How BoatList Works

There’s no cost to submit your boat for inclusion. Once accepted, the listing fee is $125. There are no commissions, so you keep 100% of the sale price.

You can auction your boat on BoatList and still trade it in towards your new boat at the dealer. Rather than accept a low trade in offer from the dealer, get the most money by finding your own buyer on BoatList – then simply finalize the transaction through your dealer so they end up with the funds and you get the sales tax credit.

We reserve the right to refuse listing boats on BoatList for any reason. However, please check our Listing Guidelines to get a better idea of what we look for. In most cases, we can work with sellers to get their boat listed on BoatList.

Our business model depends on there being plenty of buyers on BoatList at all times. There’s no risk for sellers, as they control the reserve price. However, BoatList only gets paid the buyer’s fee when an auction closes above the reserve. That’s why it’s in our best interest to promote all live auction listings online, including social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok.

Yes, as long as your boat is located in the US. We may offer international auctions in the future.

Yes, as long as your boat is located in the contiguous United States. We may offer auctions in Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Alaska in the future.

Simply go to the Sell a Boat page, select Individual or Multiple  and fill out the submission form. All you need are a few good photos of your boat – the shoot comes later.

We’ll ask you some questions about the boat, its use and where it’s been stored. We’ll also ask you to submit a few photos so our staff can review and approve your listing.

One of our Auction Specialists will review your submission and get back to you, typically within 2 business days. If we accept your vessel for auction, you pay a listing fee and your account manager will begin to source the information and media for your listing, as well as share next steps.

We can’t emphasize enough how important quality photos and videos are for a successful online auction! With this in mind, go check out our Photography Guide to get tips and directions on what to source and submit. Keep in mind we have partnered with a national network of professional photographers that come to you starting at less than $300.

Yes, have professional photographers / videographers that come to you starting at less than $300. Simply go to your Account Profile, click on My Listings and buy the photo package. Your Auction Specialist will contact you to schedule the shoot.

After you provide us with all of the information about your boat, we’ll write the actual auction listing content and share it with you for feedback and approval. We won’t go live without your consent, and we do our best to make our auction descriptions simple, objective, and direct, focusing on only the most important details to help bidders make their decisions.

Although we don’t offer the ability to precisely schedule your auction, we allow our sellers to provide preferences. If you’d prefer a certain start date, or if you’d prefer if your auction wasn’t live during a certain week (for example, due to a vacation or business trip), let us know and we’ll do our best to accommodate you.

Once you have provided all of the information about your boat, including the photos and videos, and once you approve the auction listing content we do our best to schedule the auction for the following week.

No – vessels listed on Boatlist are for sale exclusively through the auction – otherwise you may not have the boat available for the winning bidder. You must discontinue all other ads, both online and offline, as well as any listing agreements with a boat broker BEFORE the start of the auction.

No. All boats listed on BoatList for live auctions must be available for the winning bidder when the auction ends. If a buyer or seller attempts to make a deal in an attempt to subvert the auction, we will permanently ban you from the site and you forfeit any fees paid to BoatList.

Potential buyers can contact you through BoatList by emailing info@boatlist.auction — for instance in regards to financing or to ask about how soon they may need to take delivery should they win the auction. Some buyers may live close by, or be willing to travel to inspect your boat. Some may even want a professional survey performed by a marine professional. We encourage you to meet all interested buyers and allow them to survey the vessel at their cost if they so desire. Generally, bidders who are willing to spend their own money to inspect or survey a boat are serious buyers and should be treated as such.

All auctions run for 7 days once they are launched. Any bid placed during the last 2 minutes of every auction will extend the auction by another 2 minutes to protect against sniping and to allow other bidders a final opportunity to bid.

Yes and no. You cannot change the information in the auction listing once the auction goes live, however, you will be able to work with your Auction Specialist, as well as the Live Auction Dashboard to add more photos or videos throughout the auction process.

No, we do not cancel live auctions. We require that your listing be exclusive to BoatList during the time that your auction is live.

• Yes, we offer sellers the choice between a “reserve” and a “no reserve” auction. A “reserve” is a minimum price that a seller is willing to accept for a boat, which is unknown to buyers during the auction. A “no reserve” auction has no minimum price, meaning the boat will sell for the amount of the high bid.
• If you choose a reserve auction, we will ask you to suggest a reserve price – but we may ask for a lower one before we’re willing to list the boat for sale. If we can’t agree on a reserve price, no hard feelings – of course, you’re free to sell the boat elsewhere.

If you decide during the auction that you want to adjust your reserve, you can lower it at any time. Simply click the “Lower reserve” icon in your Live Auction Dashboard, and enter the new lower reserve.

No, we do not allow sellers to bid on their own listing; this behavior is strictly prohibited. We have tools in place to monitor bidding to ensure this doesn’t happen.

We recommend never revealing your reserve, especially in the public Q&A section. We’ve found that disclosing a reserve price almost always slows down bidding, especially as the auction nears or reaches that value.

• BoatList features a simple but powerful messaging interface that allows you to respond to questions directly where they are asked. The system highlights any incoming questions from bidders and alerts you via email.
• We strongly recommend being an active participant by responding in a timely manner to any questions submitted in the Q&A section, as well as directly from users via email. Sellers who participate actively are the most successful. As always, staying positive and constructive with your answers will only increase confidence from potential bidders.
• Keep in mind that the buyer is a boating enthusiast just like you, and they likely wouldn’t be asking unless they’re seriously interested in your boat!

If your reserve isn’t met, there are no winners – literally. You’re stuck with your boat, none of the interested bidders ended up with it, and BoatList loses out on the buyer’s fee. As a result, if your reserve is not met we’ll work with you and the highest bidder in an attempt to find a sale price that works for all parties.

All transactions for won auction lots on BoatList are between the winning bidder and the seller. BoatList provides the buyer and the seller with each other’s contact information and the two parties can complete arrangement for the final transaction via e-mail or by telephone. Read more about Finalizing the Transaction.

We recommend the seller send the winning bidder a photo of the title and a Bill of Sale prior to the winning bidder sending payment. We recommend that the Seller request payment in the form of a wire transfer or cashier’s check. Read more about Finalizing the Transaction.

• We recommend researching the timeline and steps for title transfers in advance of the auction to ensure that you know the appropriate selling process in your state. Note that potential buyers are encouraged to reach out to discuss the post-sale arrangements, in case they are the top bidder. Please engage with them to develop a suitable plan, and be up-front about your expectations!
• If there is a loan on a vessel, please research the necessary steps to pay off the loan and transfer the title, and have a plan ready to do so upon the close of the auction – the more prepared you are, the more efficiently you can sell the boat!
• Note that some states can take several weeks to reissue a title once the loan has been satisfied. Additionally, some states require that you notarize the title before it can be transferred to the buyer, so pay close attention to those rules – and reference state websites – before sending important documents.

• We always recommend drafting up a Bill of Sale that describes the Make/Model/Hull ID number of the vessel being sold, the purchase price, and the terms of the transaction (ie date(s), if any additional items come with the boat, etc.). Both the buyer and seller should sign and date the Bill of Sale and each should keep a copy for their records.
• BoatList offers a Bill of Sale template free of charge in the Buyer Resources section.
• Your state’s DMV website may have vehicle/vessel Bill of Sale templates. Additionally, we recommend a simple and free service such as eforms.com.

• It’s very uncommon that a winning bidder fails to follow through on BoatList without discovering undisclosed issues. We charge buyers a fee that is usually in the thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars (based on the sale price). In the unusual event that a buyer abandons a deal, the winning bidder forfeits their buyer’s fee — and they are permanently banned from BoatList.
• If your buyer fails to follow through without cause, we’ll immediately work with the next-highest bidder(s) in an attempt to sell your vessel at an agreed-upon price. In the event that we can’t strike a deal, we may offer to re-list your boat free of charge, or refund the $125 listing fee.
• If however, during the inspection or survey the buyer discovers undisclosed material issues that affect the value or operability of the boat in a substantial way, the seller is responsible to remedy the undisclosed issues or work out a price adjustment with the buyer. If the seller refuses  both options, the buyer can file a complaint with BoatList and abandon the transaction for cause. The buyer’s fee is refunded and the seller becomes responsible for the buyer’s fee due to misrepresenting the boat. This decision is solely at the discretion of BoatList.

We keep all auctions perpetually available for all to see regardless of their outcome. We do this because we feel it’s essential to be transparent in order to build trust within the enthusiast community, and to create a marketplace that is also a valuable resource for enthusiasts to research pricing trends.