Sell my car comparison: which site pays the best price?
We compare offers from Webuyanycar, Motorway, Arnold Clark and more to see who pays the best price when selling a car online.
The likes of Motorway, Webuyanycar, Cazoo and Arnold Clark all promise to buy your car quickly and easily for a decent sum.
But who will actually pay the best price for your car?
We carried out some exclusive research to see how the major car-buying sites compared.
Sell my car comparison: which site pays the best price?
To carry out our research, we requested numerous quotes for six of the most popular cars on Britain’s roads today: Tesla Model 3, Ford Fiesta, Ford Focus, Mini, Nissan Qashqai and VW Golf.
Here are the results:
Motorway was the best performer by far, offering the highest price for five out of the six cars we compared.
When we looked at the average price across all six cars, Motorway was once again the most generous in its quotes, offering £16,081 overall.
Cazoo was a distant second, offering £15,488 on average, while there wasn’t much to choose between Arnold Clark (£15,033) and Money4yourmotors (£15,031) in third and fourth.
Wewantanycar was next on the list, with Webuyanycar offering the lowest average price overall.
Sell my car comparison: why you MUST shop around
Despite what our research suggests, this doesn’t mean that Motorway is definitely the best place to sell your car online, or that Webuyanycar is the worst for that matter.
First of all, our data is really little more than a snapshot.
In total, we compared five examples each across six different car types, so that’s just 30 cars overall.
That’s obviously far too limited to draw any definitive conclusions.
But one thing our research did highlight beyond doubt is why you need to shop around if you really want the best price when selling your car online.
Here’s why.
When comparing Land Rover’s, we found a whopping £4,900 difference between the best and worst quote for the exact same car!
It was a similar story on the Tesla’s, with the best quote coming in £4,500 higher than the lowest for a specific motor.
Even on lower-value motors, the difference was still significant, with an almost £1,500 gap between the best and worst Ford Focus price.
Given that quotes tend to provide a pretty accurate reflection of the final price you’re likely to get, these are eye-watering sums.
And it’s a common story across the market, not just on the car makes we compared.
It’s also worth pointing out there was only one occasion where the same company offered the best quote for all five cars we compared in each category.
That’s why the main takeaway from our research is that no car buyer can guarantee they’ll pay the best price for your car.
Factors such as the age, make, model, mileage and general condition will all have a huge impact on how valuable your car is from one company to the next.
Our golden rule is to always get a handful of quotes before committing to any site.
You can do this in less than 30 minutes and it could mean you get thousands of extra pounds when selling your motor online.
To try and make the process a little easier and faster, we’ve rounded up the major car-buying sites below along with all the info you need to make the right decision:
Read our Motorway review here or you can get a quote now
Read our Cazoo review or you can get a quote
Read our Webuyanycar review or you can get a quote
Read our Arnold Clark review or you can get a quote
Read our Evans Halshaw review or you can get a quote
Read our Carwow review or you can get a quote
Read our Money4yourmotors review or you can get a quote
Read our Wewantanycar review or you can get a quote
Man researching on a laptop (StockSnap – Pixabay)
Want the absolute best price? Sell your car yourself
Up until now, we’ve only focused on car-buying sites – the ones that promise to take your car off your hands quickly and easily.
However, if you’re really keen to get the best price and don’t mind putting in the extra time and effort, then without doubt your best option is to cut out the middle man and sell your car yourself.
By creating a listing, organising viewings and fielding prospective offers yourself, Autotrader reckons you’ll get an average of £1,000 more than if you sold it to a car-buying site.
Of course, that’s just a rough estimate and the difference will likely be larger for high-value cars and smaller for cheaper runners.
It’s up to you to decide whether the additional effort is worth your while.