Let’s be square about it: HiBid’s reach is real, and most of our customers still list there for the buyers. But every sale, a slice of your hammer walks out the door, and the bidder list you spent years building sits on somebody else’s books. This is an honest look at what that costs you — and what stays yours with Hammerwerks.
You do the work — haul the estate, shoot the lots, stand at the block on a Saturday. A big marketplace brings buyers to it, and that’s worth paying for. What stings is the after: those bidders register under the marketplace, not under you, and the fee moves with your hammer, so the better your sale, the bigger the check you write. Hammerwerks doesn’t try to take the reach away from you. It hands back the two things the marketplace quietly keeps — your list and your margin.
As of 2026, millions of registered bidders and a name buyers already trust. If your problem is getting eyes on a lot, that reach does its job and does it well. Keep it — we mean that plainly.
The bidders you meet there are the marketplace’s, not yours. Your fee climbs with your success. And when the last lot hammers down, you’re still the one doing settlement math at the kitchen table Sunday night. None of that is a scandal — it’s just the deal you signed.
Your bidder list stays yours and exports any time. No commission on the hammer, ever. The catalog gets drafted from photos with a second AI checking the first. And the books settle against the contract your consignor actually signed. List on HiBid for the reach; own everything else right here.
Public information as of 2026, and we’ve tried to be fair. HiBid is a strong, entrenched product — none of this is a knock on it. Where we can’t confirm something on their side, we say so instead of guessing, and where they beat us we say that too.
| Capability | HiBid | Hammerwerks |
|---|---|---|
| Registered-bidder reach | Huge — millions (2026) | Small. We won’t pretend otherwise |
| Who the bidder list belongs to | The marketplace’s shared catalog | Yours — per-tenant, export any time |
| Commission on the hammer | Part of the marketplace model | None. Ever |
| What you pay to run it | Moves with your sale — check their current terms | A published tier from $99/mo |
| AI lot drafting from photos | Not that we’ve seen (2026) | Yes — title, description, category, condition and a value range, each with a confidence score; a second AI checks it; you approve every lot |
| Honest “I don’t know” on coins, jewelry, art, thin markets | — | Yes — it declines a price instead of inventing one |
| Recall + identifier checks (NHTSA/CPSC, VIN/ISBN/UPC/maker’s marks) | Not that we’ve found (2026) | Yes, on every lot |
| No-login capture link for a helper | Not that we’ve found (2026) | Yes — scoped and revocable |
| Catalog on your own domain | HiBid storefront / subdomain | Full white-label, your domain |
| Settlement — invoice buyers, collect, pay consignors | Not that we’ve found (2026) | Settle against the signed contract; a lot won’t pay out before its buyer money is collected; reconciled books |
| Consignment agreement e-signed + you countersign | Not that we’ve found (2026) | Tamper-evident and provable — fingerprinted and recorded |
| Underbidders handed back as a ranked call list | Not that we’ve found (2026) | Yes — your next-sale pipeline |
| Run the back office from ChatGPT (MCP) | No | Yes |
| Proxy / max bids + soft-close, real-time bidding | Yes | Yes |
Here’s the part we won’t fake: we don’t publish HiBid’s prices for them, and marketplace terms change. As of 2026 the general shape is that a marketplace fee moves with your sale — a cut of the hammer and/or per-lot listing fees. Check their current terms; don’t take a number from us. What we can hand you is ours, in full, because it’s the same whether your month is big or slow.
| Plan | Monthly | What’s included |
|---|---|---|
| Solo | $99/mo | 200 lots, manual cataloging unlimited, 0 AI credits |
| Growth | $299/mo | 1,000 lots, 500 AI credits/mo |
| Scale | $799/mo | 5,000 lots, 3,000 AI credits/mo |
Over your tier it’s 50¢ a lot. Bidders and users are unlimited on every plan. AI credits meter the AI work — the drafting, the second-AI review, the recall and identifier lookups — and manual cataloging never spends a credit. Setup is $499 once, waived with a promo code. No commission on your hammer on any plan. If the first month doesn’t earn its keep, that’s a 30-day money-back and you walk out with a full export. One thing we’ll concede straight: your books export to CSV, not a live QuickBooks or Xero sync.
The difference isn’t only the number. It’s that a busy sale doesn’t cost you more here, and getting the catalog drafted in a fraction of the time means you can run more sales — including the ones you still list on HiBid.
Most of our folks run both. HiBid brings the buyers; we handle the work around the sale and give you back your list and your books. You keep listing there for the reach. We just get the catalog photographed, drafted, and reviewed faster, then invoice your buyers, collect, and settle each consignor against the contract they signed — instead of you doing it by hand Sunday night.
No. Your bidders see your branded catalog. Hammerwerks is the part you work in to catalog and run the sale. They never know there’s anything underneath.
Straight answer: there’s no one-click HiBid integration today. You’d get the catalog onto HiBid the way you do now — except it’s already photographed, drafted, checked by a second AI, and priced instead of typed in field by field. If a direct integration matters to you, ask on a call where it stands before you count on it.
They might, and good on them if they do. For it to matter to you, a few things have to line up: it has to draft well across verticals (harder than it looks), it has to know when to say “I don’t know” instead of inventing a price and burning your credibility, and it has to tie into settlement and your books. We’re betting on staying small and fast — and on the founder still picking up the phone.
No, and we won’t claim we do. Their registered-bidder pool is enormous and ours is small. Our edge is the workflow and the ownership — your list, your margin, your settled books — not raw reach. If reach is the only thing you need, stay on HiBid with our blessing. Want to see the rest? Watch the 90-second demo or book a call.
List on HiBid for the buyers. Run the sale, own your bidders, and settle your books here. 30-day money-back, cancel anytime, full data export whenever you want.
Start on your next sale