How the Marketplace works, and what it costs

The QuoteHive Marketplace lets you buy, sell, auction, or get items quoted across tools, building materials, vehicles and trailers, home and garden, services, and surplus. Here’s how it works and what, eventually, it costs. Short version: far less than eBay or Kijiji, and selling is free during our launch beta (a couple of small buyer-side wallet fees are already live, see below).

• Fixed-price sale: a fixed price; buyers purchase or make an offer you can accept, decline or counter.
• Auction: buyers bid against each other with a live countdown; the high bid wins at close.
• Get it quoted: send an item or project to verified contractors for a price.
• Wanted: post what you’re looking for and let sellers come to you.
• Any listing can also be turned into a delivery & install request that goes to verified contractors.

Selling is free during our launch beta: listing, browsing, and making or receiving offers all cost nothing, and the seller’s final-value fee is waived for now. Two small buyer-side wallet fees are already live to keep bidding and messaging serious:

• Auction bidding: your first 10 bids are free, then 25¢ each (flat), taken from a prepaid marketplace balance. See Your marketplace bidding wallet.
• Chat unlock: 25¢ to message a seller you haven’t bid with or made an offer to (verified accounts only). Bidding or making an offer is always free to message: see Messaging a seller.

When the seller’s final-value fee turns on (after our beta), it will be small, transparent, and paid by the seller out of their proceeds (never added to what the buyer pays): a percentage of the completed sale by category:

• Tools & Equipment: 5%
• Building Materials: 4%
• Vehicles & Trailers: 2%
• Home & Garden: 5%
• Surplus & Liquidation: 3%
• Services, no sale fee (services are quoted; verified contractors pay through the normal bidding credits instead).

For comparison, eBay charges roughly 13% on most categories (and a flat fee around $150 on vehicles). QuoteHive is built to undercut that by a wide margin: a $5,000 vehicle that would cost a seller well over a hundred dollars elsewhere costs a fraction here.

Fixed-price items are bought through secure in-platform checkout (Stripe) with your provincial sales tax added automatically. Both buyers and sellers keep a card on file (buyers to check out, sellers to list) and QuoteHive only ever stores the card’s brand and last four digits, never the full number. See Payment methods & your card on file.

When a sale completes, the seller’s net proceeds (sale price minus the fee) are credited as Pending, then clear to Available after a 24-hour hold. Full payout timing and a worked example are in Selling on QuoteHive: fees & payouts; the buyer’s side is in Buying on QuoteHive.

Getting something delivered or installed? That routes to QuoteHive’s verified contractors, who bid on the work: see how bidding works.