moved. Corrections to these threads get made and the update is visible.

Sources

• IAA — Standard IAA Licensed Buyer Fees (schedule effective 4 November 2024) (facts · 2026-09-21)
• Copart — US Licensed Fees (facts · 2026-09-21)
• SalvageAlert fee calculator — the implementation of these schedules (official · 2026-09-21)

Verified 2026-09-21. Rates, fees and legal requirements change. Check the sources before acting on a number here.