Auction House: limits, bids and messages
You cannot set a starting price, every bid is taken from your coins straight away, and a late bid adds 15 minutes. Here are the exact rules.
Listing a Pokémon
Open the Auction House, choose to hold an auction, pick a Pokémon and an auction time, then press Submit.
- How many auctions you can hold at once.
- The seller fee, explained in trading and the Auction House.
- Your Box Pokémon, with level and gender.
- How long the auction runs.
- Submit lists it.
- Box only. The list shows Pokémon in your Box. Pokémon on your team are not listed, and a loaned Pokémon is greyed out.
- Length: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 or 10 days.
- How many at once: three auctions, or five if you have Active VIP.
- No starting price. An auction opens at 0 coins, so the first bid can be as low as 1 coin. If nobody else bids, the Pokémon can sell for almost nothing. List a Pokémon you are happy to sell for whatever the bidding reaches.
- The Pokémon leaves your Box when the auction starts. If nobody bids, it returns to your Box when the auction ends.
Bidding
- Your bid must be higher than the current one. One coin more is enough.
- The whole bid is taken from your coins the moment you place it. You need that many coins in hand.
- If someone outbids you, your coins come back and you get a message saying who beat your bid and on which Pokémon.
- If you raise your own bid, your earlier bid is returned first, so you only lose the difference.
- You can't bid on your own auction.
The 15 minute extension
A bid placed with less than 30 minutes left adds 15 minutes to the auction. So an auction cannot be won by a bid in its last seconds, and everyone gets a chance to answer. Worked example: an auction has 20 minutes left and stands at 1,200 coins. You bid 1,500. The 1,500 coins leave your balance, the bidder on 1,200 is refunded and told, and the auction now ends in 35 minutes.
When an auction ends
The game settles ended auctions when somebody next opens the Auction House page, so the result can show up a little after the timer reaches zero. It is normal for a won Pokémon or the sale coins to arrive when the list is next loaded, and every result comes with a message.
- The top bidder receives the Pokémon and a message saying they won it.
- The seller receives the winning coins minus the seller fee, with a message that shows the sale price and the fee.
- No bids: the Pokémon returns to the seller's Box with a message saying the auction did not get any bids.
What the messages mean
| Message | What it means |
|---|---|
| "Please offer a higher amount than N coins." | Your bid is not above the current one. Bid at least N plus 1. |
| "You don't have that many coins!" | The bid is more than your coin balance. |
| "You can't bid in your own auctions." | Sellers cannot bid on their own listing. |
| "The auction changed before your bid could be placed. Please review it and try again." | Someone bid higher at the same moment, or the auction just ended. Nothing was charged. Reload and look again. |
| "Your bid request expired. Please review the auction and try again." | The bid page was open too long or was submitted twice. Reload the auction and bid again. |
| "This auction doesn't exist. The auction may have already ended." | The auction is over. Check the Auction House list. |
| "You can only hold three auctions at a time." / "five auctions" | You are at your limit. Wait for one to end. Active VIP raises the limit to five. |
| "Invalid time frame." | The length you chose is not one of 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 or 10 days. Pick from the list. |
| "An error occurred when adding the auction, possibly from refreshing the page." | The Pokémon was already listed or moved. Check your Box and the Auction House before trying again. |
| "This Pokemon changed before the auction could be created." | It moved or was already used. Nothing was listed. |
For direct trades, Wonder Trade and the seller fee table, read trading and the Auction House. For where coins come from, see daily rewards and coins.