Custom URL. Your branding. Mobile-perfect out of the box. Built in 30 minutes without writing a single line of code. 130,500+ causes since 2008.
"Almost double last year." — Sarah, PTA Pres.
Your silent auction website is the donor-facing artifact of the entire fundraiser. It's the link in the email you send. It's the URL you print on your program. It's where bids actually happen. If it's slow, ugly, or confusing, you lose donations you would otherwise have won. If it's clean, branded, and fast, donors stay engaged from the first email through the final-minute bidding war. The website is not a minor detail — for online and hybrid auctions, it's the entire event experience.
32auctions gives you a fully functional silent auction website from the moment you create an account. The free base auction is fully usable — custom URL, mobile-optimized layout, item gallery, bid forms, live updates. The Apply Your Brand upgrade (included in the Most Popular package, about $170 per event) turns the website from "functional" to "looks like our organization built it" — custom logo, color scheme, banner image, section order, section headings, even a custom domain if you want one.
This page covers what a great silent auction website actually needs (donor experience first, organizer experience second), the design choices baked into the platform, transparent pricing for the branded upgrades, how the result compares to building from scratch or using competing platforms, and the answers to the questions organizers ask about how the website itself works.
Every painful step of a silent auction, rebuilt for how organizers actually run them.
Paper bid sheets. Midnight recounts. The runner who lost the form.
Every bid lands on every device in real time. Auto-bidding, outbid alerts, and a live leaderboard drive the final-minute frenzy. Final totals reconcile themselves the second the auction closes.
Praying donors show up. Praying they brought a checkbook.
Your custom URL is the only thing donors need. No app, no account, no friction. Outbid texts and emails keep them in the auction until the final minute.
Chasing winners for payment for the next three weeks.
When your auction closes, every winner gets their invoice. Most pay by card within an hour through your own Stripe or PayPal account — we never sit in the middle of your money.
Not a kitchen-sink feature list. The capabilities that consistently separate auctions that work from auctions that flop.
Your auction has its own URL the instant you create it — something memorable like 32a.com/your-event. Easy to drop into emails, social posts, group chats, and printed materials. Optionally point your own domain at the auction (Apply Your Brand upgrade) for an even more professional appearance — donors see auction.yourdomain.org instead of a 32a.com URL. The URL is permanent for that auction and can be reused (with a date suffix) for next year's event, which helps with returning donor recognition.
About three out of four bids on 32auctions happen on phones. The auction website is built for phones first, desktops second — the opposite of how most legacy auction platforms treat mobile. Large tap targets for thumbs. Fast-loading photos that work over slow venue WiFi. Bid forms designed for mobile keyboards. Apple Pay and Google Pay both work through Stripe checkout. The site responds to landscape vs portrait orientation, dark mode preferences, and accessibility settings without configuration.
Upload your logo, pick a custom color scheme that matches your organization's identity, add a custom banner image at the top of the auction (your event photo, your sponsor lineup, your organization's tagline). Reorder the page sections — want sponsors listed first? Done. Want featured items at the top? Done. Customize the section headings with your preferred text — call them "Supporters" instead of "Sponsors," or anything else that fits your brand voice. The result looks like an auction your organization built, not a generic SaaS template.
The base auction supports one image per item. The 4 Large Images / Item upgrade (included in the Most Popular package) expands this to four images per item with a large image viewer that donors can swipe through on mobile. Bidders bid more when they can clearly see the item from multiple angles — this is one of the highest-ROI upgrades for any auction with physical items where presentation matters (jewelry, art, baskets, travel packages).
Base auctions include basic donor promotion. Premium Donor & Sponsor Management (upgrade) unlocks display of up to 5 donors per item with their logos and website links, plus up to 10 custom sponsorship levels (Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze — or whatever names fit your event). Sponsors love seeing their logos on items they donated. This typically increases sponsor retention year-over-year, which means easier sponsor solicitation for next year's event.
Tell your cause's story by embedding a video on the main auction page. Donors who understand the impact of their bids bid more. A 60-90 second video introducing the cause, the items, and the goal converts page-viewers into bidders at a measurably higher rate than text-only auction pages. Self-host the video on YouTube or Vimeo (both supported), and the platform handles the embed.
The end-to-end workflow most organizers follow on 32auctions, in the order they follow it.
Create your account. No credit card. Three minutes.
Name it. Pick start and end dates. Choose privacy settings.
Upload photos, write descriptions, set starting bids and bid increments. Import from a spreadsheet if you have one from last year.
Free base supports 20 items with house ads. The Most Popular package (about $170) removes ads, adds branding, expands items and images, unlocks text notifications.
Link your Stripe or PayPal account for automatic winner invoicing, or use self-managed payments at no 32auctions transaction fee.
Share your custom URL via email, text, social media, and printed materials. Auction goes live at your scheduled time.
Real-time insights, live leaderboard, automatic outbid notifications — the platform handles engagement automatically.
When the auction ends, winners are invoiced. Funds deposit. Export your treasurer reports. Send thank-yous.
The full pricing model, plainly stated. Use this to compare against any competitor — we publish ours; most of them require you to talk to sales to find theirs.
Free base auction (free forever): Up to 20 items, 1 image per item, custom auction URL, real-time mobile bidding, outbid email notifications, real-time auction insights, proxy/Buy Now bidding, basic donor and sponsor promotion, unlimited bidders, email support. Funded by house ads displayed on the auction page.
Optional upgrades, à la carte or as packages:
The Most Popular package — about $170 per event: The pre-built combination most organizers pick. Removes house ads, adds your branding, expands items and images, unlocks text notifications.
The Works package: All upgrades bundled, for organizers who want everything.
Transaction fees on payment collection: When you use the Online Payment Collection upgrade, 32auctions adds 2.9% + $0.40 per online payment, on top of whatever Stripe or PayPal charges. Or use self-managed payments (cash, check, your own processor) and pay no 32auctions transaction fee.
What we never charge: No annual contract. No commission on what you raise. No platform fee on donations. No minimums.
Honest, sourced comparison. Pricing changes — verify with each vendor before purchase.
| 32auctions | Handbid | OneCause | GiveSmart | Bloomerang Fundraising | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free (base auction) | From $1,396/yr | From $200 + 5% on funds raised | Custom (no public pricing) | Bundled with CRM (~$3K+/yr) |
| Pricing model | Pay per event (~$170 package) | Annual subscription | Subscription OR pay-as-you-go | Annual subscription | Annual subscription |
| Free tier? | Yes — base auction free forever | No | No | No | No |
| Bidder requires app? | No — web-based | Yes — native iOS/Android app | No — web-based | No — web-based | No — web-based |
| Bidder requires account? | No | Yes (in-app) | Yes (registration) | Yes (registration) | Yes |
| Transaction fee on online payments | 2.9% + $0.40 (32a) on top of Stripe/PayPal — OR $0 with self-managed payments | 3.5% + $0.30 per transaction | 5% pay-later on pay-as-you-go; varies by plan | Custom (sales-led) | 2.9% + $0.30 (standard processing) |
| Years in market | Since 2008 (17+ years) | Since 2010 | Since 2008 | Acquired by Community Brands | Auction tools via Qgiv acquisition |
| Best for | 1-4 events/yr, schools, churches, small/mid nonprofits | Mid-to-large nonprofits with annual gala budgets | Larger nonprofits running multiple events/yr | Large nonprofits, schools, associations | Existing Bloomerang CRM customers |
Pricing and feature data sourced from each vendor's public pricing pages and verified third-party listings on G2, Capterra, and GetApp (Nov 2025-Apr 2026). Pricing changes — always confirm current rates directly with vendors before purchase. 32auctions transaction fees apply only when using the Online Payment Collection upgrade; self-managed payments carry no 32auctions transaction fee.
Stories from preschool PTOs to verified G2 reviewers. The metric we care most about: did they use 32auctions again the next year?
So easy, so smooth, and so fun. Our preschool has used them for many, many years for the biggest fundraiser of our school year — and every year it just works. Entering items is simple. The presentation to our families is great. Wrapping it up is easy.
The site was easy to set up and worked like a charm for our first fundraiser. The remote bidding features were the best part — administrators could post items in minutes and see who'd bid on what in real time. We raised more than I projected.
No marketing-speak. Just the truth about how the platform actually works for silent auction website.
Can I use my own domain name for the auction site?
Yes, with the Apply Your Brand upgrade. You can point a domain you own (or a subdomain like auction.yourdomain.org) at the auction page. This requires a DNS configuration on your end — simple, documented in our help docs. The result is a fully branded URL with no 32a.com visible to donors. Many larger organizations do this to keep the donor experience entirely on their brand.
Do I need any technical knowledge to set up the website?
No. The setup is point-and-click. Upload your logo, pick colors from a color picker (or paste hex codes if you have brand guidelines), upload a banner image, drag-and-drop to reorder sections. There's no HTML or CSS editing required, no template-language to learn, no design files to produce. If you can write an email, you can set up the auction website.
Will my auction website rank well in Google?
32auctions auction pages are indexable by Google. That said, for an event-specific auction, you're typically not optimizing for Google traffic — your traffic comes from email, social, and direct sharing. The platform handles standard SEO basics (meta tags, mobile-friendliness, fast load times, semantic HTML), but for auction promotion, focus marketing budget on email and direct outreach to your donor list rather than waiting for Google traffic.
What if I want a feature the platform doesn't have on the website?
Tell us. The platform has evolved continuously since 2008 based on what organizers actually need. Specific feature requests go to support and feed product planning. For things that fall outside what we'll ever build (donor CRM, ticketing, peer-to-peer), the right answer is to integrate with the tool you already use for that — we don't try to be everything to everyone.
Can multiple organizers manage the same auction website?
Yes. You can add multiple administrators to a single auction. Useful for committee-led events where the auction chair, the sponsor coordinator, and the item gatherer all need access. Permissions are at the auction level — each admin has full access to that auction's settings and data.
How do I make the auction website match my existing brand exactly?
Custom color scheme picker, custom logo upload, custom banner image, custom section ordering, custom section headings, custom font selection (within our supported family). If you have brand guidelines (specific hex codes, logo files in different orientations, font preferences), you can apply all of them. The one thing you can't change is the underlying page structure — we keep that consistent because it's what's optimized for bidding conversion.
Name it now. Set it up tonight. Share it tomorrow. Free base auction. No credit card. No commitment.