Payment Hold & Debit of Winning Bid

What is “Payment Hold & Debit of Winning Bid”?

Payment Hold is a bidder-verification and guaranteed-payment feature for auctions. When it is turned on, the very first time a customer places a bid on an auction, the site puts a temporary hold on their saved credit or debit card — similar to how a hotel or car rental holds a deposit on your card without actually charging you.

• The money is not taken from the bidder at this point.  
• The bidder simply sees that an amount has been reserved / authorized on their card.
• When the auction ends, the site decides what happens to each hold — either collect it from the winner and release everyone else, or release everyone, including the winner (used purely as a card-verification step).

This protects the auctioneer from a common problem in online auctions: a winning bidder who disappears and never pays. Because a valid, chargeable card is required before someone is even allowed to bid, and the winning amount can be collected automatically the moment the auction closes, the auctioneer does not have to chase payments manually.

Supported Payment Providers

The Payment Hold feature currently works with:

• Stripe
• Square

Payment Hold is not available with the other supported payment providers on this plugin. If your site uses a provider other than Stripe or Square, this specific feature (holding an amount during bidding) will not appear as an option — you would use the plugin’s separate “Automatic Debit” feature instead, or collect payment manually after the auction.

Recommendation: Choose Stripe or Square as your payment provider specifically if you want the Payment Hold feature.

Why Use Payment Hold?

Admin Setup Workflow — Configuring Payment Hold

This section walks through the settings screen where Payment Hold is configured, in the order the options appear on screen.

1. Select Your Payment Gateway

At the top of the payment settings screen, choose which payment provider the site uses. Select Stripe or Square — these are the two providers that support Payment Hold. The screen will confirm whether the chosen provider is installed, activated, and properly connected (test mode or live mode). Check more details here regarding configurations.

2. Enable Credit Card Collection

Turn on the option to display credit card details on the account page so that bidders are prompted to add and save a card to their account. This is required — without a saved card on file, a bidder cannot be asked for a hold. An optional setting also lets the site capture the bidder's billing address at the same time, if needed. Check more details here regarding configurations.

3. Choose “Hold an Amount on User's First Bid”

In the “Credit Card — Payment Hold & Automatic Debit” section, select the option labeled “Hold an Amount on User's First Bid.” This switches the site into Payment Hold mode. (The alternative option in this same section, “Automatically Debit the Winning Amount,” is a separate feature and is not covered in this guide.)

4. Choose the Hold Amount Method

Once Payment Hold is selected, choose how the hold amount should be calculated for every bidder: Fixed Amount, Fixed Percentage, or Exact Bid Amount. See “Choosing a Hold Amount” below in this guide for how to decide between these.

5. Enter the Amount or Percentage

Depending on the method chosen in the previous step, enter either the fixed currency amount to hold on every bidder, or the percentage of each bid to hold. Only the field matching the selected method needs to be filled in.

6. Choose Release or Debit

Decide what should happen automatically when an auction closes, using the “Release or Debit” checkbox:

• Checked — the winner's held amount is debited (charged) automatically, and every other bidder's hold is released.
• Unchecked — every bidder's hold, including the winner's, is released, and no one is charged automatically.

7. Optional — Buyer's Premium Autodebit

If the site has a separate Buyer's Premium feature enabled, an additional checkbox appears allowing the buyer's premium amount to be automatically included whenever the winner is debited. Leave this off if buyer's premium should be collected separately.

8. Save Changes

Scroll to the bottom of the screen and save the settings. It's recommended to test the full cycle (see the setup checklist later in this guide) before relying on these settings for a live auction.

How the Workflow Works, Step by Step

Once configured, here is what happens automatically on the bidder-facing side of the site.

Step 1 — Bidder Places Their First Bid

Before the bid is accepted, the system checks that the bidder has added a valid card and made it their default payment method. If not, the bid is rejected and the bidder is asked to add a card first.

Step 2 — A Hold Is Placed

On the bidder's first accepted bid on that auction, the system automatically places a hold on their card for the configured amount (see “Choosing a Hold Amount” below). The bidder sees a confirmation message telling them the amount has been reserved.

• Only one hold is placed per bidder per auction — if the same person raises their own bid again, a second hold is not added on top; the original hold amount stays as-is.
• If the bidder's card is declined or missing, they are told to fix their payment method, and no hold is placed.

Step 3 — Bidding Continues

Other bidders go through the same check-and-hold process the first time each of them bids. At any point during the auction, multiple bidders may be holding funds simultaneously — one hold per participant.

Step 4 — The Auction Ends

Once the auction closes and a winner is determined, the system automatically reviews every hold placed on that auction and takes one of two actions, based on how the site owner has configured the “Release or Debit” setting:

Debit the Winner (recommended for most auction sites):

• The winning bidder's hold is converted into an actual charge for the winning amount (capped at whatever they actually won, even if the hold amount was originally set higher).
• Every other bidder's hold is automatically released — no charge, no impact on their card.

Release Everyone:

• No one is charged automatically, including the winner.
• All holds — winner and losing bidders alike — are released.
• This mode is useful if you only want the hold to act as a “proof of a valid card” check, and prefer to invoice or manually collect payment from the winner afterward.

Step 5 — Payment Is Finalized

If the winner was debited automatically, the payment is recorded as complete and the auction is marked as paid in the system. If holds were released instead, the winner proceeds to check out and pay for the item normally, the same as any other order.

Visual Overview

1. Bidder places a bid
2. System checks: does the bidder have a valid default card on file?
3. No → Bid is rejected; bidder is asked to add a card
4. Yes → Is this the bidder's first bid on this auction?
5. Already held before → Bid accepted, no new hold placed
6. First bid → A hold is placed for the configured amount
7. Auction continues — other bidders go through the same steps
8. Auction closes and a winner is determined
9. “Debit the Winner” mode → Winner's hold is charged; everyone else's hold is released
10. “Release Everyone” mode → All holds, including the winner's, are released (winner pays separately at checkout)

Choosing a Hold Amount

When setting up Payment Hold, the site owner picks one of three ways to calculate how much to hold on each bidder's card:

Note: If Fixed Amount is selected and the fixed amount happens to be larger than what the winner actually won the auction for, the site will only ever charge the winner up to the amount they actually won — never more.

Setting Up Payment Hold — Checklist for a New Site

11. Choose and connect a supported payment provider — Stripe or Square — and make sure it is fully configured and enabled (test mode first, then live once verified).
12. Turn on the credit-card requirement so bidders are prompted to add and save a card to their account before they can bid.
13. Turn on Payment Hold and choose the hold amount method (Fixed Amount, Percentage, or Exact Bid) and the corresponding amount or percentage value, plus whether the site should Debit the Winner automatically or Release Everyone's hold at auction close.
14. Test the full cycle in the payment provider's test/sandbox mode before going live — place a test bid, let a test auction close, and confirm the outcome matches your chosen setting; also try a declined test card to confirm bidders are properly guided to fix their payment method.
15. Switch to live payments once testing confirms everything behaves as expected, and consider running one small real auction as a final live check before opening it up broadly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does the bidder get charged just for bidding?

A: No. Placing a bid only creates a hold (a reservation), never an actual charge, unless and until the auction closes and the “Debit the Winner” setting captures it.

Q: What if a bidder raises their own bid several times?

A: Only one hold is created — on their first bid. It is not increased automatically as they continue bidding higher, regardless of the hold-amount method chosen.

Q: What happens if the winner's card fails when the auction closes?

A: If the automatic charge fails at closing time (e.g. the card was cancelled in the meantime), the charge does not go through, and the site owner will need to follow up with the winner manually to collect payment through another channel.

Q: Can a site owner manually release or capture one specific bidder's hold?

A: Not on an individual, per-bidder basis — the “Debit the Winner / Release Everyone” choice is a single, site-wide setting that is applied automatically to every auction when it closes.

Q: Do losing bidders ever see any charge on their statement?

A: No. A hold that is released never turns into a completed charge — most banks show it disappearing from “pending” within a few days, without ever being finalized.

Q: How long can a hold last before it expires on its own?

A: Card networks generally only guarantee an uncaptured hold for about a week. If an auction is expected to run longer than that, plan to close/settle it within that window, or treat Payment Hold primarily as a short-duration verification tool for longer-running auctions.