Auction
Use this type of campaign for Silent and Live Auction
The following information is available on this page:
Navigate to the Campaigns > New Campaign > Auction
As you fill the settings, a few things to pay attention to:
- 2.
- 3.If you ask donors for their phone number, in addition to the email they receive when they are outbid they will receive a text with a link to increase their bid.
- 4.For a Silent Auction, the campaign Start Date is NOT the same as the day the auction will go live and enable bidding. The Start Date you set underneath the description will be the 'Active' date of the campaign so that you can preview what the donors will see + in Auction Settings you'll enable bidding automatically by selecting start dates and times.
You don't need an account to participate in an online silent auction. Select an item to bid on, enter your information, and the bid is placed.
There are 3 ways to sell items in a silent auction.
- 1.Standard bidding where the highest bid at the end of the auction wins the item.
- 2.The Buy It Now button gives your donors the option to buy the item without bidding. If no one buys the item, the highest bidder at the end of the auction wins the item.
- 3.Buy it now only allows you to sell an item without any bidding. This is commonly used for merchandise, or experiences like dinners where you're selling seats.
We recommend collecting phone numbers from bidders for the silent auction in order for them to receive a text message when they're outbid. This helps your in-person and virtual bidders compete with each other throughout your event and maximizes their chances of winning and your total funds raised.
If you close the silent auction during your event, then the winnings will go into the donors' carts for easy checkout.
An auto bid is an automatic bid placed on a silent auction item on behalf of a donor once bidding is enabled for the item. PayBee allows donors to set up auto bidding on silent auction items if the organization has enabled this option for the auction. Donors either have the option to place a bid on the item immediately or set up auto bidding upto a specific maximum bid amount. To understand how donors can set up auto bids, click here.
Auto bidding is disabled for all your existing silent auctions by default and enabled while setting up a new silent auction by default. To enable it for your existing silent auction, Edit your campaign > scroll down to Auction Settings > turn OFF Disable Auto Bid.
Every campaign comes with its own link that can be shared with potential bidders. Go to Campaigns, hit Share to get the URL (to share on social media and in email campaigns) and QR code (for print collateral).

Go to Manage > Auctions to:
- See current bids
- Pause/resume bidding for Silent Auction
- End the auction to select winning bids and notify winners
- Notify your bidders that the auction will be ending soon
- Delete bids if necessary.
To help coordinate pick up and shipping, consider adding forms that your donors could fill out. Update the Email Settings Header and Footer to include the forms.
Here's an example:

Donors who win an auction item will see this message in the confirmation and payment request email.

Message in Payment Request email
Donors who buy the item, will see it in the payment confirmation email.

Message in Payment Confirmation
Last modified 3mo ago