eBay Best Offer for Sellers: Auto-Accept, Auto-Decline, and How Low to Go

eBay Best Offer is the setting that turns "I like it, but not at that price" into a sale. Handled well, it closes deals with buyers who would never pay the asking price outright. Handled badly, it trains you to accept lowballs at 11pm. The difference is almost entirely in two numbers you set once: auto-accept and auto-decline.

How Best Offer works, from the seller's side

You turn Best Offer on for a Buy It Now listing. Buyers see a Make offer button next to Buy It Now and send you a price. From eBay's help page, the rules that matter:

Plenty of third-party guides still say sellers have 48 hours. eBay's current help page says 24. Plan around 24.

Auto-accept and auto-decline: set them from your costs

When you enable Best Offer you can add two thresholds. An offer at or above the auto-accept price is accepted instantly. An offer below the auto-decline price is declined instantly. Anything in between comes to you.

The common advice is a percentage — auto-accept at 10% off, auto-decline at 30% off. The trouble with a percentage is that it ignores the only numbers that matter: what you paid and what eBay takes.

Set them from your costs instead:

• Auto-decline = your break-even price. What you paid, plus postage and packaging, plus eBay's fees at that price. Below this, every sale loses money — there is no reason to see those offers at all.
• Auto-accept = the lowest price that still earns the profit you want. At or above this, accepting instantly beats making a buyer wait.
• Between them is your negotiating zone. Counter these.

Fees are charged on the sale price, so break-even is not simply cost plus postage. On most categories eBay takes 13.6% of the order total plus a per-order fee of $0.40 above $10 — and if the listing is promoted, the ad fee comes out too. The Promoted Listings calculator works out both thresholds for you, ad fee included; set the ad rate to zero if you are not promoting. The fee calculator gives the same fee math for a single price.

Countering without leaving money on the table

Counter once, near your auto-accept number, and mean it. Splitting the difference invites another round, and each round is another chance for the buyer to find a different listing. A counter at or just above your auto-accept price says "this is the number" without saying it.

Counter every serious buyer at the same time. eBay lets you counter multiple buyers; whoever accepts first wins. On an item with three offers in the zone, three counters at the same number usually close one of them fast.

Use the counteroffer message. One line — "Price includes free shipping" or "Lowest I can do with the shipping cost" — gets accepted more often than a bare number, because it gives the buyer a reason rather than a haggle.

Offers you send, not just offers you get

Best Offer is buyer-initiated. Separately, you can send offers to interested buyers — people watching the item or who have it in their cart — whether or not Best Offer is on. eBay requires the offer to be at least 5% below the Buy It Now price, sends it to the 30 most recent interested buyers (then up to 30 more every 48 hours), and each offer lasts 96 hours. The watchers guide covers when to send them.

The two work together: Best Offer catches the buyer who wants to negotiate; sent offers nudge the buyer who is waiting.

When to leave Best Offer off

• Hot items. If the sell-through rate is over 100% — more sold than listed — buyers are paying asking prices. Best Offer just invites discounts you do not need to give.
• Items priced at the bottom of the sold range already. There is no negotiating zone left.
• Very cheap items, where the time spent answering offers is worth more than the discount.

What I do differently now

I set auto-decline at break-even on every listing. Not 30% off, not "whatever feels low." Break-even, calculated. Lowball offers never reach me, and nothing below cost ever gets accepted in a tired moment.

I list slightly above where I want to land. Buyers anchor their offer on the asking price. Listing at the top of the sold range with Best Offer on usually lands inside it; listing at the middle with Best Offer on lands below it.

I answer offers within a few hours, not in the 24th. The buyer who made an offer is also looking at other listings. Speed is part of the price.

The honest limits

Best Offer does not fix a listing buyers are not finding, and it does not fix an item nobody wants. If offers never arrive, the problem is upstream — visibility or demand. And the exact limits can vary by category: eBay's own Best Offer help page is the authority for your listings.