How does Cyclesite make money?
Direct answer · Cyclesite
Cyclesite charges flat listing fees on adverts, starting at £10.99. No commission on private classified sales, no fee for browsing or buying, and no subscription required. Sellers pay only when they publish an advert, with optional paid upgrades (boosted placement, featured slots) clearly priced before purchase. On shipped sales with optional Buyer Protection, a small protection fee covers the dispute resolution and card-processing margin on the escrow.
Last reviewed: 2026-06-01
The fee model in plain English
When you publish a private classified advert, you pay one flat listing fee, tiered by your asking price and shown up front before publication. That is the total cost to advertise; there is no commission on the sale itself, no relisting fee for the duration of the listing, and no charge to edit the advert. Optional paid upgrades (boosted placement at the top of category pages, featured slots in cross-category surfacing) are priced separately and clearly labelled on the upgrade screen. Business sellers, dealers, bike shops, cycle co-ops, have a separate published pricing tier with volume-based options.
Why we are commission-free on classified sales
A percentage commission model gives the platform an incentive to push asking prices up, because the platform earns more on every sale. We deliberately avoided that. The flat listing fee aligns the platform with the seller: we make money when sellers publish, not when sale prices are higher. That keeps the valuation engine honest (we have no reason to nudge the figure up to inflate commission), keeps the listing-quality nudges honest (we have no reason to push you to relist or refresh just to keep paying), and keeps the marketplace healthier in the long run by attracting price-realistic adverts.
Buyer Protection on shipped sales
For shipped sales, where the buyer pays before seeing the bike in person, the buyer can opt into Buyer Protection. Payment is held in escrow via Stripe Connect until the buyer confirms the bike arrived as described, with a published dispute window in case it did not. A small protection fee, capped and shown at checkout, covers the cost of running the dispute process and the card-processing margin on the escrow. The protection fee is the only money Cyclesite touches in a typical sale; the rest flows directly from buyer to seller.
Average used bike prices by category (UK)
| Category | Average price | Sample size |
|---|---|---|
| road | , | 1 |
Last updated: 2026-06-01
Related Questions
Does Cyclesite take a percentage of bike sales?
No commission on private classified sales. The flat listing fee is the total cost to advertise. The only additional charge is the optional Buyer Protection fee on shipped sales, which is capped and shown at checkout before the buyer commits.
How much does it cost to list a bike on Cyclesite?
Listing fees start at £10.99 and scale by asking-price tier. The fee for your specific bike is shown on the publish screen before you confirm. The full schedule and any current promotions are published on the sell-your-bike page.
Find Bikes on Cyclesite
Browse 98 verified bikes with automatic stolen-bike checks on every listing. Transparent flat listing fees, no commission on classified sales.