How to Get Paid on CarGurus

If you sell your used vehicle on CarGurus, you’ll want to get paid for it. All CarGurus payment methods are inconvenient, risky, slow, or expensive.

We'll explore CarGurus' payment options, and we'll show you a better way to get paid for your car.

CarGurus gets your car in front of a lot of online buyers, but it lacks features to help you get the deal done. For the most part, you're left in the lurch when it comes to closing the deal and getting paid. They do have their own payment solution, called CarGurus Pay, but it's got some major downfalls, which we'll get to in a moment.

CarGurus offers an integrated payment solution—but it’s not very good. If you don’t want to use CarGurus Pay, you’ll have to settle off-platform with the same old, same old methods. Spoiler: they all have serious drawbacks.

1. CarGurus Pay: not available in every state, has fees and transfer limits.
2. Cash: risky and inconvenient.
3. Bank transfer: cumbersome, exposes your banking info to strangers.
4. PayPal: transaction fees and transfer limits.
5. Checks: slow, inconvenient.
6. Credit cards: fees, risk.

Good thing we’ve developed an easy payment solution that gets you paid instantly and securely, with no limits on transfer fees. We’ll get to that in a minute,and we’ll show you how to use it to get paid on CarGurus (or anywhere you list your car).

CarGurus Pay connects with your bank account and accepts payment from the buyer. After the buyer has paid, CarGurus Pay sends the funds to you. Sort of like an escrow service. Sounds pretty good—but CarGurus Pay is full of limitations.


We’ll show you how to get paid instantly, with an easy-to-use interface and no limits on the amount of money that can be sent. Oh, and it works in all 50 states.

Physical cash is sketchy, especially in high-value transactions.

Here are the negative sides of receiving a physical cash payment:

1. Counterfeit cash: while counterfeiting is rare, do you know for sure that the bills are not fake?
2. Paperwork: do you know how to do the bill of sale and title transfer for your state? Will you have a record of the transaction in case the other party wants to contest it?
3. Physical safety: do you know the person you're dealing with? How do you know they’re not going to attack you and take back their cash as soon as you’ve transferred the title and given them the keys?
4. Inconvenience and awkwardness: do you enjoy counting out stacks of bills while a stranger watches?

Credit card payments have processing fees and are a potential fraud risk.

1. Credit card processors such as Stripe charge 2–3% or more of the total transaction amount. Say you’re selling a $50K Ford Bronco: that’s $1000–$1500 diverted from your pocket.
2. There’s also the risk of chargebacks or fraudulent transactions when accepting credit cards, especially from strangers. Buyers can initiate disputes and reversals more easily.
3. You’re forced to reveal personal information to the buyer, which is a security risk.

Bank transfers are an inconvenient and annoying way to get paid.

1. Slow. Transfers can take days to fully process, due to low account limits. If you’re smart, you won’t hand over the title until you’ve received the funds into your account. This forces the buyer to pay you, then wait—an act of faith on their part. It also turns what could be a quick transaction into a drawn-out affair.
2. Inconvenient. You and the buyer need to have multiple back-and-forth exchanges to orchestrate the transaction. You’ve got better things to do with your time and attention.
3. Potentially risky. Exposing your bank account details opens the door to fraud.

Peer-to-peer payment apps like Venmo and PayPal seem convenient at first glance, but they’re terrible for a private-party car transaction.

1. Low sending limits are a no-go for high-dollar payments. PayPal has a $10K limit on personal accounts.
2. PayPal’s fees of 2-3% quickly add up.
3. Venmo has a limit of $4,999 per transaction, which is too low for most cars.

Don't even think of taking a personal check, unless you wait for it to clear—and who wants to deal with that delay and uncertainty?

While cashier’s checks are more trustworthy, even they can be forged. The only way for you to be sure that a cashier's check is good: meet the buyer at their bank and have the bank verify the funds.

If you want to skip the inconvenience (and the limited banker’s hours), we have something you're going to love.

PrivateAuto Pay facilitates instantaneous, unlimited fund transfers, any time of day, any day of the week. No transaction fees. Just pure convenience.

PrivateAuto Pay is great for users of PrivateAuto, but how about for someone selling their car on CarGurus? Glad you asked.

We’ve created a bridge product that allows you to start a deal anywhere and finish it on PrivateAuto with PrivateAuto Pay for payments. We call it DealNow.

Here’s how DealNow works:

1. Invite your CarGurus buyer to DealNow via a custom link.
2. Enjoy buyer identity verification, funds verification, in-app messaging, and a test drive scheduling feature (none require exchanging contact info).
3. Meet the buyer and let the buyer drive your car.
4. You and the buyer go together through a step-by-step transaction process that eliminates errors and protects you.
5. You and the buyer each electronically sign an official bill of sale.
6. The buyer is prompted to initiate payment.
7. You receive funds instantly and confirm receipt.
8. You sign over the car title and hand over the keys.

DealNow is so smooth, so safe, and so fast that you’ll never want to sell a car without it.

If you’re selling your car, check out PrivateAuto. Here are the advantages we offer that CarGurus does not: