Guides
Why asking price is not sold price
Why Crawlbench publishes Facebook Marketplace asking prices, and why that honesty is what makes market-price pages usable.
Guides
How to read the price rating on Facebook Marketplace
What Great, Good, Fair and High price mean on a Facebook Marketplace listing: the usual price for similar listings, the range, and when we hold one back.
Next to every asking price on a Facebook Marketplace listing, Crawlbench shows one word: Great price, Good price, Fair price or High price. The word compares the ask with the usual price for similar listings, so you know where it sits before you message the seller.
What do the four words mean?
Each word is a band around the usual price:
| Word | The ask is |
|---|---|
| Great price | 12% or more below the usual price |
| Good price | 4 to 12% below |
| Fair price | Within 4% |
| High price | More than 4% above |
A $16,000 ask on a car whose similar listings usually ask $20,000 is 20% below, so it reads Great price. At $19,500 it is within 4%, so it reads Fair price.
Every team sees the same word for the same listing. Which search found it does not change the rating.
What is the usual price?
The usual price is the middle of what similar listings ask: half ask more and half ask less, so one odd price does not move it. The range under it is the middle half of those asks, leaving out the cheapest quarter and the priciest quarter. A wide range usually means trim, condition or mileage differ a lot inside the same model and year.
Similar listings depend on what you are looking at:
- Vehicles: the same make, model and year. The usual price is adjusted for this listing's mileage when we hold enough data.
- Homes and rentals: the same city, listing type, property type and bedrooms. The usual price is adjusted for this listing's size when we hold enough data.
- Everything else: the same kind of item.
They are the live asking prices of recent weeks in the listing's country and currency, and two copies of the same ad count as one. These are asking prices, not sold prices: read why the asking price is not the sold price before you use one as a sale value.
See the numbers for one listing
Open a listing and choose How the price rating works under the range. It shows this listing's own numbers in one sentence, such as "This one asks $16,000. Similar ones usually ask $20,000, so it is 20% below the usual price: Great price", with its band marked among the four.
The percent there is cut to a whole number, never rounded up, so a Good price never reads "12% below" next to the Great price rule.
Why does a listing say Few similar listings?
With fewer than 5 similar listings there is no usual price and no word. The listing says Few similar listings instead of guessing, and the drawer says why. A rare model or year, a small town or an unusual item often starts here and gets a rating once more similar listings are up.
What happens to a price far below the usual one?
An ask 65% or more below the usual price is not a deal, and it gets no price rating word. A discount that deep is usually a placeholder, a down payment or a monthly payment shown as the price, or parts, so the search keeps it out of New and puts it in Held back with the reason, such as "Far below every similar car, with no reason given". The listing says Held back where a rating would be. A down payment, a monthly payment, a part or salvage words are Held back the same way, with that reason, even when the ask is a normal price. One tap opens it if you want to look anyway.
Where else the usual price shows
- Price check: type what it is and where, and see the usual price and range for similar listings. Free, with no account.
- Market prices: the usual price and range for a model or kind of item in a country, published once at least 20 listings are behind it. The methodology says how each number is made.
- Saved: save a listing you like and get an alert when the seller cuts the price.
Use a Great price or Good price as a reason to look first, not as a reason to skip the photos, the title and a question to the seller.
