Five signs you are overpaying for listings
Your listing costs are too high as soon as the invoice arrives independently of the result. Check five figures: your cost per car per month, the surcharge on expensive inventory, how your contract price has moved, how current your prices are against the market, and your cost per car sold. In AutoScout24's published Basic example, a listing costs CHF 32.31 per car per month whether or not an enquiry arrives. At Auto Power Search the base fee is CHF 3, and everything else follows a real buyer interaction.
It is the last working day of the month. The invoice for your listings is in front of you, and you know the amount before you open it. It matches last month. Out in the yard stands a car that has been there for eleven weeks. No chat. No call. No test drive.
That feeling has a factual core, and you can calculate it. Five figures are enough. All five come from your own invoice or your own inventory.
Sign 1: The price per car is fixed, the result is not
AutoScout24 publishes the calculation behind its dealer subscriptions openly. The monthly price follows from the package, the number of listings and a factor applied to the average asking price of the cars listed. The platform gives two worked examples of its own: «Paket Basic 10 mit durchschnittlichem Angebotspreis CHF 7'000: CHF 359.00 x 0.9 = CHF 323.10» and «Paket Professional Plus 50 mit CHF 45'000 Durchschnittspreis: CHF 1'409.00 x 1.1 = CHF 1'549.90». In English: a Basic 10 package at an average asking price of CHF 7'000 costs CHF 323.10 a month, and a Professional Plus 50 package at CHF 45'000 average costs CHF 1'549.90. (AutoScout24 B2B, Insertionsangebote)
Divided by the number of cars, the first example comes to CHF 32.31 per car per month and the second to CHF 31.00. Those two values are a division of the published numbers, nothing more. They apply from the moment the car goes online. Whether an enquiry arrives changes nothing.
How to check it: Divide your monthly invoice by your number of listings. Write the figure down. It is the basis for everything that follows.
Sign 2: Expensive inventory costs you more for the same slot
That factor is called the Car Value Factor and follows the average asking price of your cars. AutoScout24 publishes the bands:
| Average asking price | Factor |
|---|---|
| CHF 0 – 2'999 | 0.8 |
| CHF 3'000 – 7'499 | 0.9 |
| CHF 7'500 – 19'999 | 1.0 |
| CHF 20'000 – 49'999 | 1.1 |
| above CHF 50'000 | 1.2 |
(Source: AutoScout24 B2B, Insertionsangebote. The same page dates this model to 1 June 2024.)
Between the lowest and the highest band there is a 50 percent difference on the same listing slot. A business with premium stock therefore pays more for the same shelf space. That is a decision by the provider, not a law of nature. You are entitled to count it when you compare.
How to check it: Look up your average asking price and find your band in the table. At 1.1 or 1.2 you are paying a surcharge that has nothing to do with demand for your cars.
Sign 3: The price moves up, the return stays level
On 1 June 2026 AutoScout24 raised the price of dealer listings by around 15 percent. (watson, 2 June 2026)
One business made the multi-year effect public. Streetlife reports on Jensen AG: «Im Juni 2020 beliefen sich die Kosten auf 13'949 Franken, im Juni 2026 bereits auf 46'320 Franken, eine Steigerung von 232 Prozent.» In English: the costs stood at CHF 13'949 in June 2020 and at CHF 46'320 in June 2026, a rise of 232 percent. Owner Lars Jensen ended a 25-year partnership publicly with the words «Tschüss Autoscout. Wir sind dann mal weg.» — goodbye Autoscout, we are off. (Streetlife, 3 June 2026)
He was not alone. Within days the platform's listing count fell from around 176'696 to 174'625. (Streetlife)
AutoScout24 frames this as ordinary competition: «Dass einzelne Händler verschiedene Plattformen testen oder ihre Präsenz diversifizieren, gehört zu einem dynamischen Marktumfeld.» — individual dealers testing platforms or diversifying their presence is part of a dynamic market. For 2025 the platform reports 5 percent more users and 13 percent more contact enquiries. (watson)
Both statements can hold. What decides it for your business is the third figure: how many percent your invoice has risen, and how many percent your closings have risen over the same period.
How to check it: Put today's invoice next to the one from three years ago. Convert both changes to percent. The two figures drifting apart is the real signal.
Sign 4: Your price was right in January and is out of date today
The used car market moves faster than a price list on a shelf ages. AutoScout24's annual data for 2025 shows this for used cars:
| Powertrain | Average asking price 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Plug-in hybrid | CHF 56'156 | +1.25 percent |
| Mild hybrid | CHF 50'245 | −5.0 percent |
| Battery electric | CHF 43'549 | −8.3 percent |
| Petrol | CHF 37'571 | −0.2 percent |
| Full hybrid | CHF 35'479 | −1.2 percent |
| Diesel | CHF 23'673 | −6.0 percent |
(Source: AutoScout24 annual data 2025, published 13 January 2026.)
It continued into the first quarter of 2026. The average asking price of a used car stood at CHF 36'884, which is 3.4 percent below the previous quarter. Used electric cars stood at CHF 40'599, down 3.2 percent. (AUTO&Wirtschaft, 9 April 2026)
Apply those 3.2 percent to a single car: at an asking price of CHF 40'000, one quarter of market movement is roughly CHF 1'280. That multiplication is ours, the percentage comes from the source above.
The plug-in hybrid is absent from this chart because it was the one powertrain that gained: plus 1.25 percent. The full picture is in the table above.
For visibility, the filter boundary matters more than the depreciation itself. Buyers search in price ranges. A car that sat just below a round number in January sits just above it after two quarters of market movement, and drops out of that search. The listing keeps running, the invoice keeps running, and the results page no longer knows the car.
Supply is growing at the same time. In 2025 there were 1.7 percent more cars listed than the year before, and 1.1 percent more used cars. (AutoScout24 annual data 2025) More offers on the same results page means the timing of a price adjustment matters more, not less.
How to check it: Take three cars that have stood for longer than two months. Search for them yourself, with the filters a buyer would use. Do they appear on the first page?
Sign 5: You do not know your cost per car sold
The four figures above all lead to the same final one: platform cost for a quarter divided by the number of cars sold in that quarter.
This figure carries weight because it contains both sides. A high invoice in a strong month is healthy. The same invoice in a quiet month is a different matter, and the difference only shows up here.
It becomes useful over time. Four quarters side by side show whether your cost per closing holds steady, falls or rises. Those four numbers are a better basis for a negotiation than any price list.
How to check it: Work the figure out for the last four quarters. A sheet of paper is enough.
What a results-based model changes
Auto Power Search bills on the same logic you have just applied. The base fee is CHF 3 per car per month. Everything beyond that follows a real buyer interaction: CHF 3 for a chat started, CHF 15 for a test drive booked, CHF 50 for a confirmed purchase intent. Above that sits the Price Shield, the monthly ceiling that scales with fleet size.
| Fleet | Ceiling per car per month | Example total ceiling |
|---|---|---|
| 1 – 14 cars | CHF 22 | 10 cars: CHF 220 |
| 15 – 49 cars | CHF 18 | 20 cars: CHF 360 |
| 50 – 89 cars | CHF 15 | 50 cars: CHF 750 |
| 90 – 149 cars | CHF 13 | 100 cars: CHF 1'300 |
| 150 cars and above | CHF 12 | 150 cars: CHF 1'800 |
(Source: Auto Power Search pricing page. Leads above the ceiling are still delivered and add nothing to the invoice.)
That lets you set the two published examples side by side. The comparison is deliberately conservative: it puts our ceiling, meaning the most expensive month possible, against the fixed subscription price.
| Fleet | AutoScout24, published example | Auto Power Search, no interaction | Auto Power Search, at the ceiling |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 cars | CHF 323.10 | CHF 30 | CHF 220 |
| 50 cars | CHF 1'549.90 | CHF 150 | CHF 750 |
Two notes belong with this table. The AutoScout24 values come from the model dated 1 June 2024 and do not yet include the rise of 1 June 2026. And the two examples belong to different packages with different feature sets. The comparison covers the price, not the package contents.
Run it with your own numbers. The calculator below is the same one as on the pricing page.
The data that comes before the invoice
An invoice describes the past. You can only act on what you see beforehand. So Auto Power Search shows the relative position of every car rather than raw page views: how it stands regionally against comparable offers, where interested buyers move on, and where the price genuinely decides. The thinking behind that is set out in Measure visibility, do not guess it.
Then there is the second visibility question of this decade: whether an AI assistant can read your car at all. What that means in practice is in What is AEO?.
The market figures behind this article are maintained continuously in The Swiss car trade in numbers. The pure fee calculation, without the five signs, is in What a car listing really costs.
Check your invoice in five minutes
- Monthly invoice divided by number of listings: your cost per car per month.
- Average asking price of your stock: your band in the Car Value Factor.
- Today's invoice against the invoice from three years ago, in percent.
- Today's closings against the closings from three years ago, in percent.
- Quarterly cost divided by cars sold, for four quarters.
Once you know these five figures, you go into your next pricing conversation with data rather than a feeling. And you can see straight away which model suits your business.
We are happy to work through it with you, with your real numbers and without obligation. Drop us a line:
Sources
- AutoScout24 B2B: listing offers, pricing model and Car Value Factor
- AutoScout24 B2B: subscription overview, packages and minimum term
- AutoScout24 annual data 2025: growing choice, falling prices, rising competition
- AUTO&Wirtschaft: more choice, lower prices — market figures for Q1 2026
- watson: large garages start a revolt against Autoscout24
- Streetlife: «Jetzt reicht es» — why Swiss garages are leaving Autoscout24
- Auto Power Search: pricing and Price Shield
FAQ
I have a running contract with a minimum term. Do I have to cancel it first?
No. Most dealers run both platforms in parallel for a while and compare cost per car sold at the end of the quarter. A cancellation only comes up once that figure speaks for itself.
Where do the figures in this article come from?
From publicly available sources, all linked in full at the end of the article: the AutoScout24 B2B pages for subscription prices and market data, AUTO&Wirtschaft for the 2026 quarterly figures, and watson and Streetlife for the June 2026 price increase. Two values are calculations on published numbers and are marked as such in the text.
Will you go through my current invoice with me?
Yes, it is part of onboarding and costs nothing. You need your last monthly invoice, your number of listings and your closings for the last four quarters. The conversation takes about twenty minutes.