# Page 2 | BiddingOwl.com Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Page 2 - Is BiddingOwl.com the right Auction solution for you? Explore 131 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/130932/BiddingOwl-com/reviews --- BiddingOwl.com 4.8 (131) [View alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/130932/BiddingOwl-com/alternatives/) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated March 13th, 2026 # Page 2 - Reviews of BiddingOwl.com ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 26-50 of 131 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use AG Alice G. President Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Great auction site for bidders" September 14, 2024 5.0 I have participated in many auctions on other sites. Best auction site I have used. 🤩 Pros Easy to use. Allowed to adjust an auto bid. Cons It seemed like there was not an option to stay logged in. Review Source GS Gina S. volunteer Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "BiddingOwl will be my go-to auction platform for every charity auction going forward!" March 25, 2024 5.0 I am not a tech-savvy person and was very nervous about trying an online auction! BiddingOwl is so easy to use. I have been working on setting up our auction for 3 months and wanted to wait until we went live to confirm the user experience before writing this review. The auction looks very professional. The user experience is great. We have not had any issues with users having trouble navigating the bidding process. Most important - the live, readily available customer service made all the difference in the world. The BiddingOwl team is responsive, professional and offer best practices. The pricing is wonderful - no nickel and diming. As a non-profit, we wanted to minimize the administrative costs of this effort. Pros The pros for BiddingOwl include: - extremely easy to use in terms of set up - extremely easy for the participants to use (setting up bidding profiles and making bids) - pricing is very low - liked that no credit card information is stored in the system - but they integrate with PayPal. - most important - the customer service is amazing. BiddingOwl can easily be reached by phone, they participated in meetings with us and provided training - all at no additional cost! Cons \- a little challenging to offer items that are only "buy it now" via the auction. not impossible - just have to play with the pricing of the items a bit. Reason for choosing BiddingOwl.com The two factors of BiddingOwl over the others were: 1. Live, telephonic customer service. I really wanted to be abler to talk to a person if I ran into trouble 2. Low price Review Source BE BARBARA E. VOLUNTEER Public Relations and Communications Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Bidding Owl-A Review" November 4, 2023 5.0 Overall our experience has been very good from the set-up to the final invoicing! Pros We like the 'look' of the auction pages! It is an improvement to be able to add 5 photos to each item. Also, the bids are easy to make and bidders can be reminded if they lose a bid. Support is very prompt and helpful! Cons Some of the instructions are a bit hard to understand-ie at the top of Item Management. Reason for choosing BiddingOwl.com The auction manager before me chose it and we liked it so we continued. Review Source RO Rachel O. Board member Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Good option for nonprofit auctions" September 20, 2023 5.0 I have set up an auction with over 70 items single handedly, with a minimum of pain. Pros I like how Bidding Owl lets you set up an attractive auction website, with very straightforward and foolproof functionality. I also like how it is all inclusive, rather than nickle and diming you for each bit of functionality. Also, when I reached out to customer support with a concern by email, they got back to me immediately. Cons I would love to be able to list an auction item under two categories. I feel like by having to choose a category for each item, you run the risk that you will mis-categorize and lose a potential bidder. I also wish there was real time, live person, chat support. Reason for choosing BiddingOwl.com I didn't want to be charged more for each bit of functionality. It felt sneaky. Review Source HJ Heather J. Foundation Manager Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Three on-line auctions supported; we have had great experiences" May 5, 2023 5.0 Bidding Owl has allowed our Foundation to extend our Fundraising across the Province that we serve, which is a great boost for us. Pros The best part of my personal experience has been the friendly, efficient, and helpful staff who have responded to any of my questions. Cons There are a couple of aesthetic things I would like to see changed (eg. removal of categories not used in our on-line auction), and I would like to be able to load more than one picture at a time. However, these are insignificant against the overall ease and efficiency of the program. Review Source BT Brynn T. Parent Volunteer Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Easy to Use Auction Website" January 30, 2020 5.0 We are very pleased with BiddingOwl.com because it permits us to hold an auction without organizing a live event. We've often debated whether or not our population of parents would be likely to attend a live function and how successful that would be, so the online-only auction is a great solution for us. Pros I've used BiddingOwl.com for two annual online auctions for my children's school, and am setting up our third auction now. I love how easy it is to use, and that I can also re-use last year's setup by requesting that the old bids be deleted. This saves a ton of time because a lot of our auction items are repeated. I also like the layout and appearance of the webpage for users. It is very simple for bidders to create their account and start bidding. The notifications sent to bidders when they are outbid is also helpful for promoting continued engagement with the online auction. Cons I do rather wish there was a way to sort my items a little more easily. They display according to item number, and I like to group all of the items from each grade together. I wind up shuffling the item numbers around quite a bit to get everything in the proper order. Also, it would be nice to be able to rename the portion of the URL after the slash...I didn't think about that when I used the whole name of our school, which is quite tedious to type and promote after "www.BiddingOwl.com/". Review Source LP LORNA P. President Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "So glad we found Bidding Owl!" October 19, 2020 5.0 Although our organization supports work that involves over 250,000 kids in Africa, we have no paid employees (not an option to select at the beginning of this survey). So we wanted something that would be easy for multiple people to use. The reason we went with BO was because they actually had a phone number and somebody to talk to. They have EXCELLENT customer service, always getting back quickly, even providing an emergency after-hours number. Pros We tried an online auction for the first time, due to COVID closing down the school where we usually had our physical auction. This product was very user-friendly and intuitive. The tutorials were helpful as well. The item presentations looked very professional, with pictures and as much space as you needed for descriptions. I could even cut and paste pictures and descriptions from websites for items that could be found online. People said they found it easy to sign up. We ran the auction for a week and people enjoyed being able to bid from home. There are also options for "text me if I'm outbid" and putting in a maximum bid that you will automatically go up to. People found it fun to get those alerts! We had people participate who normally wouldn't have attended an auction in person. Cons The biggest issue was the inability to add a donation at checkout. BO says they are planning to add this feature in an upgrade next month. The other issue was multiple "you won an item" notifications at the end, and it wasn't very intuitive to see how to get to the payment page. I believe this is also going to be streamlined in the upcoming BO software update. Almost all of our people paid right away so we didn't have to chase down anybody for payment. We set up two options for pickup at a specified location - a weeknight and a Saturday. Reason for choosing BiddingOwl.com We looked at many online auction websites but BO was this was the only one with a phone number to ask questions. We were sort of afraid to try an online auction but BO put us at ease & showed us how simple it was. Review Source Jill L. Vice President Primary/Secondary Education Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "No bells and whistles, but a quality vendor that will get the job done!" March 12, 2020 4.0 Pros We like that our auction homepage is customizable, and that we can add "Fund-a-Need" items for a la carte purchase in addition to bidding on our live and silent auction items. We also appreciate that purchases can be made via PayPal or directly with a credit card. The site is user-friendly provides concise direction for setup. Every time I've called in for support, I've spoken with the same representative (Hi, \[SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN\]), which has given me a nice sense of continuity through this endeavor. The fact that the pricing is the lowest in the industry is such a great bonus! Cons I experienced an issue with the payment integration with PayPal, that I wish Bidding Owl could have resolved on my behalf. Instead, I spent several hours, over the course of multiple days, working through it. After all was finished, I was pleased with the outcome, but it was definitely a flustering experience. Reason for choosing BiddingOwl.com The value and positive reviews online swayed our decision toward GiftSmart. Review Source Aude S. Buyer - Compliance and Development Fund-Raising Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Amazing customer support for the most effective bidding site" November 26, 2018 5.0 I have used BiddingOwl.com for 2 separate school fair auctions (2017, 2018) and i'm about to use it again in May 2019 for an other association. As I use Bidding Owl for fundraising and volunteering activities, I would love to see the 5% decreased for non-for-profit activities, however, BiddingOwl.com has been the most effective, helpful, bidder friendly online auction site I have ever used. The auction set up is easy enough but it's the bidding side which is the highlight and main benefit as the bidders are the most important part of the auction. The support is exceptional, diligent and prompt. I would definitely recommend BiddingOwl.com to any enterprises looking for a auction site. Pros Ease of sharing website with bidders and user friendly bidding Great advertising inserts for donors Extremely helpful customer support Cons Cheaper fees Website creation and pulling out can be labor intense Bids sheets and certificates templates could be a little fancier Review Source LL Lauren L. Administrative Coordinator Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "First time using BiddingOwl" May 16, 2024 5.0 Overall we were pleased with the way the auction looked online and with the ease of setup and use. We would use it again and recommend it to others. Pros We wanted an online auction platform that was easy to setup and use for our biannual art auction. Another nonprofit we know used it for a similar purpose and recommended it to us. We are pleased with the results! Cons We had some users that had difficulty finding our auction on their mobile phone, finding that a search for BiddingOwl came up with legacy.biddingowl site instead of the new version that included our auction. We also ended up with a shipping charge added to every invoice instead of having it be optional, but these were minor difficulties. Review Source MK Michael K. CEO Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Does exactly what it says and exactly what we need" February 8, 2023 5.0 Amazing!!! Pros How easy it was to learn and setup and then pass off to others for management of the events is priceless. Cons No real cons that I have found as they are very helpful. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Auction Chair Education Management Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Bidding Owl is a great, cost effective way to get your fundraising auction online. " March 26, 2019 5.0 I've been really pleased with the overall experience with Bidding Owl. I think its best feature is the customer service. They have helped me repeatedly, even when the problem is on my computer's end and not a site issue. I highly recommend Bidding Owl for a small to medium fundraising effort. Ours is a school parent club raising approximately $35k-$50k per year. Pros I find it really user friendly for the most part. I like the ability to include items that are in our silent and live auctions without being charged a % fee for them. Bidding Owl has really reasonable rates and amazing customer service. I love that we have our own auction site name that is easy for people to remember and to use in marketing materials. I would love to try mobile bidding, which I think is a great feature, but the location we've used for many years for our auction event has really poor internet. Cons There are certain features I wish would be implemented, such as the ability to rearrange images and the ability for bidders to right click on items to open them in new tabs. Other auction sites have this feature, and I wish BiddingOwl had it as well. I also really wish we could store people's credit card information to make checkout more streamlined at the end of the live/silent auction event. I wish there was more flexibility in editing our home page design. Review Source KM Kelly M. President Libraries Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "BiddingOwl works great for our organization." October 29, 2022 5.0 BiddingOwl.com has been an excellent host for our annual December silent auction. I even was able to look at other organizations auctions for ideas. Any time that I have needed help with the software or for setting up an event, the response time and quality of the response has been great! Pros We have a small group and the features of bidding owl, as well as their staff support, make the program very user-friendly. I highly recommend their software for online auction events. Cons There is a learning curve to quickly enter items for a silent auction, but only because the software has many features with options to help cater the site to your group's needs. Reason for choosing BiddingOwl.com I did research similar programs and selected BiddingOwl.com for it's clarity of pricing, as well as the pricing itself. As a small, rural, non-profit organization they suited our needs perfectly and reasonably. Review Source TYLER B. Communications Coordinator Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Makes auctions so much easier" February 5, 2020 4.0 We've been able to (more easily) raise a lot more money through out online / fundraising auctions when using this software. We've also had comments from our supporters that it has made things easier on their end. Pros We don't do many auction based fundraisers throughout the year, but we still always dread them as they approach. That is, we did, before finding biddingowl.com. Gone are the nightmares of using a paper-based auction system that we spent oodles of time organizing, tracking, reconciling, etc. Bidding Owl makes it easier for us to organize, but also for our users to engage in the auction. With tools like the 'auto bid up to a certain amount', people are more willing to spend money, meaning we raise more. Cons It's not the most visually appealing software on the market. Granted, we haven't used other auction tools specifically, but the ui / visual design of the software just feels a bit dated. Like early 2000s look. Design trends across the industry have moved on, and there's little excuse these days for not having a service that is visually attractive for the users to engage with. Review Source Response from BiddingOwl.com February 20, 2020 Thank you so much for your review! We appreciate your great comments and constructive feedback. We agree it is time for a refresh of the site. We are currently working on a refreshed look while keeping our user-friendly platform. We have listened to our auction chairpersons and bidders and will even be adding some additional enhancements! Thank you for letting us be part of your success! WT Wendy T. Silent Auction Chair Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Would Reccomend" May 7, 2024 5.0 I have used it 3-4 years now and like it Pros How easy it was for people to see the items and use Cons They changed the website and there was a learning curve, but not terrible Review Source Melanie J. Admin Asst Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Super easy and fun way to set-up an auction to fundraise for our non-profit" October 30, 2019 5.0 Bidding Owl made our online auction run smoothly. It was easy to set-up and manage plus our bidders had a positive experience as well. Would definitely use Bidding Owl again. Pros Easy step by step process to set-up an auction. Allowed for multiple pictures of the items. Easy to use and manage the auction. Easy to close out the items and locate shipping information for winning bidders. Connects with PayPal for easy and quick payment. Cons We had one bidder who backed out of the purchase and I couldn't locate a place on the bidding site to cancel his bid and select the next highest bidder. I had to call customer support and they handled it quickly. Reason for choosing BiddingOwl.com We couldn't upload multiple pictures of our auction items on the 32auctions site. Some of our items had several components so we needed to have more than one picture included. With Bidding Owl we could include multiple pictures of the items which I believe helped the items to sell better. Review Source CK Cherie K. Secretary Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "BiddingOwl Auctions" March 11, 2024 4.0 I set up an auto-bid and selected both text and email notifications but I received zero notifications during the auction. I didn't get anything until the auction was over when it notified me I won the item. Initial problems during setup, some functionality from the old version was missing from the new version (not sure if it's been updated). Pros Relatively easy setup, bidding was easy enough, no user complaints Cons New version lost features the old version had and while the new interface looks better it doesn't necessarily perform better in some areas. At least that was my experience during the initial setup, improvements are ongoing. Reason for choosing BiddingOwl.com I was not part of the original selection process Review Source JM Julie M. Auciton Coordinator Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "BiddingOwl has completely restructured our annual fundraising auction" March 21, 2019 4.0 After 10 years of doing the traditional live and silent auction, we decided to give the online auction option a try. After quite a bit of research, we chose BiddingOwl as our online software. We now make more than half of our total profit from the online part of our auction, and I am pushing to completely move to online only. BiddingOwl has made this shift incredibly easy and profitable. We are now able to reach a much wider audience. This is our fourth year using BiddingOwl and we will continue to do so! Pros Great customer support, especially for a "newbie" like me. The overall look is generally nice and clean. The bidding and check out process is fairly easy from the consumer end. I like that we can save items from year to year. Once you've set it up once, the work has decreased immensely over the years. Cons I'd like to have a little more choice in font, colors, etc during the set up. It would make sense to have the logo (and other info) for a donor come up when they are chosen as a donor for an item. It would be helpful to keep bidders in the database when the auction is reset. Review Source LK Leah K. Auction chair Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Auction with Ease" March 6, 2023 5.0 Being able to raise money by using bidding owl helps the school so much with enrichment programs. Pros The ability to create edit and use for a elementary auction is welcomed. We have had many successes due to biddy now being easy to use for everyone. Cons Payment. I wish there was a way to keep credit cards on file to ease check out. Reason for choosing BiddingOwl.com What you get for the money seemed a better fit. Review Source CB CYNTHIA B. Exec.Director Health, Wellness and Fitness Used the software for: 2+ years ### "An experience like NONE other with www.biddingowl.com" October 25, 2019 5.0 Our agency has experienced no problems with biddingowl.com. Everything about them is top-notch and professional. Each time I use the system for an annual auction fundraiser, I am more and more pleased with this software. There is no way we could spend the time 're-inventing the wheel' to have our on line auction. We are very pleased at Arthritis Patient Services in Charlotte, NC. Pros We have been long standing customers with bidding owl! The system is user friendly, and it works like a charm! I am so pleased when I email or call in to the bidding owl office that someone is always able to help me get through any issue. This service matters most to our non-profit. In all our years using the system, no one has ever complained about access and usage. Cons It is difficult to think of cons...but if there was one thing I would change it would be to allow for larger photographs! Sometimes I just want to almost 'shout' about an item and its' value for the bidder! Review Source GW Georgette W. Volunteer Committee Member Civic & Social Organization Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Bidding Owl works for us" March 20, 2024 5.0 The initial with the new site setup was a bit time consuming and confusing. After that set up the ease of adding items was good. I like the new photo adding system. Pros Customer Support is great. Ease of listing items is good. Photo adding has improved with the new revisions of the site. Cons I did like the old Leaderboard functions. It gave greater detail and breakdown. Also the new version does not have an "Expiration date" field. That was a good reminder to list expiration dates. Reason for choosing BiddingOwl.com Seemed to be good value. Stayed with it for 4 years. Review Source Jennifer G. Manager Strategic Relationship Management Education Management Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Bidding Owl a great product! " December 6, 2018 5.0 I used this software for our elementary school online auction. It was great to use for bidders, visually really bright and pretty! The cost was wonderful too for what you receive! Im a huge fan! Pros I loved the ease of use for this product. Set up was extremely easy, support was quick very responsive and helpful! The product has reports you can run and emails you can send to bidders and winners. Easy to download to excel as well. I also loved that it works on your mobile as well for easy access. Great for the price. Cons Only con would be if it would ask users for their childs name as well so it would appear on the invoices since im using this for school. Review Source JF Jessi F. Lead Fundraiser Primary/Secondary Education Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "A life saver in the middle of a pandemic!" June 8, 2020 4.0 We will definitely be using Bidding Owl again and recommending it to other non profits in similar situations like us. Now that we know how wonderful online auctions are we’ll never go back to paper! Pros Our school has had silent auctions in the past, but never an online one. When the Covid19 pandemic sent everyone into quarantine our school scrambled to find an alternative spring auction we had already started planning. Bidding Owl’s software made it so easy to set up, edit, and promote before the auction started. While our 3 day auction took place we received a lot of feedback from our school’s families on how easy they felt it was use and how professional everything looked. Post auction we have made more money than any of other other auctions in the past and the checkout process has been simple and straightforward. I can’t wait to do another one! Cons I wish that it would show the opening bid before users had to click on the item to see its details. It would also be nice to have the option of more than 3 photos on some items. Alternatives considered [Auctria](https://www.capterra.com/p/112910/Auctria/) Reason for choosing BiddingOwl.com Auctria felt like it had a lot of hidden costs that would ultimately make it an expensive product. We are a small non profit with a smaller auction and were concerned too much of our earnings would be used to pay for Auctrias software. Review Source VC Vanessa C. Co-founder Performing Arts Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Perfect platform for our virtual auction." August 1, 2020 4.0 Overall, the experience was great. our organization is small and not terribly tech savvy, we were able to build our own site with little difficulty. When we did run into something confusing we were able to call customer service and get help. \[SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN\] was amazing customer support and walked us through and helped us clean up our page to look even more amazing. Pros Ease of building our personal site. Overall look of auction was pleasing to our bidders. Ability to print reports and import bidders from our other software. could custom set bidding times for items. Can do mass email/text to all bidders. Customer service team were very response and super helpful. No upfront cost and reasonable rate of 4.9% for non-profits after auction closes. Cons Integrate live feed, we had a live event on Facebook in addition to our online auction. Bidders had to go between the site and live online event. Alternatives considered [RallyUp](https://www.capterra.com/p/182398/RallyUp/) Reason for choosing BiddingOwl.com price and reviews Review Source BH Brittany H. Cyber Auction Chair Education Management Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "BiddingOwl is user friendly and fantastic!" September 20, 2023 5.0 We use biddingowl every year for our cyber auction and we love it! Pros Item management! It’s so easy to add items and edit them. Cons The cost. We didn’t love having to take money out of our fundraiser to pay for it but it’s okay! Review Source Similar Products Featured ## Send me user reviews about this product ### Fill out the form and we'll send a list of the top-rated software based on real user reviews directly to your inbox.