Should you trade it in or sell it privately?

Trade it in if you need to be out of the car within days, if it is worth under about $20,000, if it needs significant work, or if the offer is already strong for the market. Sell privately if you have several weeks, the car is in good order with service history, and the gap between wholesale and retail on your model is large enough to be worth the work.

Start with your deadline

This decides more than anything else. If you have committed to a new car and need to hand yours over this week, a private sale is not actually an option and the decision is made for you.

If you have three or four weeks and no hard deadline, the retail route is genuinely open to you.

Then look at the car

Cars with a wide wholesale-to-retail gap are worth the effort: utes, four wheel drives, family SUVs, European and electric vehicles, anything late-model with complete service history, and anything currently in short supply.

Cars with a narrow gap are usually not: older vehicles, high kilometres, unpopular specifications, anything needing real work, and anything under about $20,000 where the spread does not cover the effort.

Then be honest about yourself

Some people genuinely do not mind fielding messages, meeting buyers and negotiating. If that is you, a private sale is straightforwardly worth more money.

If the thought of a stranger at your house on a Saturday makes you want to take the trade, that is a real cost, and it is fine to price it.

The middle path

If the honest answer is "I want the private sale money but I am not doing the private sale", you do not have to choose. A licensed party can run the retail sale on your behalf.

With an upside-share model the maths is unusually clean: your dealer offer becomes the floor, and the service is paid only from what it achieves above it. If it fails to beat your number, there is no fee. That structure exists specifically for the person who has been going back and forth on this decision for a week.

General information only, current as of August 2026, and not financial, legal or tax advice. Vehicle values and market conditions change. Figures used in examples are illustrative and are not valuations or offers.