The full deduction
Ask what the rate is and you get one number. Ask what will be deducted and you get a longer answer. The gap between those two answers is where sellers lose track of their money.
The percentage, and what it is taken from
The agent's share is a proportion of the price the object made, before anything the buyer pays on top. That distinction matters: buyers usually pay a premium above the hammer figure, and that premium goes to the house, not to the seller. It is not part of what the seller is sharing.
Rates commonly slide with value, so a higher-value piece attracts a lower proportion. That is worth knowing before accepting the first figure quoted, particularly where several items are going in together.
The itemised costs
Preparing a piece for sale costs money and that cost is generally passed on. Photography is the most visible: a specialist shoot is a real expense and a good image measurably affects the result. Cover while goods are held is usually charged as a small percentage. Moving heavy or awkward items is charged at cost or at a scheduled rate.
Cleaning, minor restoration and specialist opinion may be charged where the seller agreed to them. They should never appear without prior agreement, and a schedule that allows the agent to incur them at discretion is worth questioning.
Working out the effective rate
The only figure that means anything is what reaches the seller divided by what the object made. Take the expected result, subtract the percentage, then subtract every fixed charge the schedule allows, then divide.
Fixed charges hurt small lots disproportionately. A flat photography cost is trivial against a strong result and punitive against a weak one, which is a large part of why low-value items are better sold in groups than individually.
Doing that arithmetic before signing is the entire point, and it is what makes a comparison against the other routes in how the selling channels compare meaningful rather than notional.
| Line | Amount | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Hammer price | $1,000 | What the bidding reached |
| Commission at an illustrative 15 percent | -$150 | The headline rate, the one most sellers budget from |
| Lotting and cataloguing | -$25 | Fixed, so it hurts a small lot far more than a large one |
| Photography | -$30 | Fixed |
| Insurance while held | -$8 | Usually a small percentage of the estimate |
| Net to seller | $787 | An effective rate of 21 percent, not 15 |
The charge for not selling
Some agreements charge when a lot fails. The logic is that the work happened regardless, and that a seller who insists on an unrealistic floor should carry some of the cost of that choice.
Whether it applies, how it is calculated and whether it can be waived if the piece is re-entered are all worth establishing in advance. A seller who knows there is a cost to failure sets a more honest floor, which tends to produce a better outcome for everybody.
Grouping, and why it changes the arithmetic
Where fixed costs attach per lot, the number of lots a seller creates matters as much as what those lots contain. Twenty items offered separately attract twenty sets of charges. The same twenty offered as four coherent groups attract four.
Houses are generally willing to discuss this because it serves them too: a catalogue full of thin lots is expensive to produce and tiring for bidders to work through. Asking how the specialist would lot the material, rather than presenting a fixed list of individual pieces, frequently improves both the cost and the result.
The limit is that grouping suppresses the strong items. A good piece buried in a mixed lot makes what the lot makes, not what it would have made alone. The judgement is about where the line falls, and it is one the specialist is better placed to draw than the owner.
Charges that appear without being agreed
Occasionally a statement carries something nobody discussed: a cleaning charge, a courier fee, an opinion sought from outside. Sometimes these are genuinely necessary and were authorised by a clause allowing the house discretion. Sometimes they are an error.
The distinction is in the agreement. A schedule that lists what may be charged and caps it is straightforward. One that permits the business to incur costs at its own discretion without consulting the seller is worth questioning at signing rather than at settlement.
Where something unexpected appears, ask which clause authorises it. That question is answerable in a sentence if the charge is proper, and it usually resolves the matter either way without anybody having to be difficult about it.
The habit that protects a seller here is simply asking for the total rather than the rate. A business quoting a percentage is answering a narrower question than the one that matters, and the difference between those two questions is where the surprises live. Ask what would be deducted from a result of a given size, and the answer is checkable against the statement when it arrives.
Common questions
Does the buyer’s premium reduce what the seller receives?
Not directly, because it is charged on top of the hammer price and paid by the buyer. Indirectly it matters a great deal: bidders know what they will owe in total and bid accordingly, so a high premium tends to suppress the hammer figure the seller is paid from. The seller does not pay it, but the seller does feel it.
Is the rate ever negotiable on a single ordinary item?
Rarely, and it is worth understanding why rather than pushing. The published rate on modest lots is set close to what handling them actually costs, so there is little room in it. Where negotiation genuinely happens is on higher values, on quantity, and on which of the additional charges are waived rather than on the headline percentage itself.