Guide
What it costs to list a car for sale
The honest answer is between nothing and about a hundred and fifty dollars, and almost every article that answers it quotes a listing fee that is not what selling there costs. Here are the numbers, read off each company's own page, with the date.
Checked 21 September 2026
What each one charges, in their own terms.
Two columns, because they are two different questions: what it costs to put the car up, and what it costs when somebody buys it. Most comparisons only answer the first.
| Where | To list | When it sells |
|---|---|---|
| Craigslist | $5 | Nothing |
| eBay Motors | $34 or $79 | No final value fee |
| Autotrader | $9 to $49 | 0.99%, minimum $99 |
| WheelSheet | Free for 10 days | Nothing |
Craigslist
Cars, trucks, RVs and motorcycles by owner in the US. Almost everything else on the site is free to post. Their fee page
eBay Motors
$34 where the listing price is $15,000 or less and $79 above that. A deposit processing fee of 2.8% of the deposit applies when the vehicle sells and the buyer pays a deposit at checkout. Their fee page
Autotrader
The listing fee depends on the asking price. The percentage is a seller protection fee charged on the final selling price when the sale goes through their Private Seller Exchange, and it is in addition to the listing fee. Their fee page
WheelSheet
After the free days, $9.90 keeps the page up for another 30 days, as many times as you want. No commission on what the car sells for, ever. Our pricing
What is not here
Two gaps in this comparison.
A comparison is only useful if you can tell what it checked and what it did not.
Free local channels
Local marketplaces, community groups and enthusiast forums do not normally charge a private seller to post a car, and that is where a large share of cheap cars change hands. They are described by category here rather than by name and price, because a fee is the kind of number that should be read from the source rather than repeated, and these vary by place and change without announcement.
Two sites that could not be quoted
One answered with an automated bot check rather than a page on the day, so nothing could be read from it. The other no longer offers a paid private listing at all: its seller product collects offers from dealers instead, which is a different thing with no listing fee to compare. Neither absence is a judgement about either company.
The real number
What the listing fee leaves out.
On one of the platforms above, the difference between the advertised fee and the cost of an actual sale is nine dollars against about a hundred and fifty.
Take a car advertised at ten thousand dollars. On the national site with the lowest headline fee, putting it up costs somewhere between nine and forty nine dollars depending on the asking price. If the sale then goes through that site’s own platform, a seller protection fee of just under one percent of the final price applies, with a floor of ninety nine dollars.
So the number to compare is not the one in the advertisement for the service. It is the listing fee plus whatever the sale itself costs, and on that example the total is around a hundred and fifty dollars rather than nine.
That is not a criticism of the pricing. What the percentage buys on that platform is real: identity checks on the buyer, a handled payment, and help with the title. Plenty of sellers would happily pay it for a first private sale. The criticism is of every article that quotes the nine and stops there, because somebody budgeting from that number is going to be surprised at the wrong moment.
The same applies in the other direction. A five dollar posting fee is not the cost of selling on a free classified site either: the cost there is the messages that go nowhere, and it is paid in evenings rather than dollars.
Read this before you use any of it
These numbers were true on one day, and they move.
Every figure above was read off the company's own fee page, and each one is linked. That is the only way to write this page and the only way to use it.
Three of the six figures we had written down in our own notes had changed by the time this page was made. Tiers had been split, a percentage had gained a minimum, and one company had stopped selling private listings altogether. None of those changes were announced anywhere a seller would see.
So treat this as what it is: a snapshot, dated 21 September 2026, with the sources beside it. Before you pay anything, open the fee page for the one you are considering and read the number yourself. It takes a minute, the links are right there, and it is the same thing we did to write this.
If you find one of these out of date, we would rather hear about it than have the page keep saying it. Tell us and it gets corrected.
What to actually do
What order to try them in.
The order matters more than the amounts, because the amounts are small next to the price of the car.
Start with the free channels
Tell the people who already know you, then post locally. On a common car in a city these often find a buyer before anything paid was needed, and they cost nothing but the time to write the listing once.
Pay when the audience is genuinely different
An unusual, modified or collectible car has a buyer who is not within driving distance, and a national or auction audience is the only way to reach them. There the fee is trivial against the difference in price it can produce.
Do not pay to fix a price problem
More visibility on a car priced above the market buys more people seeing a number they have already rejected somewhere else. If two weeks brought no serious inquiries, the money belongs in a price cut rather than in a listing upgrade, and how to price a used car is the place to start.
Count the percentage before you agree to it
A fee expressed as a percentage of the sale sounds smaller than it is. Work it out in dollars on your own asking price, then decide whether what it buys is worth that, because on an expensive car it is the largest fee in this entire article.
Read next
The decisions that move the price.
What listing costs is the smallest of them. These are the rest.
The whole process, in order: how to sell a car privately.
How to price a used car for a private sale
How to arrive at an asking price you can defend: three sources, an honest condition grade, the room to negotiate, and when a silent listing means the number is wrong.
How to photograph a car for sale with a phone
The ten photographs a listing needs, where to stand, what light to wait for, and why the picture of the damage is the one that sells the car.
How to write a car listing that sells
What a private buyer actually reads, the six questions every one of them asks, and how saying what is wrong with the car brings you better buyers rather than fewer.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to list a car for sale?
Between nothing and around a hundred and fifty dollars, and the spread is not about visibility. Posting on a local marketplace or in a community group is free. Craigslist charges a few dollars for a car by owner. A national classified site charges a listing fee and, on some of them, a percentage of the sale on top. All figures on this page were read off each company's own page on 21 September 2026.
Is it free to sell a car on Facebook Marketplace?
Posting a vehicle as a private seller in a local marketplace or a community group does not normally carry a listing fee, which is why those channels are where most cheap cars are sold. This page does not quote a figure for any platform whose own published terms could not be read on the day, because a fee is exactly the kind of number that should not be repeated from memory.
Why do people say listing a car costs nine dollars?
Because that is the headline on the cheapest tier of one national site, and it is the number that gets quoted. It is real, and it is not what selling there costs: the fee depends on the asking price, and selling through that platform adds a percentage of the final price with a minimum of ninety nine dollars. The listing fee and the cost of selling are two different questions.
Is it worth paying to list a car?
It depends on whether the paid channel reaches buyers the free ones do not. On a common car in a city, the free local channels usually find somebody. On an unusual car, or one whose buyer is not within driving distance, the paid national audience is the point and the fee is small against the price difference it can produce.
Do any of these charge a commission on what the car sells for?
One of the three checked here does when the sale goes through its own platform, at a percentage of the final price with a floor. The others charge for the listing and take nothing from the sale. Whether a percentage is worth paying depends on what it buys, which on that platform is buyer verification and a handled payment.
Free for the first ten days, and never a share of the sale.
10 days at no cost, then $9.90 for another thirty if the car is still for sale. WheelSheet takes nothing from what you sell it for.