Auto Trader fees against your own stock list: what a small dealer pays for each enquiry
Auto Trader publishes no dealer price list, so here is how to work out what each enquiry costs on the portal and on your own stock list, with the eBay fees that are published, FCA and Consumer Rights Act pointers, and local search. Checked 9 November 2026.
This guide is for the independent dealer with 10 to 40 cars who pays Auto Trader every month and wants to know what each enquiry really costs, and whether a stock list on their own website would bring it down. It covers what the channels publish, how to work out cost per enquiry, what your own stock list does, pointers on the law, and local search. Disclosure: we build Orbit Commerce, which runs dealer stock lists, so weigh the Orbit parts accordingly. Every figure and rule was checked against its source on 9 November 2026.
In short
- Auto Trader publishes no dealer price list. Its own published figures put average revenue per retailer at £3,037 a month across 13,762 forecourts, national groups included (six months to 30 September 2026).
- eBay publishes its vehicle listing fees for a business account; for eBay Motors Pro and Cazoo, the former Motors.co.uk, get the price in writing.
- Cost per enquiry is what a channel cost you in a month divided by the enquiries it sent. Count enquiries the same way everywhere and put the sales beside them.
- Your own stock list owns the enquiry, the part exchange lead, your reviews and your name in search; cars go in by hand or from a spreadsheet, and the portal keeps its own copy.
- On Orbit the whole site runs on the Solo plan at £25 a month, with a 14-day free trial and no card.
How much does Auto Trader charge a small used car dealer?
Auto Trader’s retailer packages page (checked 9 November 2026) lists four packages, Standard, Enhanced, Super and Ultra, plus Advertising Basics for smaller independents, an Economy Package for cars priced between £2,500 and £7,000, and Pay As You Go for retailers stocking fewer than five vehicles a month. No price appears against any of them; the page asks you to call. The retailer overview offers stock contracts “from as few as 5 vehicles”, gives a 30-day cancellation period and puts the audience at 10.1 million consumers a month (ComScore, April 2024 to March 2025).
The scale is in the company’s own published figures. For the six months to 30 September 2026 it reported that “Average Revenue Per Retailer (‘ARPR’) per month increased by 1% (or £43) to £3,037” and that the average number of retailer forecourts fell 2% to 13,762 (half-year results, 5 November 2026, checked 9 November 2026). ARPR spreads retailer revenue across every forecourt, from a ten-car pitch to a national group, so read it as the size of the market, not as your quote.
What does eBay charge a dealer, and what about Cazoo and Facebook Marketplace?
eBay publishes a fee you can read. Its vehicle fees page (checked 9 November 2026) says a business seller pays £17.99 to list a vehicle as a Classified Ad and £13.99 for an auction-style or fixed price listing, excluding VAT and “charged whether or not your item sells”. eBay Motors Pro, for VAT-registered dealers, offers “packages to suit all sizes of dealerships from 10 cars to 5,000” and publishes no prices on its site. For everything that is not a vehicle, see eBay against your own website.
Cazoo is the new name of Motors.co.uk: the switch was set for 27 May 2026 (Car Dealer Magazine, 28 April 2026), and the old address now leads to cazoo.co.uk (checked 9 November 2026). Get its quote in writing, as you would from any portal. A Facebook Marketplace post is a classified you write and take down by hand.
| Channel | Published on 9 November 2026 | How you pay |
|---|---|---|
| Auto Trader | Package names and contents; no prices | A quoted monthly package by stock level; 30-day cancellation |
| eBay (business account) | £17.99 Classified Ad, £13.99 auction or fixed price, ex VAT; 0.9% final value fee (£21.99 to £39.49) on an auction or fixed price sale, none on a Classified Ad | Per listing, sold or not, plus the fee on a sale |
| eBay Motors Pro | Packages from 10 to 5,000 cars; no prices | A quoted package |
| Your own stock list on Orbit | £25 a month on Solo, £19 a month billed yearly, ex VAT; nothing per car | The plan, plus your own marketing |
How do you work out your cost per enquiry?
Cost per enquiry is everything a channel cost you in a month divided by the enquiries it sent you. Three rules keep it honest.
- Count enquiries the same way on every channel. A call, a form, a chat or a text from a named person about a named car counts; an advert view does not.
- Include everything the channel costs: the package, add-ons, listing fees, any ad budget for your own site, and your time.
- Use three months, not one. A ten-car dealer’s enquiries swing with the weather and the stock.
The figures below are examples to show the arithmetic, not benchmarks: Auto Trader publishes no small-dealer prices and nobody publishes enquiry counts. Put your own in the last column.
| Line | Auto Trader (example) | Own stock list (example) | Your figures |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly fee | £1,400 package invoice | £25 Orbit Solo plan | |
| Extras in the month | £0 | £175 on local search ads | |
| Total before your time | £1,400 | £200 | |
| Enquiries in the month | 56 | 10 | |
| Cost per enquiry | £25 | £20 | |
| Sales from those enquiries | Fill in | Fill in |
In the example the two costs per enquiry land close together, because the portal sends far more enquiries for far more money. The last row matters most: an enquiry that becomes a test drive is cheap at either price, and one that never does is dear at any.
What does your own stock list do that the portals cannot?
On a portal the advert is yours and the page is theirs. On your own site everything the page earns stays with you, and the price does not move with the number of cars.
- Every car in one place under your name, with the make, body type and price filters you set.
- Enquiries you own: each arrives with the buyer’s name, email and phone in your email and your dashboard’s contact inbox, so the follow-up is a phone call.
- Part exchange leads with photos, from a valuation form that asks for the registration, mileage and condition.
- Your Google reviews beside your stock, where a portal’s reviews stay on the portal.
- The dealer’s story, and a blog for the questions buyers ask on the phone.
Here is how the stock runs on Orbit. Each car goes onto your site from your own records, and the portal keeps its own copy: adding a car by hand takes a few minutes, several at once is a CSV or Excel import, and a price-change sheet updates the cars you already have. The facts on the page come from your own checks, so the mileage, the MOT date and any advisory say what you have verified.
The car page ends in an enquiry and the sale happens with you; when a car sells you mark it sold or archive it. A deposit you agree with a buyer by phone is its own draft order with a custom line (“Deposit, stock 214”), sent as a payment link that works for seven days, and the balance is a second order or a payment-due invoice later. Our guide to putting a forecourt online walks through the build, and estate agents use the same pattern.
How do you get found for “used cars in” your town?
The portals hold the generic “used cars” search; your site competes for your name, your town and the make-and-model searches of people nearby. Google’s page on local ranking (checked 9 November 2026) says Google weighs relevance (“how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for”), distance and prominence (“how well-known a business is”). Its tips are to verify the business, keep your information and hours complete, respond to reviews and add photos and videos. So the first job is a verified Business Profile with forecourt photos and answered reviews.
On the site, give Google pages that match the searches: a page for your town and the towns you draw from (“Used cars in Kettering”), a collection per make and body type, and one per price band, each with its own title and description. On Orbit every product, category, page and blog post has a search title counted to 70 characters and a description counted to 160. The sitemap updates itself, each car page carries the product data search engines read (schema.org Product), with the price, stock status and brand, and a renamed page redirects on its own (SEO on Orbit).
What do the finance rules mean for a dealer website?
Pointers only, because this is regulated ground. Section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 says a person must not, in the course of business, “communicate an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity” unless they are an authorised person or the content has been approved by one (legislation.gov.uk, checked 9 November 2026). The FCA says financial promotions “can take the form of a website, Facebook post, tweet, etc.” and “must be clear, fair and not misleading regardless of the media type” (FCA, financial promotions and adverts). Its motor dealers page says a dealer that owns the vehicles it sells can apply for Limited Permission (FCA, motor dealers). Its regulatory guide for credit brokers, updated 20 May 2026, covers limited permission brokers, “which could include motor dealers”, and the appointed representative route under an authorised principal (FCA, regulatory guide for credit brokers).
If you are neither authorised nor an appointed representative, your website shows cash prices and no finance copy at all: no monthly figures, no APR, no calculator, no “finance available” line and no finance enquiry form. If you are, your principal or compliance adviser signs off every word, the enquiry form included.
What does the Consumer Rights Act 2015 mean for a used car you sell?
The Act applies to every car you sell to a consumer. Section 9 makes satisfactory quality a term of the sale, judged by what a reasonable person would consider satisfactory given the description and the price. It does not cover a defect “specifically drawn to the consumer’s attention before the contract is made” or, where the buyer examines the car before the sale, one that examination ought to reveal (section 9). The buyer can reject a faulty car within 30 days of delivery, a clock that stops while the car is with you for a repair (section 22).
A fault appearing within six months is treated as present on delivery unless you establish otherwise (section 19). On a final rejection the refund may carry a deduction for use, which in the first six months is allowed only where “the goods consist of a motor vehicle” (section 24, all checked 9 November 2026). For the listing that means one thing: a known advisory written on the car’s page is a defect drawn to the buyer’s attention, and one left off is not. General information, not legal advice; your trade body or Trading Standards will answer a specific case.
Where Orbit fits
A dealer stock list runs on the Solo plan at £25 a month, or £19 a month billed yearly, before VAT, with unlimited products, one staff account and hosting on AWS in London; Team at £85 a month has ten staff accounts, and the 14-day trial needs no card. Each car is a product whose price is the cash price, with year, mileage, fuel, gearbox and MOT expiry as custom fields (a number, a date or a pick-one list, shown on the page or kept internal). Collections and tags for make, body type and price band give the list its filters.
The car template is laid out once in the page builder with the gallery, the price, the facts and an enquiry form where a buy button would be, and each enquiry is emailed to you and kept in your contact inbox. Cars go in by hand or from a CSV or Excel file and export back out the same way, custom fields included. The Google Reviews element connects your listing by business name and town and shows up to five reviews as a badge, carousel or grid, refreshed nightly. Google Reviews and Form Builder, which builds the part exchange form with photo uploads, are add-ons from the plugin store: Google Reviews is priced on its listing, and Form Builder has a free plan and paid plans. The theme store lists free and premium themes by industry; pick one for a dealer site and change its colours, fonts and logo in the dashboard.
Read next: selling car parts online with fitment notes, Rightmove and Zoopla against your own site and Checkatrade or your own website.
Questions people ask about Auto Trader fees and your own stock list
How much does Auto Trader charge a small used car dealer?
Auto Trader does not publish dealer prices; packages are quoted by an account team. Its own published figures put average revenue per retailer at £3,037 a month across 13,762 forecourts, national groups included (six months to 30 September 2026, checked 9 November 2026).
What is a good cost per enquiry for a used car dealer?
Nobody publishes one, so set your own. Divide what a channel cost you in a month by the enquiries it sent, count enquiries the same way on every channel, and put the sales from each beside it. A channel whose enquiries cost less but never turn into test drives is the dear one.
Is eBay cheaper than Auto Trader for selling cars?
Only eBay’s ordinary business fees are published: £17.99 to list a car as a Classified Ad or £13.99 as an auction-style or fixed price listing, excluding VAT and charged whether or not it sells, plus a 0.9% final value fee (minimum £21.99, maximum £39.49) on an auction-style or fixed price sale (checked 9 November 2026). eBay Motors Pro’s packages and Auto Trader’s are quoted, not published.
How do my cars get onto my own stock list?
Each car is added by hand in a few minutes or imported from a CSV or Excel file, and a price-change sheet updates the cars already there; the portal keeps its own copy and your site keeps yours. When a car sells you mark it sold or archive it yourself.
Can I put finance offers on my dealer website?
Only if you are FCA-authorised, for example as a limited permission credit broker, or an appointed representative of an authorised firm: finance copy on a website is a financial promotion, and section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 restricts who may communicate one. If you are neither, show cash prices and no finance copy at all.
How do I take a deposit on a car from my Orbit site?
A car page ends in an enquiry and the sale happens with you. A deposit you agree with a buyer by phone is its own draft order with a custom line, sent as a payment link that works for seven days, and the balance is a second order or a payment-due invoice later.
Start with the table and your last three Auto Trader invoices, then build the other column in the trial: add three cars, lay out the car template with its enquiry form and send yourself a test enquiry. The 14-day free trial, no card required, runs while the portal keeps selling.