We are on the seller's side of the table.

Why TradeBeat exists

There is a well-known gap between what a dealer will pay for your car and what that same car sells for on their lot a few weeks later. That gap is not a scandal, a dealer has to recondition, warrant, advertise, finance and staff the sale, and they are entitled to be paid for it. The gap is simply the price of convenience.

The problem is that most people never get to decide whether that price is worth paying. They are standing in a dealership, they want the new car, and selling privately means listings, messages, lowballs, strangers at the house and a stack of paperwork. So they take the trade, knowing they are probably leaving money behind, because the alternative is too much work.

TradeBeat is the third option. You keep the convenience, we do all of the work, and you get to share in the value that the convenience would otherwise have cost you.

How we are different from a dealer

A dealer buying your car makes more money the less they pay you. That is not a criticism, it is simply the structure of the transaction: their profit is the difference between what they give you and what they get.

We never buy your car, so we can never profit from paying you less. The only money we ever receive is a share of the amount we achieve above the offer you already had. If we beat your number by nothing, we are paid nothing. If we beat it by a lot, we both do well. There is no version of this where we win and you lose.

How we are different from consignment

Traditional consignment says: pay us to sell your car. There is a fee, often calculated on the total value of the vehicle, and it is payable regardless of how well the sale goes.

We say something different: let us make you more money, and if we fail, you owe us nothing. The commercial model is the product. It is the reason you can trust the advice we give you about your own car, including when that advice is "take the trade-in".

What we will not do

• Promise we will beat your offer. We ask for the chance to beat it. Anyone guaranteeing a result on a car they have not seen, in a market that moves, is not being straight with you.
• Take on a car we do not believe in. If your offer is already strong, or the car needs too much work to present at retail, we will tell you. A car we cannot beat the offer on earns us nothing and costs you weeks.
• Benchmark against an inflated trade figure. Dealers often inflate a trade-in and recover it from the discount on the car you are buying. We work from a standalone offer to purchase, because that is the only number that reflects what your car is genuinely worth to the trade. More on that here.
• Hide the risk. Dealer offers expire. If we do not beat yours, the offer you walked in with may not still be there. We say that up front, on the pricing page and in the agreement, because you should be deciding with that in mind.

Where we work

We are a Brisbane business and Brisbane is where we operate, from the inner suburbs out to the north, south, east and west. We generally work with vehicles between $20,000 and $100,000, where the gap between wholesale and retail is wide enough to be worth pursuing. More on selling a car in Brisbane.

The figures used in examples across this site are illustrative and are not valuations, appraisals or offers. What your car achieves depends on the vehicle, its condition and history, and the market at the time of sale.