Your marketplace bidding wallet: free bids, then 25¢

Placing bids in a Marketplace auction runs on a small prepaid wallet — separate from the credits contractors use to bid on jobs. It keeps auctions serious without a percentage bite, and it starts free.

Your first 10 bids are free

Every account gets 10 free auction bids to start. You can bid on any live auction with no charge and no balance until those are used up — the listing and your wallet page show how many free bids you have left.

After that, 25¢ per bid

Once your 10 free bids are gone, each further auction bid costs a flat 25¢, taken from your prepaid marketplace balance at the moment the bid is placed. There’s no percentage and no per-listing fee — just the flat 25¢ per bid. Making an offer on a fixed-price or Wanted listing is always free; the wallet only applies to auction bids.

Topping up

Add funds on your marketplace wallet in one of three top-ups — $5, $10 or $20 — paid through Stripe’s secure checkout (QuoteHive never sees your card number). At 25¢ a bid, $5 covers 20 bids, $10 covers 40, and $20 covers 80. If your balance is too low to cover a bid, we send you to top up first — you’re never charged for a bid that didn’t land.

This wallet is only for marketplace auction bids. The 25¢ chat unlock (to message a seller you haven’t engaged with) comes from the same balance — see Messaging a seller.