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It reads a salvage-auction lot and gives you the verdict — is there margin here after fees, shipping, and reconditioning, or not. Paste a VIN or a Copart/IAAI link and you get projected profit, a bid ceiling, and a due-diligence checklist, with every input editable. One account, four ways in: the web app, the iPhone and Android apps, and the Chrome extension.
Independent dealers, flippers, and rebuilders who source from Copart and IAAI for resale. If you’re trying to figure out whether a salvage lot will clear after fees and recon, you’re the audience.
Four surfaces, one account, everything in sync: the web app (look up any VIN, browse live inventory, manage watchlists — works well in a phone browser too), the iPhone and Android apps (both in final testing), and the Chrome extension, which reads the Copart or IAAI lot page you’re already on. Data coverage: Copart and IAAI in the US plus the international Copart sites; VIN lookup works for any 17-character VIN.
You can preview any lot we’ve already analyzed without one — photos, specs, the current bid. The verdict and the profit math open with a free account, and everything you save syncs across surfaces. Free — no credit card. Fresh audits: 5 a day.
The headline read on a lot: Strong Margin, Thin Margin, Below Cost, or Parts Only. It’s based on your projected margin after fees, shipping, and reconditioning, with adjustments for the title brand and vehicle class. Every input is editable, and the verdict updates as you change them. It describes the math — it isn’t a recommendation to act.
A transparent, rule-based calculation at its core. AI assists where it helps — reading photos, grounding market context — always as labeled inputs you can see and override. Your numbers stay yours: the reconditioning estimate that feeds the verdict is the one youset. It’s a research tool — verify the title with your state DMV before bidding, and treat the verdict as input to your decision, not a guarantee.
Override anything. The bid, buyer fee, shipping, recon estimate, title type, and projected sales price are all editable on the lot page on every surface. Your overrides are visually marked so you don’t confuse them with auto-pulled values, and the verdict recalculates as you go.
Because the book assumes a clean-title car sold at retail, and that’s not what you’re buying. The verdict starts from what rebuilt and branded-title cars actually resell for, then adjusts for the title brand and vehicle class. A salvage Lexus and a salvage economy car don’t lose value at the same rate — a clean-retail book with a flat discount can’t see that.
When the reconditioning cost gets too high relative to the car’s market value, the math is telling you to sell components rather than rebuild. The threshold is conservative on purpose — rebuilding a car that’s underwater on parts is a coin-flip even when everything goes right.
A visualization on every lot page: three colored zones map loss → tight margin → healthy margin, the marker is the current bid, and you can drag to model different bids or exit prices and watch the verdict update live.
The live listing itself (photos, bid, damage, sale time), our own database of auction history built from the lots we track, open NHTSA recall data, and market pricing grounded in realized sales. In the product we label where each number came from and whether you’ve overridden it.
Listing facts load when you open the lot, and we show when a cached lot was last pulled rather than pretending it’s live. Bids move fast in the final minutes — always confirm the current bid on the auction page before you commit.
We show the title status the auction publishes, this VIN’s own auction history, and direct links to NICB’s free VINCheck and Carfax/AutoCheck (their pricing). None of that substitutes for an official state DMV check on a vehicle you’re seriously bidding on. We disclose this in the product and in the footer disclaimer on every page.
Yes. The web app works well in a phone browser today, and the native iPhone and Android apps — the same workbench in your pocket — are both in final testing. At a desk, the Chrome extension puts the verdict directly on the live lot page.
Save the lot to a watchlist and pick a reminder window in Settings — from two hours down to fifteen minutes before the sale. Watchlists sync across your devices, and each card keeps your bid math with it.
Fresh audits are capped per day; every lot you’ve already analyzed stays open free, so your watchlist and research don’t lock up. The cap resets at midnight UTC.
When you use the product, we record the lots you visit so we can sync them across your devices and surface them in your watch lists. We also keep aggregate signals (anonymized) about auction outcomes to improve the math for all users over time. The full handling policy is at /privacy.
We don’t sell user data. Like any web service, we send VINs to data providers when you look them up — that’s how lookups work. We don’t share your watch lists, notes, max bids, or account details with anyone.
Account → Security → Delete account. Deletion locks sign-in immediately, and after a 14-day grace window your data is permanently removed. Inside that window you can restore everything by signing back in with the same Google account.
No. AuctionMate is a research tool. We don’t physically inspect vehicles, we don’t issue title certifications, and the verdict is the math’s opinion based on inputs you can change. We say this verbatim in the in-product disclaimer and in the footer of every page.