Frequently asked questions
Answers on the GetAuctionWebsite offer: what is included, revisions, articles, the AI Engine, hosting, domains, moving your current site and billing.
The offer
How long until my auction site is live?
7 days on Ring, 10 on Block while the AI agents are trained, and 15 on Rostrum with the Content Engine running. The clock starts at the onboarding call, not at purchase, so the sooner the form is in, the sooner your calendar and catalog pages are live.
Do you run the auction or the bidding platform itself?
No. We are a website design and management company, not an auctioneer, appraiser or bonding provider. We build the pages that publish your sales, explain your bidding and registration process and take consignment inquiries. Running the sale, taking bids, transferring title and anything requiring a license stays entirely with you.
Can the site handle a sale calendar with several sales a month?
Yes. The sale calendar and catalog page structure are built to be updated on a schedule rather than rebuilt each time. A new sale, a new catalog or an updated address is a normal revision request, turned around within your plan's working-day window.
Getting started
What happens straight after I buy?
You fill in the onboarding form and submit it. It asks about your sale types, the areas you serve, your brand, your domain, where consignment and bidding inquiries should land, and it takes about 15 minutes. If something is missing, submit anyway: you can send the rest by email or raise it as a ticket in your client portal, and it will not hold up the build. We then run one onboarding call to fill any gaps and agree the launch date.
What is the client portal?
It is your account with us, and you get it the day your site goes live. From the portal you request revisions, raise a support ticket for anything that needs attention, send us files you still owe us, and message our team directly. Everything to do with your site, including a new week's catalog photos, runs through it, so nothing gets lost in an inbox.
Do we need to have our first sale ready before we sign up?
No. The site can launch with your sale calendar and a placeholder catalog while your first sale is still being assembled. Lots and dates are added as revisions once they are ready, which is exactly what the catalog page structure is built to handle.
Revisions and the client portal
What counts as a revision, and what happens after five?
A revision is any change request you send, and there is no limit on how much goes into one. A new catalog, updated lot photos, a new sale date, a changed consignment policy: each is one revision. So is something larger, like "add three new lot categories and update the terms page," which is one revision, not three. 5 are included every month. After the fifth, each additional revision is a flat $20, with no cap on how many you can buy and no hourly billing anywhere. Every revision is completed within 2 to 5 working days, whatever the size.
How do I actually request a change to a catalog page?
Raise it in your client portal. You describe the change, attach the photos or details we need, and it lands with the team as a tracked request so you can see where it is. You can also email us or reply to any thread with our team, and we log it for you. Unused revisions do not roll over to the next month.
Articles
What do the researched articles actually cover?
Topics your bidders and consignors search for: how absentee bidding works, what to expect at an estate sale walkthrough, how a buyer's premium is calculated, how to prepare items for consignment. Each article is 2,500 to 3,200 words, answers its heading in the first sentence, and cites its sources where it uses a figure. Tier 1 and 2 publish 2 a week; Rostrum publishes 3 a week through the Content Engine.
Can we suggest article topics or does it have to be generic?
You can suggest topics any time through your client portal, and we work them into the schedule. Where you do not suggest anything, we choose topics based on what people actually search for around your sale types and the areas you serve, never generic filler.
The AI Engine
What does the AI Engine actually do for an auction house?
On Block and Rostrum, an AI chat and receptionist agent answers common questions after hours: upcoming sale dates, how to register to bid, what your house accepts on consignment, and how to reach a person for anything else. It is configured from the facts already on your site, so it never invents a policy.
Will it give bidding, licensing or valuation advice?
No. It is configured specifically not to, and to hand anything resembling advice about a specific item's value, bidding strategy or licensing straight to a person at your business. You review its scripts before it goes live, and you can ask us to adjust what it says at any time.
Hosting and management
Is hosting an extra cost?
No. Hosting is included in the monthly fee and never billed separately. Your site runs on Cloudflare's global network with SSL, CDN, DDoS protection and unmetered bandwidth included. There is no hosting invoice, no SSL renewal, no bandwidth overage during a busy sale week and no surprise line item in month four.
What happens to site speed when a catalog page gets hundreds of visits before a sale?
Nothing changes. Pages are served from Cloudflare's global edge network with unmetered bandwidth, so a surge of traffic in the days before a well-promoted sale does not slow the site down or trigger an overage charge.
Domains
Do I have to pay for a domain?
No. One domain is included free for as long as your plan is active, registered in your name through Cloudflare Registrar or Spaceship, so you own it outright. If you already have a domain we point it at the new site instead and nothing changes for bidders who already know your address. If you ever leave, tell us where to send the domain and we transfer it at no charge.
Can we run one domain for multiple sale types, like estate and farm equipment?
Yes. One site and one domain can carry multiple sale types with their own catalog sections, or you can run a separate domain for a distinct brand. Tell us your structure during onboarding and we build the navigation to match it.
Moving from your current site
We already have a site with years of past sale listings. What happens to it?
We review what is worth keeping, migrate the pages that still earn search traffic, and set up redirects from your old URLs to the new ones so that traffic and ranking are not lost. Past sale archives can be rebuilt as a simple results page rather than migrated lot by lot, if that is what you prefer.
How much of the migration do we need to do ourselves?
Very little. You give us access to the current site or an export of its content and the list of URLs you most care about keeping, and we handle the rebuild and the redirects as part of the launch. You review the result before it goes live.
Billing and cancellation
What do I actually pay, and when?
You pay the monthly fee for the tier you choose up front: $127, $267 plus AI usage, or $647 a month. The $697 one-time build fee is invoiced only after your site is live and you are satisfied with it. Domain and hosting are inside the monthly figure.
How do I cancel, and how much notice do you need?
Email us and say you want to cancel. Your message must reach us at least 2 business days before your next invoice date, during business hours, which are 9:00 to 17:00 Central Time, Monday to Friday. A message sent outside those hours counts from the start of the next business day, so a weekend email does not give 2 business days of notice for an invoice due Monday or Tuesday. With valid notice, no further invoice is raised and your site runs to the end of the month you have paid for. With late notice, the next invoice is charged as normal and the cancellation takes effect at the end of that month.
Do you offer refunds?
No. All sales are final, and that includes monthly fees, the build fee, extra revisions and any cost we pass through at what our providers charge us. We do not refund for a change of mind or for a month you did not use. The one exception is a duplicate or incorrect charge made by our billing: tell us within 30 days and we correct it within 10 working days. The build fee is charged only after you have approved your site, which is exactly why it is not refundable afterwards.
Still have a question?
Email a person, or see a build for your sale type on a live demo.