Frequently Asked Questions
Have questions about Bid Beacon? We cover a variety of topics on our auction platform for both guests and admins. Use the search to find a your topic quickly.
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1. Getting Started
First Create an account or log in to app.bidbeacon.com
Once you create an account and log in, you’ll see the option to Create or Join an auction. Click Create Auction to start.
Walk through the 4 wizard steps, filling out information as you go.
Choose a plan (Ultimate Risk-Free or Build Your Auction), or skip for now to continue with a free trial and decide later.
After the 4 step wizard you will land on your Auction Dashboard.
Now, start working through the pages in the left side menu, top to bottom. You will find some pages are premium features. To gain access to these, you will need to choose a paid plan. Ultimate Risk-Free includes all premium features, or Build Your Auction lets you pick and choose only what you need from the Add-On page.
Save as you go, and edit/revise as much as you’d like!
The price varies based on the size of the auction.
Smaller auctions that raise less, pay less. Larger auctions that raise more, pay more.
Our Ultimate Risk-Free plan gives you access to all of our features, and unlimited guests, admins, items, and images. There’s no upfront cost, we just take a small percentage off your total funds raised.
We also offer a Build Your Own plan where you decide how many guests, admins, items, and images you need, and which features you’d like enabled. We then charge a flat-rate fee upfront.
No two auctions will be the same.
To really play around with the two plans, start a free auction and you can check out Add-On prices, compared to the Ultimate Risk-Free which gives complete access to all features and inclusions in exchange for a percentage fee of the total funds raised.
Note – to find out the current percent – head to:
www.bidbeacon.com/pricing/
We don’t list it here in case there is a promotion and it changes.
Most of our clients are Non-Profits and Charities, so our prices are already created to support you!
If it is your first time using Bid Beacon – head on over to our Who We Serve page and grab a promo code for 15% off add-ons. (not applicable with Ultimate Risk-Free as you don’t pay anything up front)
We know one size does not fit all, so our new options are all about choice and flexibility!
*New* Express Banking: Available with the Ultimate Risk-Free auctions. Link your auction directly to your bank account. Your bidders are required to enter a credit card number before they can bid, and winners will be auto-charged upon auction end. All platform and payment fees are deducted off the top and your profit is sent directly to the bank account you linked. Associated fees for express banking: Bid Beacon Platform Fee + Stripe’s Payment Fee’s, some taxes and currency exchange fee’s may apply. Bid Beacon does not store any credit card or banking information. All payment information is handled strictly through Stripe who is a PCI-compliant third-party payment processor.
Alternative Online Payments: Available using Build Your Auction. Set up your payment integrations in the app for Stripe, Square, or PayPal; when the auction ends, guests have the option to complete the payment from their “View Results” page available at the end of the auction. Funds are deposited directly into your Stripe, Square, or PayPal account, and Bid Beacon does not take a percentage of funds raised in this plan.
Offline Payments: Available using Build Your Auction. Admins need to input their instructions and guests can pay you directly the traditional way with cash, check, or other methods. Admins mark winners as paid in the app to generate a receipt.
Combo of Online & Offline Payments: Available using Build Your Auction. Admins can set up online payments, but also provide written instructions in case other payment methods are available. Manually track cash, e-transfer, Venmo, or other payments within the app and generate receipts.
Bid Beacon integrates with Raffle Rocket for electronic Raffles. This allows you to promote and sell raffle tickets from within Bid Beacon while also promoting your auction from Raffle Rocket.
USD, CAD, UK Pounds, Euros, Australian dollar (AUD), and New Zealand dollar (NZD)
We love options so this comes down to which plan you choose.
Our new Ultimate Risk-Free plan does charge a percentage fee instead of an upfront price. The amount is listed on the Pricing Page.
If you prefer a flat rate option, choose the Build Your Auction plan instead. Here, you set up your auction with inclusions you need, and then pay up front. In these cases, we do not take a percent of funds raised.
More details on both: www.bidbeacon.com/pricing/
Each auction has a one-time fee. We do not have an annual subscription plan. You’ll pay for use each time you run an auction.
If you host multiple silent auction fundraisers per year, we have a Customer Incentive Participation Program (CIPP) that offers preferred rates. Click here for more information.
This only applies to Ultimate Risk-Free auctions and Marketplaces.
Express Banking through Stripe Connect will allow your guests to pay using the following methods:
- All major credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express)
- Canadian pre-authorized debit cards
- ACH Direct Debit
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
Payment methods may vary depending on your location and the default currency set on your Stripe account.
2. Setting Up
Admins who were part of past auctions can copy over:
- Organization Details
- These details can be applied at Step 2 in the Auction Setup Wizard
- Payment keys or express banking info
- This is done from the Payment Settings section within the auction’s dashboard
- Invite guests from your past auction(s) to participate in your new, upcoming auction
- This is done from the Manage Guests section within the auction’s dashboard
- Add items from your past auction(s)
- This is done from the Manage Items section within the auction’s dashboard
Yes!
In Ultimate Risk-Free auctions, you can have as many admins as you need.
With Build Your Auction plans, you are able to add additional Admin roles by purchasing additional add-ons.
Steps to Adding Admins are available here: bidbeacon.com/adding-administrators/
You can (and should) invite guests/bidders many ways. Here’s our favorites:
1. By sharing the Auction link directly in an email or social media post.
2. Adding the custom QR code to your printed posters, programs, or other marketing collateral.
3. Importing a list of your supporters and emailing them from Bid Beacon.
4. Second-time Admins can also invite supporters from previously managed auctions.
5. Emailing your supporters from your own email services which includes your auction’s invite link and instructions on how to join (because an email from you is more likely to get opened than an email from us!).
6. By creating and sharing social posts directly linking to your auction items.
Anyone who can follow a link or enter your access code can join your auction and bid on items. How you collect payments and deliver prizes to guests is up to you.
Online payment with a pickup location is recommended in this scenario.
You can set up optional shipping fee’s on items if you will not have a pickup location, or are not limiting accessing to local bidders only.
People can find your auction if the link is made public on your social media, website, or shared by someone. If you end up with unwanted guests bidding, you have the option to move them to the waitlist, ban them, and then delete their bids.
Absolutely. You can start promoting your auction and have people join even while you are adding auction items.
The auction will refresh with the new items in real time as they get added.
You also have the option to hide items until auction opens if you prefer. It’s your choice.
Guests are people who join your auction to either bid, donate or participate in some way.
People who view items but never log in, do not count towards this number.
Basically, to count towards your auction’s Guest limit on Build Your Auction plans, a user must register a Bid Beacon account and then join your auction.
Admins can remove inactive guests from within the dashboard if you run out of space. Alternatively, you can buy additional guest spaces using our available add-ons.
Your auction can be previewed before guests log in, but they will only find the auction if you have provided the invite link publicly in some way (website, social media).
Yes. When adding auction items, you can select the item type.
Buy Now lets you specify a price and quantity available for an item – such as tickets or green fee’s.
Donation items can be created and are a straight donation to your organization.
Live items are purely for display because you will auction these items off during a live event. You are able to invoice this winner through the app by entering their name and bid amount. The winner will be able to pay using the options you made available during auction set up.
Admins have full control over when their auction items start and end which we also refer to as a Custom Bidding Period.
A Custom Bidding Period can be optionally applied to each item individually. Follow the steps below:
- Create a new item or edit an existing one.
- From the Edit/Create Item screen, scroll down to the Bidding Window section.
- Check off the Custom Bidding Period box.
- From here, proceed to set a custom date or time as to when you want the item to open or close.
If more users join than are included in your auction, they are added in a waitlist which you can view on your Manage Guests screen in the admin dashboard. Waitlisted guests can view auction items but can’t bid until more space has been created in your auction.
Our system will send admins an email notifying them that the guest limit has been reached and to suggest purchasing the add-on to increase guest limits.
Admins have the option of wait-listing existing guests that are not actively bidding to free up space.
With the NEW Ultimate Risk-Free plan, you can run your auction for up to 365 days. It’s important you know that the payment collection for items does not occur until the entire auction ends.
Build Your Auction plans let you run an auction for up to 30 days.
Yes! With the NEW Ultimate Risk-Free plan, bidders are required to enter their credit card to place a bid, and are charged automatically if they win.
You can set this up also with the Build Your Auction plans using the Alternate Online Payments add-on. You will first need to connect a Stripe account. From the Payment Settings tab in Bid Beacon, toggle on the option that says, “Require Credit Card and Autopay at Auction Close“
*Auto-charging is not possible when using Square or PayPal
**If using the auto-charge capability, you will not have the option to also collect payment offline (i.e. cash, cheque, e-transfer, etc.)
If you want that flexible payment option, you can do so in Bid Beacon’s Build Your Auction plan.
You will need the Alternate Online Payments add-on to set up an payments through the available third-party payment processors: Stripe, Square, or PayPal.
Then you will also provide written instructions to inform guests on how they can also make offline payments if desired.
When a guest wins, they will receive an email and notification of their winnings. This email also shares your written instructions, and provides a link to the app where they can choose to pay by credit card.
Note – this hybrid option is not available with the Ultimate Risk-Free plan.
You can set your start date anytime into the future, we do not limit your set up time in any way.
Note – once your auction goes live, it cannot be reversed. Before this happens, if you need more time to set up your auction, continue to set the start date further into the future.
This is entirely up to you. The benefit of requiring verified emails is that you ensure everyone bidding is able to receive communications from Bid Beacon. For example, we send email notifications if a guest gets outbid on an item, or when they win an item.
The only downside to requiring email verification is that it’s one additional step guests need to take before they can start to place bids. Without any sort of verification, it’s easier for guests to get onboarded into your auction, but you run the risk of guests joining with an invalid email address.
This is entirely possible! What you need to do is create Buy It Now items for your required items (event tickets, tables, etc.). Whichever online payment option you chose, you will then toggle on the setting to require immediate payment for Donation and Buy It Now items. This means that guests who purchase a ticket or table will be charged right away.
Since your auction must be live in order for guests to purchase these Buy It Now items, you may want to set Custom Bidding Windows on your silent auction items. This way, you can create a window of opportunity where the only items available are these Buy It Now items, every other item stays hidden until a specified date.
You can also set these Buy It Now items as Featured Items so that they are displayed on your auction’s Details page.
If you would like to set up or manage your auction from a personal device such as your phone or tablet, you will need to open up a web browser from your device (i.e. Safari if on iOS), and use the following URL: http://web.bidbeacon.com/
Please know that the downloadable app from the Google Play Store or App Store is built for guests to enhance the bidding experience. Admins won’t have the ability to manage their auction from the downloadable Bid Beacon app.
3. During the Event
If more users join than are included in your auction, they are added in a waitlist which you can view on your Manage Guests screen in the admin dashboard. Waitlisted guests can view auction items but can’t bid until more space has been created in your auction.
Our system will send admins an email notifying them that the guest limit has been reached and to suggest purchasing the add-on to increase guest limits.
Admins have the option of wait-listing existing guests that are not actively bidding to free up space.
Yes! You can send notifications that link to a specific item (say if you want to promote a particular item that’s closing soon), or send an update regarding the auction in general.
It will send to your guests three possible ways depending on their notification settings:
- Email *standard for all guests
- Push Notification *if they are using the downloaded app from the Apple or Google Play Stores
- Text Notification *if they filled in the mobile phone field on their profile.
Yes, admins can delete bids.
Go to the item’s page to view the list of bids. From this list, you’ll see a delete option beside the highest bid. If a user has already been outbid, you can no longer delete it.
Yes, each item can be linked to, and shared individually. When someone follows that link, they land directly on the item’s page. To bid, the guest will be required to log in.
Yes and we highly recommend you do this!
If you’re laying items on tables you can print out the PDF Item sheets from your Manage Items screen in the dashboard.
On it, there will be a brief item description and a unique QR code to send bidders straight to that item in the app.
Sometimes the log in process can be daunting for some.
Sharing this Guest Quick Start Guide might help, but also, admins can use Bid As Guest to place bids on a guest’s behalf if they are simply unable to join.
We always recommend putting guests on a waitlist if they’re inactive and you’re close to reaching your guest limit. If you have a guest that is causing a disturbance within the silent auction, you can permanently remove them by changing their Access Level to Banned.
Be aware that this cannot be undone. Banned guests will not be permitted to rejoin your auction ever again.
This is so important, and also a great way to maximize the revenue your auction generates.
One method that we’ve seen admins use is to create a new category and group all the items with 0 bids together. You then reorder the category list to make this new category appear first. If your event is live, you can announce the new category to your attendees, otherwise, use the in-app notification tool to send out a push notification to all your guests.
Depending on the size of your auction, and the types of items, this tactic can help you raise hundreds, if not thousands of dollars!
Absolutely! Items can be added at any point while your auction remains live. When you add a new item to an auction that has already begun, guests browsing your auction will receive a popup notification highlighting the newly added item!
Admins have the ability to end the auction prior to the original end date and time. There are two methods to doing this:
Method 1) – End the auction immediately:
- Access the auction dashboard.
- View the navigation pane on the left side of your screen and click the End Auction tab.
- This will direct you to a Close Auction page where you can finalize the closure by clicking End Auction Now.
Method 2) – Adjust your auction end date/time:
- Access the auction dashboard.
- View the navigation pane on the left side of your screen and click the Manage Auction tab.
- Edit either the End Date or End Time fields.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.
Be aware that your auction cannot be reopened once closed.
4. After the Event
- Email: An email goes out to all guests once the auction ends. Emails to guests who have won will see their winnings and totals summed up. A link back into the app is provided to make their payment (unless auto-charged was enabled).
- Push Notification: These go out to all guests – winners receive a link to view the results and are able to pay, unless they were auto-charged (depending on your payment setup).
- In the app itself, a View Results bar appears across the top of each item and items page which directs any guest to check out what they won and to complete payment.
- Non-Winners receive ‘thank you for participating’ notices through the same methods.Note – in all these places, the instructions you write on the Guest Instructions page appear. It’s important to make these instructions descriptive so they are helpful to your guests when the auction ends.
Admins have a View Results page that lists the auction results by guest. Some guests will have won many items.
You can filter this list by All, Paid or Unpaid results.
You can search by name, item, or email as well.
If a person comes to pick up their item:
- First check if they are paid.
- If yes, you can then hand them their item and mark them as picked up. This will move them into the Completed tab on the same page.
- If a guest has not yet paid and wants to pay in an offline method, rather than credit card through the app (e.g. cash, Venmo, e-transfer), you can find them in the unpaid list, mark as paid, choose the method of payment from the options available, collect payment, and then hand them their item. Afterwards, mark them as picked up.
If you used auto-charge through the Ultimate Risk-Free Auction or through Stripe in the Build Your Auction plan, most items should show as paid almost instantly after your auction ends.
A guest might show as unpaid if their credit card declined for some reason. If this happens, that winner has the option to change their credit card, re-enter it, and try again. If their card declines again, the guest can choose to pay you offline, or forfeit their winnings.
To forfeit, go to the item(s) they won, delete their highest bid, and the second highest bidder will then be declared the winner. This new winner will then receive the appropriate notifications mentioned above.
Yes we have 5 reports available on the Reports screen in the auction dashboard for admins.
They export in CSV files which can easily be converted to Excel or google sheets to further analyze your auction’s data!
We Have Discounts For Frequent Users
Guest FAQ
If you have been invited to an auction, you can join by creating a Bid Beacon account or logging in to an existing account.
You can also preview items without logging in if you aren’t sure you’ll want to bid yet.
For more details view our Guest Quickstart Guide
Find the item you are interested in, and click on it to view more details.
There are 3 ways to bid:
Quick Bid: this will bid the minimum amount based on the item’s increment
Custom Bid: You can adjust the bid with [+] and [-] buttons, or tap on price to enter new amount before clicking Bid.
Max Bid: Allows you to set your maximum on an item, and then have the system bid for you, until your maximum is reached. If you’re the top bidder, the system will wait until you are outbid before placing a new bid.
There are a variety of ways you will be notified:
Popup: If you have the app open when you’re outbid, a popup will appear
Email: An email will be sent notifying you if you are outbid, won an item, or if the auction has ended
Push Notification: If using Bid Beacon app on a mobile device, a push notification will be sent
Text Message: If an accurate cell phone number has been provided, you will be sent a text
On the top of the auction item’s screen, click the chat bubble to send a question to auction admins regarding that item.
In the header, click the chat bubble to send a non-item specific message to admins.
In the header menu, beside your profile, click the heart icon.
This will include items you’ve bid on, or that you favorited by clicking the heart icon on the item itself.
When the auction ends, you will be sent an email containing a list of your winnings.
A view results button will appear in the auction after the auction ends. Click to see a list of your winnings and pay for the items.
This completely depends on what the auction admin sets up. We get them lots of choice.
Some possibilities are:
- You’ll be required to enter a credit card when you bid, and will be auto-charged when the auction ends for anything you win.
- You will be emailed/notified you won and provided a link back to the app where you can make payment via credit card for your items.
- The admin might not have chosen to use online payment methods, in which case you’ll be presented written instructions from the admin (hopefully they fill it out!) telling you what to do to provide payment and receive your winnings.
If you miss the email – you can view the Results Page by going back into the auction and clicking View Results.
Bid Beacon works on any web browser, no need to download the app.
Using the app does allow you to receive push notifications if you’ve been outbid though, so there’s that added benefit!
iOS (iPhone, iPad), Android, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge.
Your firewall is likely blocking access to our server, so please whitelist our website (app.bidbeacon.com) for your firewall.
If you still experience login issues, please contact us.
Use the chat function in the app to let the auction admin know that you didn’t mean to place that bid. They’ll need to know which item and bid specifically. If it’s the most recent bid, they can delete it.
Max Bid allows you to set a maximum price on an item, and the system will bid on your behalf as you get outbid. The bid amount is determined by the minimum bid increment on each item. Once the bid amount exceeds your max price, our system will stop bidding on your behalf. You can then continue to bid manually, or set a new max bid.
For example, if you set a max bid of $100 and the item’s increment was $10, you could in theory still be outbid with $100 if the following occurs:
Your Bid: $70
Someone Else’s Bid: $80
Your Bid: $90
Someone Else’s Bid: $100 (at this point, your max bid is turned off as you can’t exceed the $100 limit you set previously)
This is because Max Bid will not jump increments or go above your max so be sure to keep an eye on your bids!
Usually this is due to spam blockers.
1. Check your Spam Inbox for the email from us.
2. If the email from us is not there, add [email protected] to your contact list.
An easy trick to add to your contact list is to send us an email! Once you’ve done that, click forgot password again and the email should come through.
