Back-office software for auction houses
Bidding was never the bottleneck.
Cataloging is. AuctionGizmo turns a pallet of photos into a finished, searchable, publish-ready catalog — then hands your bidders an interface they come back for.
The Description Builder drafts. A human always approves.
Typical time to catalog a 300-lot estate sale, start to published.
Everything else — title, copy, condition, size, keywords — is drafted for you.
Flat monthly price. Bid all you like; the invoice doesn't move.
The real math of a sale
You don't lose the weekend to bidding. You lose it to typing.
Every auction platform has a bid engine. They all work. The hours disappear somewhere else — in the two days between the truck unloading and the catalog going live.
Nearly half the work is writing. And it's the part that gets cut first when the sale is on Saturday — which is exactly why so many lots go up as "Box of misc." Thin descriptions don't just look bad. They don't show up in search, they don't answer the bidder's question, and they don't get bid on.
Flagship tool
The Description Builder
Point a camera at the lot. Get back a title, a description, condition notes, measurements, category and keywords — written in your house voice, waiting for your approval.
Wood chair. Good cond. As is where is.
Nine-spindle sack-back Windsor in old black-over-red paint, with a shaped saddle seat, bamboo-turned legs and a swelled H-stretcher. Traces of the original surface remain under the arms. Retains a period repair to the left arm support.
It drafts. You decide.
Nothing the Builder writes reaches a bidder without a person clicking approve. Rewrite a line, change a word, or reject the draft entirely — every edit teaches it your house style.
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Learns your house voice
Feed it twenty of your past catalogs. It picks up how you describe a chip, how you date a piece, whether you say "circa" or "c." — and writes like your best cataloguer on a good day.
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Condition language that holds up
Grades against your own scale and calls out what the photos actually show — losses, repairs, crazing, overpaint. Fewer surprises at pickup means fewer refund conversations.
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Measurements from the frame
Put a card, ruler or your own branded scale bar in one shot. Height, width and depth come back in inches and centimetres.
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The fields your search runs on
Maker, era, material, style, category and long-tail keywords, filled in every time. That's what makes a lot findable — on your site and on Google.
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Bulk runs, one review queue
Send 300 lots through at once, then work a queue: approve, edit, or flag. Most houses approve four out of five without touching a word.
One keyboard shortcut publishes the rest.
The gallery
Photos that file themselves.
Shoot the lot tag in the first frame. Every photo after it lands on the right lot, cropped, straightened and sized — before you're back from the warehouse.
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Tag once, then just shoot
The camera reads your lot tag and files everything that follows under that number. No renaming, no dragging folders, no "which chair was 0142?"
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Drop a hundred at once
Bulk upload straightens horizons, trims the backdrop, evens the exposure and makes every thumbnail the same shape. A catalog that looks composed instead of collected.
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Pin the flaw to the note
Circle a chip in the photo and it becomes a condition line on the listing, linked to the close-up. Bidders see the damage before they bid, not after.
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Zoom that doesn't fight back
True 100% crops, two lots side by side, and a swipe gallery on a phone that loads on a warehouse signal.
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One upload, every size
Catalog thumb, lot page, email blast, social post and print bill — generated from the same original, so nothing looks stretched.
The tag in the frame does the filing.
Client experience
The part your bidders actually see.
A catalog that loads fast, a bid that takes one tap, and an invoice they can pay without emailing you. On your domain, under your name — because the bidder is yours, not a marketplace's.
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Watchlists and one-tap max bids
Bidders save lots months out, set a ceiling, and let it run. You get committed interest on the board before the sale opens.
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Alerts timed to matter
Outbid by text, email or push — with a cap, so nobody gets forty notifications in an hour and mutes you forever.
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Webcast that keeps up
Sub-second bid updates against the floor, a clear increment ladder, and a reconnect that puts them back in the ring where they left off.
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Pay and book pickup, unassisted
Invoice, card, shipping quote and a pickup time slot in one screen. Your Monday phone doesn't ring.
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They come back
Saved searches, bid history and a "sales you'd want" digest built from what they actually chased — not a marketplace's guess.
Lot 0142 — Windsor Sack-Back Armchair, c. 1810
Your brand, your domain, your bidder list.
Switching
What a legacy platform quietly costs you.
Most auction software was built when the hard problem was getting a bid over the internet. That problem is solved. The rest of the job was left where it was.
| AuctionGizmo | Typical legacy platform | |
|---|---|---|
| Lot descriptions | Drafted from your photos, in your house voice, reviewed in a queue | Typed by hand, lot by lot, usually by whoever is left on Friday |
| Photo handling | Matched to lots automatically from the tag in frame; cropped and sized on upload | Uploaded and attached lot by lot; you fix the crops |
| Your bidder list | Yours. Exportable any time, in full, without asking | Shared with a marketplace that also sells to your bidders |
| What you pay | One flat monthly price, whatever the hammer total | Subscription, plus a fee per bid, plus a fee on hammer |
| Bidder-facing site | Your domain and your brand, end to end | Their template, their logo in the corner, their competing listings |
| Getting your data out | Full export and an open API, on day one and on the day you leave | A support ticket and a CSV, eventually |
"Typical legacy platform" describes patterns common across the category, not any single named product. Terms differ by vendor — check your own contract, and we'll help you read it.
The rest of the building
Everything else an auction house runs on.
The new tools get the attention. These are the ones you'd notice the second they broke.
Clerking
Keyboard-fast clerking on a laptop or tablet, with an undo that works mid-sale.
Every format
Live, timed, webcast simulcast, absentee, sealed bid and multi-parcel.
Increment ladders
Per-sale, per-category or per-lot, with soft close and staggered endings.
Cashiering
Card, ACH, cash, wire and check. Split payments, holds and refunds.
Consignor settlement
Commission tiers, expenses and reserves resolved into a statement they understand.
Premiums & tax
Buyer's premium, sales tax by jurisdiction, exemption certificates on file.
Shipping & pickup
Live rates, in-house packing queues and scheduled pickup windows.
Inventory
Intake to unsold, across sales, with locations and rack numbers.
Check-in
Scan an ID, run a card, print a paddle. Bidder registered in under a minute.
Mailing lists
Segmented by what they bid on, not just where they live.
Reporting
Sell-through, hammer by category, bidder acquisition, consignor performance.
Roles & API
Per-seat permissions, audit trail, webhooks and a documented REST API.
We built AuctionGizmo for the forty-eight hours between the truck backing in and the catalog going live — because that is where auction houses actually lose the week. The Description Builder drafts, a person approves, and your bidders stay yours.AuctionGizmo is in customer testing with auction houses in the Flathead Valley and across Montana. Ask us for a live walkthrough and judge the drafts on your own catalog.
Pricing
Flat. Whatever the gavel does.
You take the risk on the sale. Your software shouldn't take a cut of it. Every plan includes the Description Builder, the gallery and the full back office.
- 2 seats
- Unlimited lots and bidders
- Description Builder, 500 lots/mo
- Your domain and branding
- 10 seats
- Description Builder, unlimited
- House-voice training on your catalogs
- Simulcast webcast, multi-ring
- Migration from your current platform
- Unlimited seats and locations
- SSO, audit log, custom roles
- API, webhooks, data warehouse sync
- Named support, sale-day standby
Every plan includes the Description Builder, the gallery and the full back office. Seats, limits and pricing are set to match the size of your house — get exact numbers on your walkthrough.
Book a walkthrough
Bring us your worst box lot.
Thirty minutes, your own photos, your own catalog. We'll run a real sale of yours through the Builder and you can judge the drafts yourself. If they're not good enough, you've lost half an hour.
Migrating mid-season is normal. We import your catalog history, bidder list and consignor records before your next sale.