Every screen, before you sign up

These are photographs of the running product, not drawings of it. Seven screens, in the order you would meet them.

You hand it a listing

A link, the photos off your phone, or the text of the advert pasted in. A link on its own is not enough, because CheckBids does not open the page for you. On a phone you can skip all of it and hit Share.

The analyze screen: a listing link, buttons to add photos or paste the text, and a field for what a fixed one sells for.

It answers in one number

The most it is worth paying, a verdict, and the two lines underneath that say how it got there: what the asking price leaves you, and what you would be ahead by once it is finished and sold. Every answer carries its own confidence rather than a single accuracy figure we cannot yet stand behind.

The answer screen: BUY - UP TO $7,675, with the room left under the asking price. — The car in this one and the two below is the made-up example car, run through the same engines as a real one.

And shows every line that built it

Sales tax, the title, the plates and your state’s rebuilt inspection. The parts. The work going to a shop. Alignment, scans and calibration. A cushion for what no photograph shows. This is the gap people lose money in, and it is usually four figures.

The ledger: the car at your max, sales tax, title, parts, shop work, alignment, supplies, cushion, all in, and what it is worth done.

What is yours to do, and what is not

Each part priced, each job carrying the hours a shop would book and the hours a first rebuild actually takes. Your own hours are hours, not a bill: nothing charges you for your weekends. Paint, airbags and calibration go to a shop at the shop’s rate, and that is already inside the number above.

The parts and labour list: parts with prices and places to buy them, then labour hours rated easy or hard, and the paint work priced to a shop.

Name a car and wait for one

A watch is a make, a model, the years you will take and the most you would bid. Each morning the lots coming up for sale that clear it land in your inbox. Dealer-only lots are off by default and can be turned on, with the broker’s fee already inside the price.

The watch screen: make, model, year range, a checkbox for lots needing a dealer licence, and the most you would bid.

Or go through the ones already seen

Upcoming lots, each run through a quick pass with your state’s sales tax and a broker’s fee, sorted by the room left under a live bid. Nothing here queries an auction. These are the lots a Copart page was opened on with the extension running, which is why the screen says how many it has and where they came from.

The lot list: upcoming Copart lots with a rough max price each and the room left under the current bid.

And one thing that needs no account

Type a winning bid and see what you actually hand the auction. No sign-up, no email, nothing to close. It is the first thing most people want and the last thing anybody will tell them.

The Copart fee calculator: a bid of $4,000 becoming $4,679 once the buyer fee, bid fee and gate fee are added.

There is no screen behind a tier

Everything above is on the free plan. The only thing a paid plan changes is how many cars you can run in a month, because running a car is the only thing that costs us anything. Re-running one you have already run is free on every plan, for ever.

Analyze a car free Read the example answer

3 cars a month, no card, no dealer licence.