Copart Fees are Complex and Forever Changing
Although Copart fees can be complicated, there are some general rules to help understand how the systems work for your next Copart purchase. Keep in mind the exact percentages may change in the future.
Licensed vs Non-Licensed Bidder
Copart fees are broken up into two categories; Licensed and Unlicensed bidders. Before we talk about the fees associated to each, we need to understand the key differences between the two.
In short, a licensed bidder is someone bidding on a business account that is registered with a tax id, business id, and in some cases an operational license (these may vary state to state). There are a few advantages of being a licensed bidder on Copart, clean title auctions (some other vehicles are restricted to licensed bidders only as well), as well as reduced fees and expenses through Copart. Remember you must have or be affiliated with someone who has a valid automotive business in order to legally register and or use a licensed account on Copart.
Non-licensed or “Unlicensed” bidders are the most common type of bidder. This will apply to the vast majority of bidders on Copart. Unlicensed means as the name suggests, you do not qualify to be a licensed bidder. If you have or open a standard (Basic) or Premier membership through Copart you are unlicensed. This allows you to bid on many vehicles but there are bidding restrictions depending on the membership purchased. Some common restrictions include but are not limited to daily bidding limits, max bidding amounts, vehicle selection, locations, and in some cases even in person viewing privileges.
Licensed Bidder Fees
Licensed bidding fees are broken up further into two categories for each respective bidding type with a fee table for each.
In the case of licensed bidders, these two sub categories are “I buy 25 or more vehicles AND spend $75K or more in vehicles sales per year AND have less than 5 bidder accounts“ and “I buy fewer than 25 vehicles OR spend less than $75K in vehicle sales per year OR have 5 or more bidder accounts“.
They break it up in this way in order to give preferred pricing to members to buy the most, in a simple manner. This encourages people to open less accounts, bid more, and buy more. I have attached links for both licensed account types with their respective fee tables in order to view updated metrics.
Un-licensed Bidder Fees
Unlicensed bidding fees are NOT broken up further into two categories depending on bidding and purchase amounts for each respective bidding type unlike Licensed bidders. Although they are still broken up into the rest of the sub categories like licensed bidders that are covered in the next section.
This means there is one less sub category for Unlicensed bidders. This is good news, the majority of bidders are unlicensed so this reduces confusion for the average joe!
The Complexity of Copart Fees
Each sub category has a sub-sub category “Clean Title Vehicles” or “Non-Clean Title Vehicles”, further complicating the process of understanding the Copart fee system.
Both sub-sub categories have their respective sub-sub-sub categories for “Standard Vehicles” and “Heavy Vehicles”. Both sub-sub-sub categories have sub-sub-sub-sub categories for “Secured Payment Methods”, “Unsecured Payment Methods”, “Pre-Bid”, and “Live Bid”.
This means there are 16 unique fee tables for Licensed bidders, and 8 unique fee tables for Non-licensed bidders.
A General Rule of Thumb
When you are planning on buying any car off Copart, consider a few factors.
- What type of car are you buying? (Clean title vs Non-clean title and Standard vs Heavy)
- How much do you plan on bidding? (Fees typically reduce in percentage as purchase prices increase)
- What type of account are you bidding on? (Non-Licensed vs Licensed)
After considering the previous points, you can find your respective chart to see your exact fees associated with that purchase.
Please note:
There are more fees to consider than the “Final Bid Price” fee we have been discussing in this post.
There is also a transaction fee (payment type factors the fee, between 3% and $15), storage fees (if the vehicle is left for too long without pickup), membership fee (yearly amount depending on membership), title shipping fee (typically between $15-$20), environmental fee (typically $15), gate fee (usually under $100), and a virtual bid fee (variable on bidding amount and type).
My Personal Experience With Fees
I have purchased more cars on Copart in the last few years than most people own in their lifetime. I have used licensed and non-licensed accounts, purchase prices between $2,000 and $25,000, purchased in and out of state, some were clean and non-clean, some even were bio-hazards, I’ve purchased heavy and standard vehicles, and have tried multiple different payment methods.
After my experiences there are two concepts I use to pay the least amount for fees
- Find someone with a dealers account (Licensed Member) that can either bid for you or allow access to their account. The most common example of this is a broker of some sort. They will typically charge a flat rate in between $100-$400 depending the contingencies and benefits. I will usually use this option for vehicles over $2000 purchase price.
- Pay for the vehicle on time using a cashiers check. This will avoid a percentage based transaction fee (typically 3% of the total amount after fees) and will reduce it to $15 flat no matter the amount. The downside is you are required to have that amount liquid at the time of purchase or else you may not be able to pay for the car before storage fees begin.
Real Life Examples:
Using a Licensed account I purchased a 2019 Toyota Corolla for exactly $4000 off auction. After all the fees associated with Copart and using a cashiers check, I paid $4,835. With a brokers fee of $150 I paid almost exactly $1000 for fees. This means I paid nearly 25% of the bid amount in fees.
Using a Licensed account I purchased a 2019 Tesla Model 3 for $14,300 off auction. After all the fees associated with Copart I paid about $15,700. With a brokers fee of $150 I paid about $1600 for fees. This means I spent a little more than 10% of the total value in fees. This trend of paying a lower percentage of fees as the value increases continues until you reach $15,000 where it hits a constant 6% bidding fee (using a preferred licensed account on a non-clean vehicle) before the rest of the fees.
Using a Non-licensed account my dad purchased a 2017 Ford Edge Sport for $4,100 off auction. After all the fees associated with Copart and using the cashiers check payment method, he paid $5,450.36. There was no brokers fee, so he ended up paying $1350 for fees. This means he paid about 32% of the total value in fees. This is 7% more than I spent on my Toyota Corolla and $350 more total in fees for a vehicle that had a purchase price of $100 more. The only variable that changed is the bidding account type.
Licensed account: Bidding price $4000 | Fees $1000 | Total cost $5000
Non-Licensed account: Bidding Price $4100 | Fees $1350 | Total cost $5450
Useful Resources:
Licensed fees: https://www.copart.com/content/us/en/member-fees-us-licensed?srsltid=AfmBOoo6kCvl7fIrdAy3RvKwlx0Ob6vsvC77R2U4jJnG7OzbTOY2mQV4
Non-licensed fees: https://www.copart.com/content/us/en/member-fees-us-non-licensed?srsltid=AfmBOopYrsk49qNvfT_63tCQFfw6SR1Y3Pj8Y5J-07CmyaL2Xsx9UhXI
Here is an Example of a Fee Table
