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Hardly any detail in a listing gets looked at as often as the price rating. For buyers it is a quick hint whether a price is reasonable. For dealers it is a handy filter when buying: show only offers with a good or very good price. To use it well, though, you need to know what it measures – and what it doesn’t.
- mobile.de rates asking prices in five bands from “very good price” to “high price”; AutoScout24 uses comparable bands.
- The rating compares the price with similar offers on the same portal – not with actual sale prices.
- Condition, accident history, equipment details and service history are only partly taken into account.
- Kleinanzeigen shows no price rating; that is where many private offers are.
- For buying, what counts is the distance to market value in euros, not just the label.
- A rating across all portals shows whether the same car is listed cheaper elsewhere.
1. How the price rating works
mobile.de puts offers into five bands: “Sehr guter Preis” (very good price), “Guter Preis” (good), “Fairer Preis” (fair), “Erhöhter Preis” (increased) and “Hoher Preis” (high). It is based on a comparison with similar cars on the portal – by model, age, mileage, power and other features. If the asking price is well below the calculated benchmark, the rating is good; if above, it is worse. Cars with too few comparables get no rating.
AutoScout24 follows the same principle with its own comparable bands. Kleinanzeigen shows no price rating – and it has a particularly large share of private offers, which you cannot place without your own view of the market.
Both portals offer the rating as a search filter, but as a fixed choice: for example only “very good price” or “good price” and better. A tolerance – say, “fair price if it is less than €300 from a good price” – does not exist there.
2. Where the rating reaches its limits
The price rating is a statistical comparison. It cannot know what an inspector or an experienced buyer sees on the car. Typical limits:
- Asking prices, not sale prices: the comparison is with what others ask – not with what buyers end up paying.
- Condition and history: accident damage, a missing service book, previous owners or paint damage are often only in the text, or not in the listing at all.
- Equipment: expensive packages or rare engines are not always fully captured; a well-equipped car can therefore look “increased”.
- One portal, one market: the rating only knows the portal’s own offers. If the same car is listed cheaper elsewhere, you won’t find out.
- Thresholds: even small price changes can move an offer up or down a band. Sellers use this by setting the price just below a threshold.
3. Combining rating and market value
For buying, what counts in the end is a figure in euros: how far is the price below what you will get when you sell? The portals’ label doesn’t tell you. A second benchmark makes sense – a market value from comparable offers across all portals, with the number of comparables, so you can judge how much it says.
If both the portal rating and the market value look favourable, that is a strong signal. If they disagree, take a closer look: maybe the car is better equipped than average – or the rating rests on few comparables.
4. How dealers use the rating when buying
- As a filter, not a verdict: use the rating to pre-select and still run the numbers on every offer yourself.
- With tolerance: a “fair price” just at the threshold is often negotiable. If you only look at “very good price”, you miss these offers.
- Watch price cuts: a car just cut from “increased” to “good price” has a seller ready to negotiate.
- Compare across portals: the same car is often listed on several portals – sometimes at different prices.
For every offer, CarFalke shows the portal’s rating, its own market value from comparable offers on all three portals, and the buying potential in euros. The price rating can be filtered with tolerance in a saved search, price cuts on watched cars arrive as alerts, and cars listed on several portals are recognised as twins.
