# Bidding With a Cool Head: How to Register to Bid at Auction

> Source: LLB Auction (https://www.llb-auction.com/insights/the-saleroom/bidding-strategy)
> Author: LLB Auction
> Updated: July 3, 2026

---

Knowing how to register to bid at auction is the easy part: you open an account, confirm your identity, and clear a financial check the day before the sale. The hard part begins once you are approved, when a maximum set in daylight has to survive the pull of a live room. This guide gathers the tactical skills of the saleroom into one disciplined approach for the contemporary-art collector who wants the work but refuses to overpay. It covers fixing a true ceiling, resisting the estimate as an anchor, reading bid increments, using proxy bids as restraint, and recognising the winner's curse before it reaches your paddle. The mechanics take minutes. The self-control is what protects an annual budget of €50,000 to €500,000 across a season of sales.

> **Key takeaways:**
>
> 1. Registration is a formality: Sotheby's requires an account and, for some lots, a bank reference, while in-room bidders collect a numbered paddle and present government-issued identification.
> 2. Your maximum bid must absorb the buyer's premium. LLB Auction discloses a flat 20%; Sotheby's raised its lowest tier to 28% on 13 February 2026.
> 3. The published estimate is an anchor, not a valuation. Decide your ceiling from comparables before you ever read it.
> 4. Absentee and proxy bids win at the lowest possible increment. Across 2.7 million lots studied by Invaluable, absentee bids won 40% of the time they were placed.
> 5. The winner's curse, named in 1971, means the boldest bid is usually the least accurate. A pre-committed limit is the only reliable defence.

This article is written for the experienced collector and the prospective seller who already know the market and want the mechanics, the money, and the behavioural traps laid out plainly. It does not cover consignment terms or authentication, which the house treats elsewhere. It does explain, end to end, how to register to bid at auction and then bid well.

## How to Register to Bid at Auction Before the Sale Opens

Registration exists to verify that a bidder can pay, and rarely takes longer than a few minutes. Sotheby's, in its guidance on what is needed to bid in an auction, states that bidders must create an account and register through the auction calendar, and that some auctions and lots require additional financial verification such as a bank reference. Christie's asks for contact details and bank information, then contacts you directly when a particular lot needs a deeper reference. For an in-person sale you collect a numbered paddle at the door and bring government-issued identification, a passport or a driving licence. Complete the profile at least 24 hours before the opening so a verification request does not lock you out on the day.

LLB Auction runs timed online auctions of 7 to 14 days on its own platform at llb-auction.com, fully asynchronous, with no live auctioneer and no telephone bank. A single verified account covers the whole calendar of four sales committed across 2026 and two in 2027. Once approved, you place a maximum bid and the platform executes it on your behalf, exactly as a saleroom clerk works an absentee commission, advancing your bid one increment at a time only as rivals appear.

The reason to treat registration as routine is to move your attention to the decision that matters: the number you are willing to pay. Learning how to register to bid at auction should take an evening; deciding your ceiling should take longer, because it is the only step a competitor cannot see and cannot push.

### How to register to bid at auction, step by step

1. **Choose the lot.** Read the full catalogue entry, the condition report, and the provenance before you register, not after.
2. **Open an account.** Enter your contact details on the house platform; LLB Auction and Sotheby's both require this as the first action.
3. **Clear identity and finance checks.** Provide identification and, where requested, a bank reference at least 24 hours ahead of the opening.
4. **Read the conditions of sale.** Phillips, in its conditions of sale, sets binding terms on premiums and bidding that apply the moment you are approved.
5. **Set your maximum.** Enter an absentee or proxy maximum rather than planning to improvise live, so the hardest decision is made before any pressure starts.

Every step in how to register to bid at auction is administrative. The discipline begins at step five, and the rest of this guide is about that single number and how to defend it.

## Setting a True Maximum Before the Adrenaline Starts

A maximum bid is the highest hammer price you will pay, fixed before the sale and written down. It is not the total you will spend. The buyer's premium sits on top, and for a first-time bidder it is the largest cost most often forgotten. The **buyer's premium** is the percentage a house adds to the hammer price, the figure the auctioneer actually knocks down. LLB Auction discloses a flat 20%, with a seller's commission of 10% and no hidden costs. Sotheby's raised its lowest tier from 27 to 28% on 13 February 2026, according to The Value, extending that rate to hammer prices up to two million dollars in New York. A €10,000 hammer is really a €12,000 commitment at 20%, and closer to 12,800 before tax at 28%.

Work backwards from the total you can pay, never forwards from the hammer you hope for. If your absolute outlay is €12,000 and the premium is 20%, your maximum hammer is €10,000. MyArtBroker, in its guide to art auction fees, sets out the same arithmetic from the other side: a 100,000 hammer at a 25% premium becomes a 125,000 invoice before value-added tax, which falls on the premium itself. Build the premium into the ceiling and the number you enter is honest, which is the financial discipline at the centre of how to register to bid at auction. Ignore it and you will discover, at the invoice, that you bid past your own limit without noticing.

![A collector studying an auction catalogue and condition report at a desk before a sale](https://renderings.laboetie.io/media/3QKVofOvmTNUfiioEBZbF/w1920)

The table below compares the published premium structures of the major houses against LLB Auction's single rate. Rates apply to the hammer price in tiers, and the currency thresholds differ by saleroom, so treat the percentages, not the bands, as the figure that shapes your ceiling.

| House | Lowest tier | Middle tier | Top tier |
| :- | :- | :- | :- |
| Christie's | 26% | 21% | 15% |
| Sotheby's | 28% (from 13 February 2026) | 22% | 15% |
| Phillips | 27% | 21% | 14.5% |
| LLB Auction | 20% flat | 20% flat | 20% flat |

### A method for fixing your ceiling

1. **Gather comparables.** Pull three to five recent hammer prices for similar works by the same artist, in the same medium, period, and scale.
2. **Adjust for the object in front of you.** Discount for condition issues named in the report; add nothing for optimism or for the catalogue's adjectives.
3. **Set the hammer ceiling.** Choose the figure the work is worth to you, independent of the printed estimate, then stop.
4. **Subtract the premium and tax.** Convert your total budget into a hammer ceiling by removing the buyer's premium and any value-added tax.
5. **Avoid the round number.** Bid 9,500 rather than 10,000; rivals anchor on round figures, and a half-increment above one often takes the lot.
6. **Write it down.** A maximum you can see on paper resists the maximum you feel in the moment.

Setting a true maximum is the heart of how to register to bid at auction without regret, and it is worth more time than any other part of the process. The companion method in [setting your ceiling from comparables](/insights/the-saleroom/bidding-strategy/setting-your-ceiling-a-method-for-deciding-what-a-work-is-worth-to-you) walks through the valuation step in detail. Once the number exists and absorbs the premium, your only job in the saleroom is to honour it.

## How Estimates Anchor Your Judgement, and How to Resist

The estimate is the most quietly powerful number in the catalogue, and it is not a valuation. Sotheby's describes the estimate as the opinion of its experts about the range in which a lot might sell, based on examination and recent auction records of comparable pieces. It is a preliminary guide, published to start the conversation, and it is set with the sale in mind. A low estimate can be deliberately conservative to draw early bidders and manufacture competition. Read it for what it is, then set it aside.

**Anchoring** is the cognitive bias by which the first number you see frames every number that follows. Show a bidder an estimate of €8,000 to €12,000 and their sense of a fair price drifts toward that band, regardless of what comparables say. The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and behavioural-economics writing on the saleroom both identify anchoring as the mechanism that turns published estimates into self-fulfilling prices. The defence is mechanical: form your ceiling from comparables before you open the catalogue page, write it down, and refuse to revise it upward because the estimate sits higher.

A single passage is worth keeping in mind here. The estimate anchors in two directions at once. A high estimate can intimidate a serious bidder into thinking the work is beyond reach, so they never raise a paddle on a lot they could have won at a disciplined price. A low estimate does the opposite, seducing a room into a bidding contest that carries the hammer far past independent value, because every bidder reads the low number as permission. The collector who has decided in advance what the work is worth is immune to both moves. The estimate becomes information about the house's strategy rather than instruction about your wallet, and the printed range loses its grip the moment your own number is fixed.

This is the trap the wider hub examines in [the psychology that makes smart collectors overpay](/insights/the-saleroom/bidding-strategy/the-psychology-that-makes-smart-collectors-overpay): experienced buyers are not immune to anchoring, they are simply better at telling themselves they are. Knowing how to register to bid at auction means nothing if the estimate, not your research, sets the ceiling once bidding opens.

## How to Register to Bid at Auction Online or in the Saleroom

The channel you choose changes the kind of pressure you face, and each rewards a different temperament. In the room, the pressure is social and physical: the pace of the auctioneer, the visible rival across the aisle, the momentum of a fast-rising lot. Online, the pressure is temporal and solitary: a closing clock, a soft-close extension that resets each time a late bid lands, and the quiet temptation to add one more increment from a phone. Sotheby's offers in-person, telephone, online, and absentee channels; LLB Auction is online only, timed, and asynchronous, which removes the auctioneer's tempo from the equation entirely.

A timed online sale is, in one sense, the disciplined collector's ally. There is no auctioneer working the room, no chandelier bid, no theatre of pace. You enter a maximum and the platform defends it. The risk shifts from momentum to attrition: a soft-close that extends every time someone bids in the final minutes can keep a lot live for an extra half-hour, and a bidder who is watching live, rather than trusting a maximum, will often nudge the figure upward simply because the screen invites it. The remedy is the same in both arenas. Decide the number, enter it as a maximum, and step away from the screen.

Whichever channel you register through, the principle holds: the bid you set when calm beats the bid you place when engaged. The detailed trade-off between live participation and an automated maximum is set out in [proxy bidding or bidding live and which protects your budget](/insights/the-saleroom/bidding-strategy/proxy-bidding-or-bidding-live-which-protects-your-budget). Understanding how to register to bid at auction across both channels lets you choose the one that suits your discipline, not your impulse.

## Proxy and Absentee Bids as Instruments of Discipline

A proxy bid, also called an absentee or maximum bid, is a secret ceiling you leave with the house, which then bids on your behalf one increment above the last competing bid until your maximum is reached. The mechanism is the same across platforms. Invaluable, in its guide to winning at online auctions, explains that its SecureBid technology places bids in your name without ever revealing your maximum to the auction house, and ensures you win, if you win, at the lowest possible price. The number you enter is a ceiling, not a starting point, and the engine never spends more than it must.

The discipline this enforces is the whole point of how to register to bid at auction and staying within budget. A proxy bid removes you from the moment of decision, which is precisely the moment your judgement is least reliable. The data supports the practice over improvisation. According to [Invaluable's analysis of 2.7 million lots](https://www.invaluable.com/blog/how-to-win-at-an-online-auction/), absentee bidders won 40% of the times they bid, while live bids won 60% of theirs. Live participation wins more often, but it wins by spending more, because a live bidder can always add one more increment and frequently does. The proxy bidder wins less often and pays less when they do, which is the trade a budget-conscious collector should want.

Houses increasingly reward the early, committed bid. Phillips, in its conditions of sale, operates a priority-bidding structure: a binding written bid placed at least 48 hours before the auction begins, equal to or above the lot's published low estimate, earns a lower buyer's premium if it succeeds. Sotheby's, in [its guidance on bidding](https://help.sothebys.com/en/support/solutions/articles/44002297456-what-is-needed-to-bid-in-an-auction-), lets you set a maximum executed automatically up to your predefined figure. The lesson for anyone learning how to register to bid at auction is that the instruments built to remove emotion are also, increasingly, the cheapest way to bid.

## Reading Bid Increments and the Rhythm of the Room

A **bid increment** is the fixed step by which an auctioneer or platform raises the price, and it grows as the lot climbs. Invaluable notes that bids follow a regular pattern of standard increments, and that as the price rises the increments increase in size. A lot opening at €1,000 may move in steps of 100, then 200 from 2,000, then 500 from 5,000, and 1,000 from 10,000. The pattern matters because it sets the granularity of every decision you make, and because it determines whether your maximum will be reached exactly or jumped past.

The increment is also where a fixed maximum quietly protects you, and where how to register to bid at auction becomes a question of arithmetic rather than nerve. If your ceiling is €9,500 and the standard increment at that level is 500, the bidding may stand at 9,000 to a rival and your proxy will take it to 9,500, but it will not advance to 10,000 on your behalf, because that exceeds your number. A bidder improvising live, by contrast, faces a binary choice at 9,500: concede, or leap to 10,000 and break the limit by a full increment. The increment table below is illustrative; the exact steps vary by house and by lot.

| Price level | Typical increment |
| :- | :- |
| Up to €2,000 | €100 |
| 2,000 to €5,000 | 200 to €250 |
| 5,000 to €10,000 | €500 |
| 10,000 to €20,000 | €1,000 |
| 20,000 to €50,000 | 2,000 to €2,500 |

Reading the rhythm is a skill in its own right, covered in [reading bid increments to time your entry](/insights/the-saleroom/bidding-strategy/reading-bid-increments-to-time-your-entry). For the disciplined bidder, the rhythm is secondary: a maximum entered in advance is indifferent to tempo, which is exactly why it works. Whether you bid live or by proxy, knowing how to register to bid at auction includes knowing that the increment, not your nerve, will decide the final step.

![An auctioneer's rostrum and paddle numbers in a contemporary saleroom, soft natural light](https://renderings.laboetie.io/media/prS7mIfK7J6rSyp1LPOG1/w1920)

## The Winner's Curse and Knowing When to Walk Away

The **winner's curse** describes the tendency of the highest bidder in a contest of uncertain value to pay more than the asset is worth. The term was coined in 1971 by the petroleum engineers E. C. Capen, R. V. Clapp, and W. M. Campbell, analysing oil and gas lease auctions, and it transfers cleanly to the saleroom. When many bidders hold different private estimates of a work's value, the winner is, by definition, the most optimistic, and the winning bid is therefore the least accurate of all the bids placed. To win an open contest is, on average, to have overestimated.

The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School illustrates the curse with a jar of coins: a class bids to buy a jar worth about 20 dollars, and the winner pays 45, because the eagerness to win overrides the arithmetic. The same body offers a three-part defence. First, recognise when an asset has a common-value element, where caution is warranted. Second, weigh your own information against your rivals'. Third, before bidding, imagine how it would feel to win, because winning is not always the value-creating outcome. The severity of the curse rises with the number of bidders, because the more people bid, the more likely it is that at least one has badly overestimated, and on a hot lot that person is often the eventual winner.

Walking away is therefore not a failure of nerve but the discipline working as designed. A maximum that you honour means you will lose lots, and losing the right lots is the proof that the method is sound. The underbidder, the person who stops one increment below the hammer, frequently made the better decision, having priced the work correctly and declined to chase it. The deeper mechanics are examined in [the winner's curse and why winning can mean you paid too much](/insights/the-saleroom/bidding-strategy/the-winner-s-curse-why-winning-can-mean-you-paid-too-much). For anyone who has learned how to register to bid at auction, the final lesson is the hardest: the bid you do not place can protect you more than the one you do.

## Bidding Across a Sale: One Budget, Several Lots

A single sale often holds two or three works you want, and one budget that cannot cover them all at their ceilings. The error is to treat each lot in isolation, bidding to the maximum on the first because it appears first, then discovering the budget is spent before the lot you wanted most comes up. Allocation has to happen before the sale, not during it, and it is the part of how to register to bid at auction that a multi-lot collector most often neglects. Rank the lots by desire, assign a hammer ceiling to each that absorbs the premium, and decide in advance which you will sacrifice if an early lot runs hot.

Lot order is the practical complication, because it is fixed by the house and rarely favours your priorities. If your first-choice work is lot 48 and a strong second choice is lot 12, a disciplined plan caps your spend on lot 12 well below its standalone ceiling, preserving the budget for lot 48. Proxy bids make this tractable: you can lodge a maximum on every lot you want, knowing the platform will only ever spend up to each ceiling, and you can lower a later maximum the instant an earlier lot consumes more of the budget than planned. The method is set out in full in [bidding across a sale with one budget and several lots](/insights/the-saleroom/bidding-strategy/bidding-across-a-sale-one-budget-several-lots-you-want).

The principle that governs a single lot governs the whole sale: the number decides, not the moment. A collector who knows how to register to bid at auction and arrives with a ranked, premium-adjusted budget spends a season's allocation deliberately, rather than exhausting it on whichever lot happened to ignite first.

## Three Collectors, Three Decisions: Discipline in Practice

The following scenarios are illustrative, built from the ordinary arithmetic of a timed online sale, not records of specific buyers. Each shows the method, the heart of how to register to bid at auction, deciding the outcome.

A collector wants a screenprint with comparables clustered at €6,000 to €7,000 hammer. The catalogue estimate reads 4,000 to 6,000, deliberately conservative. She fixes her ceiling at 6,500 hammer, which at a 20% premium is a €7,800 outlay, lodges it as a proxy maximum, and closes the laptop. Bidding runs to 6,500 against an underbidder and her proxy takes the lot at exactly that figure, the lowest price that beats the rival. She paid her number, not the room's.

A second collector chases the same kind of work without a fixed ceiling. The low estimate of 4,000 reads to him as a bargain, anchoring his sense of value downward, and when the lot climbs past 7,000 he stays in because conceding now feels like waste. He wins at 9,000 hammer, a €10,800 outlay, roughly 40% above comparable value. He experienced the winner's curse precisely as Capen and his colleagues described it in 1971.

A third bidder wants two lots in one sale, lot 9 and lot 41, with a combined budget of €15,000. He caps lot 9 at 5,000 hammer and lot 41, his priority, at 7,000, each absorbing the 20% premium. Lot 9 runs hot and he lets it go at his ceiling without chasing, preserving the budget. Lot 41 he wins by proxy at 6,500. The discipline that governs how to register to bid at auction, a ceiling set in advance and honoured, gave him the work he wanted most and left him within budget.

## FAQ: Registering and Bidding at Auction

### What do I need to register to bid at an art auction?

You need an account with the auction house, valid government-issued identification, and, for higher-value lots, a financial reference such as proof of funds or a bank reference. Sotheby's confirms that some auctions and lots require additional financial verification, and that a member of its team will contact you if so. In-person bidders also collect a numbered paddle before the sale. Complete registration at least 24 hours ahead to allow time for verification, which is the practical core of how to register to bid at auction.

### How far in advance should I register before a sale?

Register at least 24 hours before the auction opens. Financial checks and bank references can take time, and leaving registration to the final hour risks being locked out of a lot you have researched. For Phillips priority bidding, the binding written bid must be lodged no less than 48 hours before the sale begins to earn the reduced premium, so earlier is better when a discount is available.

### How do I set a maximum bid online?

Enter the highest hammer price you will pay into the platform's maximum or absentee field. The engine then bids on your behalf, one increment above each competing bid, until your ceiling is reached, and stops there. It never reveals your figure and, as Invaluable notes, secures the lot at the lowest price that beats the underbidder. Always set the maximum below your total budget, leaving room for the buyer's premium and any tax; that ceiling is the decisive moment in how to register to bid at auction.

### Does the buyer's premium change my maximum bid?

Yes, decisively. The buyer's premium is added to the hammer price, so your true outlay is the hammer plus the premium plus any tax on it. At LLB Auction's flat 20%, a €10,000 hammer costs €12,000. Work backwards from the total you can pay to find the hammer ceiling, rather than bidding to a hammer figure and discovering the premium afterward.

### What is the winner's curse in plain terms?

The winner's curse, named in 1971 by Capen, Clapp, and Campbell, is the tendency of the highest bidder to overpay, because winning a contest of uncertain value usually means you were the most optimistic estimator in the room. The more bidders compete, the worse the effect. A maximum bid fixed from comparables, and honoured, is the standard defence.

### Is online bidding safer for my budget than bidding in the room?

A timed online sale removes the auctioneer's pace and the social pressure of a rival across the aisle, which helps a disciplined bidder. The new pressure is the closing clock and the soft-close extension. The safeguard is identical to the saleroom: set a maximum in advance and let it run, rather than watching live and nudging the figure upward.

## How LLB Auction Helps You Bid With Confidence

LLB Auction is built for the collector who wants institutional rigour without gallery markup, and the house positions itself as the buyer's advocate who clears the threshold first. The model rests on a single discipline, refusing roughly 40% of submissions at intake, so that anything reaching the saleroom has already passed a real test of quality and provenance.

**Curation and due diligence.** Every lot carries per-object verification of certificates, ownership history, and conservation records, with a published three-page condition report that, in the house's own words, is treated as law. Roughly 40% of submitted works are rejected before they reach a catalogue, which is the rejection discipline that lets a collector bid with confidence.

**Transparent costs.** The buyer's premium is a flat 20%, disclosed upfront, with a seller's commission of 10% and no costs added at checkout. A collector building a ceiling knows the exact arithmetic before bidding, rather than discovering bundled fees at the invoice.

**A committed calendar.** LLB Auction runs timed online sales of 7 to 14 days on its own platform, with four auctions committed across 2026 and two in 2027. The Contemporary Art Spring 2026 sale, on 26 May 2026, offered 25 lots and sold 23, for roughly €39,480 in gross hammer, documented in the house's own records.

If you collect modern and contemporary art and want the next sale's catalogue, the condition reports, and the registration window in advance, register your interest with LLB Auction and join the collector list. Knowing how to register to bid at auction is the first step; bidding through a house that has already done the due diligence is what makes that registration worth using.

## Conclusion

The mechanics of the saleroom are deliberately simple, and the houses keep them simple because the friction they want you to feel is not administrative but psychological. Registration takes an evening. A maximum that absorbs the premium, formed from comparables and immune to the estimate, takes judgement and the willingness to lose. Anchoring, momentum, and the winner's curse are not obstacles you overcome once; they recur at every sale, and the only durable defence is a number written down before the adrenaline starts.

A collector who treats discipline as the product, as LLB Auction treats curation as the product, will lose the lots that ran past fair value and win the ones that did not, which is exactly the record a careful budget should show. That is the real answer to how to register to bid at auction and spend well: register quickly, decide slowly, set a true maximum, and walk away from the winner's curse with your judgement, and your budget, intact.

## Sources

**Further reading:**

- [The psychology that makes smart collectors overpay](/insights/the-saleroom/bidding-strategy/the-psychology-that-makes-smart-collectors-overpay)
- [Setting your ceiling: a method for deciding what a work is worth to you](/insights/the-saleroom/bidding-strategy/setting-your-ceiling-a-method-for-deciding-what-a-work-is-worth-to-you)
- [Proxy bidding or bidding live: which protects your budget](/insights/the-saleroom/bidding-strategy/proxy-bidding-or-bidding-live-which-protects-your-budget)
- [The winner's curse: why winning can mean you paid too much](/insights/the-saleroom/bidding-strategy/the-winner-s-curse-why-winning-can-mean-you-paid-too-much)
- [Reading bid increments to time your entry](/insights/the-saleroom/bidding-strategy/reading-bid-increments-to-time-your-entry)
- [Bidding across a sale: one budget, several lots you want](/insights/the-saleroom/bidding-strategy/bidding-across-a-sale-one-budget-several-lots-you-want)

**Cited sources:**

- [What is needed to bid in an auction?](https://help.sothebys.com/en/support/solutions/articles/44002297456-what-is-needed-to-bid-in-an-auction-) : Sotheby's, 2025
- [Guide for Buyers (Global)](https://help.sothebys.com/en/support/solutions/articles/44002518078-guide-for-buyers-global) : Sotheby's, 2025
- [Conditions of Sale and Buyer's Premium](https://www.phillips.com/buysell/london/conditions) : Phillips, 2026
- [A Guide to Art Auction Fees](https://www.myartbroker.com/auction/articles/guide-to-art-auction-fees) : MyArtBroker, 2025
- [Live vs. Absentee Bidding: How to Win at an Online Auction](https://www.invaluable.com/blog/how-to-win-at-an-online-auction/) : Invaluable, 2024
- [Sotheby's adjusts 2026 buyer's premium](https://en.thevalue.com/articles/sothebys-raises-buyers-premium-percentage-and-tiers-2026) : The Value, 2026
- [Winner's Curse: Negotiation Mistakes to Avoid](https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/business-negotiations/how-to-avoid-the-winners-curse/) : Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School, 2024
- [Winner's curse: origin and definition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winner%27s_curse) : Wikipedia, 2025
- [Buying Guide and Important Information](https://www.christies.com/en/help/buying-guide-important-information/overview) : Christie's, 2025