If your eBay inbox fills up with $5 offers on a $60 item every week, Best Offer settings are the fix. Enable auto-decline and those insulting offers vanish without a single reply. Enable auto-accept and a buyer offering your target price closes the sale instantly, even while you sleep. This guide walks through every setting, the right thresholds to use, when to counter manually instead, and how to price your listings so you always have negotiation room.
What Best Offer Is and Why It Matters for eBay Sellers
Best Offer lets buyers propose a price below your Buy It Now. You can accept, decline, or counter. For resellers, it is one of the most powerful conversion tools on eBay because many buyers filter specifically for Best Offer listings when searching. Enabling it broadens your audience without forcing you to lower your listed price.
The catch is time. Without automation, every offer lands in your inbox and waits for a manual response. eBay gives buyers 48 hours to wait, but most serious buyers move on within hours. Auto-accept and auto-decline let eBay handle the easy cases so you only touch the ones that need judgment.
How to Enable Best Offer on an eBay Listing
Best Offer works on fixed-price Buy It Now listings. It is not available on auction-format listings. Here is how to add it.
For a new listing:
- Go to Sell and start a new listing.
- In the pricing section, check Allow offers.
- Set your Buy It Now price.
- Optionally set auto-accept and auto-decline thresholds (covered in the next section).
- Save and publish.
For an existing active listing:
- Go to My eBay and open Active Listings.
- Click the listing you want to edit.
- Select Revise listing.
- Scroll to the pricing section and check Allow offers.
- Set your thresholds, then save.
One thing to note: enabling Best Offer on a listing that already has watchers does not notify them. It simply makes the offer button visible to new and returning viewers.
How to Set Auto-Accept and Auto-Decline Thresholds
Once Best Offer is checked, two optional threshold fields appear below it.
Auto-accept threshold. Any offer at or above this amount is accepted instantly by eBay on your behalf. Use this when you know the minimum price that still makes the sale profitable. You get paid, the buyer gets the item, no back-and-forth needed.
Auto-decline threshold. Any offer below this amount is declined instantly. The buyer receives a decline message automatically. Use this to filter out lowball offers that waste your time and signal desperation to serious buyers.
Setting both thresholds creates a middle band: offers that land between auto-decline and auto-accept require your manual decision to accept, counter, or decline.
Example for a $60 listing:
| Threshold | Amount | Effect |
|—|—|—|
| Buy It Now price | $60.00 | Full-price purchase, no offer needed |
| Auto-accept | $52.00 | Any offer $52+ closes automatically |
| Auto-decline | $40.00 | Any offer below $40 is declined instantly |
| Manual zone | $40 to $51 | You decide: accept, counter, or decline |
Before setting auto-decline, check your eBay item specifics and title are strong. A listing that is poorly optimized may attract low offers because buyers are not confident in the item, not because it is overpriced.
What Thresholds to Use: The Math Behind Good Numbers
There is no single right percentage, but a practical framework helps.
Auto-accept: 85 to 90 percent of your Buy It Now price. If you list at $60, set auto-accept at $51 to $54. This floor represents the price at which the sale is still worth it after eBay fees (roughly 13 percent for most categories) and your cost of goods. Run the math for your category and item cost before setting this.
Auto-decline: 60 to 70 percent of your Buy It Now price. Offers below 65 percent of your listed price almost never convert into profitable sales and signal a buyer who is testing limits rather than serious about purchasing. Declining automatically avoids the awkward dance of countering extremely low offers.
Adjusting for item age. Items listed for more than 30 days may deserve a lower auto-accept threshold to move inventory. Consider dropping auto-accept by 5 to 10 percent on listings that have had plenty of views but few offers.
Pricing your listing with enough room to negotiate is the prerequisite for all of this. If you list too tight to your actual floor price, you cannot run Best Offer without risking a sale below cost. Build in at least 15 to 20 percent above your minimum acceptable price when setting your Buy It Now. How to Price Items to Sell covers the full methodology for calculating that floor before you list.
When to Skip Auto-Accept and Counter Manually
Auto-thresholds are less useful in a few situations.
High-value or one-of-a-kind items. On a $400 vintage jacket, a $20 difference matters. Set a wide manual zone and review every offer yourself.
Items with uncertain comparables. If you are not confident in your price, reviewing offers gives real-time market feedback. Multiple offers clustering at $45 on a $65 listing means the market sees $45, not $65.
Active selling sessions. When you are online, a personal counter-offer can close faster than waiting for auto-accept. A quick $58 reply on a $60 item feels responsive and keeps the buyer engaged.
eBay also lets you send proactive offers to watchers, which pairs well with Best Offer to move inventory that has stalled.
Pricing Listings to Leave Negotiation Room
Best Offer only works if your listed price gives you room to move. Sellers who list at or near their cost floor cannot run meaningful thresholds.
- Calculate your true floor: cost of goods plus eBay fees (roughly 13 percent) plus shipping.
- List at 20 to 25 percent above that floor.
- Set auto-accept at or just above your floor plus a small margin.
- Set auto-decline below your floor so you never accept an unprofitable offer.
Writing listings that justify your price is what makes negotiation work. A buyer is more likely to offer $52 on a well-described $60 item than on a sparse one. The eBay AI Listing Generator builds titles up to 80 characters with keyword-rich descriptions and fills in item specifics automatically, so your listings look priced with confidence from the start.
Once your Best Offer flow is set, eBay Promoted Listings Standard vs Advanced is worth reviewing since both tools work together on traffic and conversion. And if you are still deciding on listing format, eBay Good Til Cancelled vs Fixed Duration covers that choice alongside these settings.
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Add to Chrome, FreeFrequently asked questions
No. Buy It Now remains active at your listed price. Best Offer simply adds an offer button alongside it. Buyers who want to pay full price still can. Buyers who want to negotiate use the offer button. You are expanding your audience, not replacing one path with another.
eBay allows each buyer to send up to three offers on a single listing. After three declined or countered offers, the buyer cannot send more. Auto-decline counts toward this limit the same as a manual decline.
Yes. Thresholds are set at the individual listing level, not account-wide. You can have a $50 auto-accept on one item and a $90 auto-accept on another. This lets you calibrate thresholds to each item’s cost structure rather than applying a blanket rule.
The offer sits open for 48 hours. If you do not respond, it expires automatically. Buyers know this and may move on before the 48 hours is up. If you travel or step away from selling regularly, setting auto-accept at your floor is a better default than leaving offers unanswered.
Best Offer makes the most sense on fixed-price listings where you have some pricing flexibility. It is less useful when your listed price is already at or near your floor, on very low-value items where offers create more admin than they are worth, or when you are selling commodity items with little price variation. Use it selectively rather than enabling it on everything by default.
eBay has not confirmed a direct ranking boost. However, Best Offer listings appear when buyers filter by "Best Offer," which is a real traffic source. Combined with a strong title and complete item specifics, it puts your listing in front of more buyers.