It's never been more expensive to list machinery online

Listing fees are climbing across the industry. But vendors are still leaving almost a million dollars on the table every single day. We analyzed 24,000 lots to understand why.

Almost a million dollars doesn't sell every day

We analyzed 160+ sales and 24,000+ lots across reserved and unreserved platforms. You can't review every machinery sale online. Here's what we found.

Data: Mid-March to mid-June 2026

Daily stagnation
$924,283

Worth of machinery that fails to meet reserve every single day.

The $10,000 wall

64.2%
Under $10k clearance
47.5%
$10k - $25k clearance
20.9%
$100k - $250k clearance

Value cleared, month by month

$10.48M
March
$7.76M
April
$7.26M
May
$11.47M
June (peak)
The Unsold Reality: While June saw a peak of $11.47M clear, a massive $20.14M was left unsold. In May, the gap was even worse ($7.26M sold vs $22.46M unsold).

Clearance by auction size

37.9%
Under 50 lots
80.3%
251-300 lots
Optimal
26.7%
Over 500 lots

Wednesday dominates volume. Sunday dominates clearance.

Wednesday Value Cleared
$15.76M
Highest volume, but the lowest item clearance rate (49.3%).
VS
Sunday Dollar Clearance
66.8%
The highest value clearance of the entire week.

The Calendar Clash: Do overlapping auctions hurt sales?

39.2%
Standalone Day
(1 Auction)
27.9%
Crowded Day
(4+ Auctions)

Dollar Clearance Rate

Standalone days win: Without competition, standalone auctions successfully move expensive assets over the $10,000 threshold.
Crowded days lose value: When 4+ auctions clash on the same day, buyers splinter. Cleared sales are driven almost entirely by cheap items under $10,000.

Reserved dominates. But unreserved has higher per-lot value.

$3,044
Reserved
$14,500
Unreserved

Average price per lot sold

Reserved auctions move volume through smaller equipment.
Unreserved auctions attract bigger, more expensive machinery.
Want more info? Give Greg a shout at greg@upforbids.com.au