Guides
Every feature, explained the way you'd explain it across a fence. Quick answers live in the FAQ; these are the full stories.
You enter the most you'd happily pay, and Hunters bids for you automatically - only ever as much as needed to keep you on top, up to your maximum. Nobody sees your maximum: not the seller, not other bidders. If your maximum is $100 and the next bidder stops at $60, you pay around $65, not $100.
Read the full guide →A Power Bid is a seller-set price that any bidder can take to short-circuit the wait: taking it places a real bid at that full amount, waives the seller's reserve on the spot, and pulls the auction's close forward to the next evening slot at least 24 hours away. It's 'buy it now' energy with auction honesty - others can still outbid you in the shortened window, and anti-snipe overtime still applies.
Read the full guide →A reserve is the seller's confidential minimum - the item doesn't sell unless bidding reaches it. On Hunters the item page always tells you where you stand ('Reserve met', 'Reserve not yet met', or 'No reserve - sells to the top bid'), sellers can remove a reserve mid-auction but never raise one, and no-reserve lots are badged because they're the ones guaranteed to sell.
Read the full guide →No. Hunters Auctions charges no buyer's premium and no seller commission - the hammer price is exactly what the winner pays and exactly what the seller receives. Listing is free.
Read the full guide →It depends where you sell. Traditional auction houses typically charge sellers a 10–20% commission AND charge your buyer a 15–25% premium on top of the hammer - money that comes out of what buyers were willing to pay you. General online marketplaces usually take around 10–15% of the sale all-in once payment processing is counted. Hunters Auctions charges $0: no listing fee, no commission, no buyer's premium - the hammer price is exactly what you receive.
Read the full guide →Some sellers ask the auction winner to lock the sale in with a deposit - a fixed amount or a percentage of the hammer price, paid by PayID directly to the seller within 24 or 48 hours of the auction ending. Hunters never holds the money, and the deposit comes off what's paid at handover.
Read the full guide →On Hunters, a no-show winner doesn't kill the sale. After a 72-hour patience window (with the option of one final 24-hour extension), the seller records the sale as fallen through - the no-show goes on the buyer's account - and can then offer the item to the second-highest bidder at that bidder's own highest bid, and to the third-highest if the second declines. Runners-up carry a '2nd chance' badge on their bid history and are notified if the offer comes.
Read the full guide →On Hunters, yes - until the final 24 hours. Once an auction is inside its last day with bids or watchers, withdrawal locks and the auction runs to its end; only support can cancel it for genuine cause. Before that, sellers can withdraw (bidders and watchers are notified), and a lot nobody has bid on or watched can be pulled any time. Listings lock for editing at the first bid, and a reserve can be removed mid-auction but never raised.
Read the full guide →It's as safe as the platform's rules make it. Hunters is built so that honesty is enforced by the mechanics, not the honour system: every listing carries a mandatory condition report that acts as the contract, you inspect before money changes hands on cash sales, seller track records are public (sales, reviews, medals, no-shows counted), items can carry a registry record of their ownership history, and sellers physically cannot pull an auction out from under you in its final 24 hours.
Read the full guide →On Hunters: photos, an honest description, a mandatory condition report, a starting price, and you're live - free, no commission, in about five minutes. Auctions end in the evening (7–9pm slots) when bidders are actually home, a low starting price draws the crowd while a reserve quietly protects your floor, and once the first bid lands your listing locks - so get it right before the room arrives.
Read the full guide →An AI Hunter is a standing search that hunts while you don't: tell it what you're after (or create one with one tap from an auction you just lost) and it notifies you the moment a matching item is listed - by app and push. It matches your words against titles and descriptions, can be pinned to a category and a radius around your postcode, and is free.
Read the full guide →Freebies are items Hunters members give away for nothing. There's no bidding: the first signed-in member to claim one gets it. You arrange pickup in the private order chat, the claimer confirms collection, the item moves into their Hunters wallet with its history intact, and both sides review each other - exactly like a sale, minus the money.
Read the full guide →An opt-in guessing game: switch it on in your account and every lot gets a purple Guess chip. Call the hammer price once per lot - under the hammer scores nothing; at or above, the closer you are the more you score, multiplied by how many days out you called it, a little extra for dearer items, your daily streak and x2 on boosted lots. Points and a monthly leaderboard only - no prizes, nothing to buy, and a guess is never a bid.
Read the full guide →Yes. Every Hunters member can crop, straighten and rotate photos right in the listing form - tap ✂ Edit on any photo. Hunters Plus and Business members also get the background studio: the phone itself cuts the item out of the photo, cleans up the edge, then you can blur the room away, drop the item onto clean white, or stage it on one of 100+ scenes - a workbench, a kitchen bench, a deck, a shed - and drag it into place. All the editing runs on your own device - when you save, the edited photo simply replaces the stored one.
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