The Price Shield: your ceiling is set in advance
The Price Shield is the guaranteed ceiling on your monthly Auto Power Search invoice. The invoice is built from a base fee of CHF 3 per active car per month, plus real buyer interactions: CHF 3 per conversation, CHF 15 per booked test drive, CHF 50 per confirmed purchase intent. The ceiling follows your fleet size — with 20 cars it sits at CHF 360 a month. Once the running total reaches that figure, the invoice stops there, and every further lead still reaches you.
There is always that one car. It went online three days ago, and the phone has been ringing ever since. Seven conversations on Monday, four test drives booked for Saturday, and two buyers already talking about financing. It is selling like hot cakes.
This is the month you work for.
On a pay-per-result platform that raises a fair question: what does a month like this do to my invoice? That is exactly what the Price Shield is for.
The Price Shield in one sentence
The Price Shield is the guaranteed ceiling on your monthly invoice. It is set before the month begins, and it follows one thing only: the size of your fleet.
Everything that happens afterwards — every conversation, every test drive, every purchase intent — moves inside that number.
How your invoice is built
Your monthly invoice has exactly four possible lines. There is nothing else.
| Line | Amount | When it appears |
|---|---|---|
| Base fee | CHF 3 per car per month | Once a month for each live listing |
| Conversation | CHF 3 | Once per conversation, the moment you unlock the buyer's contact details |
| Test drive | CHF 15 | As soon as an appointment is confirmed |
| Purchase intent | CHF 50 | At most once per car per month |
The third line holds a point that is easy to skim past: the conversation fee is yours to trigger. It appears the moment you decide to unlock the contact details, once per conversation. A buyer who writes ten times stays one conversation and one fee.
A car that sits quietly in your inventory for a month therefore costs CHF 3. That is the floor. The Price Shield is the ceiling.
How your ceiling is set
The ceiling is your number of active cars multiplied by the rate for your fleet band. Larger fleets receive a lower rate per car automatically.
| Fleet | Ceiling per car | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 1 – 14 cars | CHF 22 | 12 cars: CHF 264 a month |
| 15 – 49 cars | CHF 18 | 20 cars: CHF 360 a month |
| 50 – 89 cars | CHF 15 | 60 cars: CHF 900 a month |
| 90 – 149 cars | CHF 13 | 120 cars: CHF 1'560 a month |
| 150 cars and up | CHF 12 | 200 cars: CHF 2'400 a month |
Grow past a band boundary and your rate per car drops automatically. There is no form and no phone call for that.
Five months, five invoices
The mechanism becomes clearest on real numbers. Five months, the way they actually occur in a dealership.
Month 1 — the quiet start
12 cars in the inventory. Four conversations unlocked, one test drive booked.
Base fee CHF 36, conversations CHF 12, test drive CHF 15. Subtotal CHF 63. The ceiling sits at CHF 264. Your invoice reads CHF 63.
A quiet month costs a quiet amount. The Price Shield stays entirely in the background here.
Month 2 — the normal month
20 cars. 18 conversations, five test drives, one confirmed purchase intent.
Base fee CHF 60, conversations CHF 54, test drives CHF 75, purchase intent CHF 50. Subtotal CHF 239. The ceiling sits at CHF 360. Your invoice reads CHF 239.
That is CHF 11.95 per car for a month with one sale and 23 qualified contacts.
Month 3 — the hot cakes
12 cars again. This time a single car pulls in almost everything: 35 conversations, eleven test drives, one purchase intent.
Base fee CHF 36, conversations CHF 105, test drives CHF 165, purchase intent CHF 50. Subtotal CHF 356. The ceiling sits at CHF 264. Your invoice reads CHF 264.
CHF 92 of that subtotal goes uncharged. And here is the part that matters: you still had all 35 conversations and all eleven test drives.
Month 4 — the strong month
20 cars, and the market is moving. 60 conversations, 20 test drives, four purchase intents.
Base fee CHF 60, conversations CHF 180, test drives CHF 300, purchase intents CHF 200. Subtotal CHF 740. The ceiling sits at CHF 360. Your invoice reads CHF 360.
The month with four sales costs exactly what the month with one costs, once the ceiling is reached.
Month 5 — the large fleet
120 cars. 200 conversations, 60 test drives, twelve purchase intents.
Base fee CHF 360, conversations CHF 600, test drives CHF 900, purchase intents CHF 600. Subtotal CHF 2'460. The ceiling sits at CHF 1'560. Your invoice reads CHF 1'560.
That is CHF 13 per car per month, in a month with twelve purchase intents.
The five months side by side
| Month | Fleet | Subtotal | Ceiling | Invoice |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quiet start | 12 | CHF 63 | CHF 264 | CHF 63 |
| Normal month | 20 | CHF 239 | CHF 360 | CHF 239 |
| Hot cakes | 12 | CHF 356 | CHF 264 | CHF 264 |
| Strong month | 20 | CHF 740 | CHF 360 | CHF 360 |
| Large fleet | 120 | CHF 2'460 | CHF 1'560 | CHF 1'560 |
In the first two months you pay the subtotal, because it is the lower figure. In the last three the ceiling takes over.
What happens at the ceiling, precisely
Three things:
- The fee that crosses the line is charged pro rata. With a ceiling of CHF 264 and CHF 255 already on the invoice, a CHF 15 test drive adds CHF 9. After that the invoice reads CHF 264.
- Every further lead still reaches you. Conversations, test drives and purchase intents arrive exactly as they did before.
- Every lead still appears on your invoice — marked as ceiling reached, at CHF 0. So you can see in black and white what the Price Shield did for you that month.
On the first day of the new month the count starts again at zero.
Five ways to say the same thing
Depending on what you are looking at, the Price Shield means something different.
- As a budget figure: you know your most expensive possible month before it begins. That number goes straight into your planning.
- As a volume discount that applies itself: from CHF 22 to CHF 12 per car, through growth alone. The band changes automatically.
- As a promise to your success: a car that draws many enquiries brings you more contacts for the same maximum.
- As a price per sale: in the strong month above, four purchase intents cost CHF 360 together. That is CHF 90 per serious buyer, including every conversation and test drive that month.
- As peace of mind: you can push a car without doing arithmetic in your head. The most expensive outcome is already fixed.
Honestly counted: traffic grows step by step
This deserves a straight word. Auto Power Search is building its buyer reach right now. For your first months that means something very concrete.
During the founding phase nothing is billed at all. Neither the base fee nor any interaction fee. Every lead you receive in that period appears on your invoice and is shown at CHF 0. So you see from day one what the model would cost, while paying nothing.
Once billing starts, your first months will sit close to the base fee. With 20 cars that is CHF 60, far below the ceiling of CHF 360. Traffic grows with every car that joins the platform, and with every query an AI search engine sends toward our content.
The Price Shield is therefore less a number for next month than a promise for the month it all takes off. It keeps the price reasonable exactly when a car suddenly draws all the attention.
Run it with your own numbers
Enter your fleet size and the activity you expect. The calculator shows the subtotal, the ceiling, and the figure that ends up on the invoice.
Why we built it this way
A flat subscription asks for the same amount every month, whatever happens. A purely usage-based model flips that and lets the invoice grow with your success. Both have a catch: one penalises the quiet month, the other penalises the strong one.
The Price Shield takes the good half of each. At the bottom you pay for what you use; at the top you pay as you would on a subscription — with the difference that the subscription figure is your maximum instead of your minimum.
For the comparison against the established platforms, see 5 signs you are overpaying for listings. The short version of the model is in What a car listing really costs, and how we make visibility measurable is in Measure visibility, do not guess it. Every current amount is on the pricing page.
A question about your fleet?
Send us your fleet size and you get your ceiling back, together with a worked example for a strong month.
FAQ
What happens to my ceiling if I add cars in the middle of the month?
The ceiling is recalculated from your current fleet at every single charge. Publish more cars on the 15th and the higher ceiling applies from that moment. Take cars offline and it falls accordingly.
What does a car cost if it receives no enquiry at all for a whole month?
CHF 3. That is the base fee for a live listing, and on a car without interaction it stays the only line.
Where do I see which leads were free thanks to the ceiling?
On your monthly statement. Every lead appears as its own line with one of three marks: charged, ceiling reached, or waived during the founding phase. The last two are listed at CHF 0.
One buyer contacts me about two different cars. Is that two fees?
Yes, because that creates two conversations about two cars. Within one conversation it stays a single fee, however many messages go back and forth.
Does the ceiling rise automatically every year?
It moves with your fleet alone. As your fleet grows, the band changes and the rate per car falls. An annual increase, the kind flat-subscription models are known for, is deliberately absent from this model.
Does the Price Shield cover the base fee too, or only leads?
It caps the entire monthly invoice, base fee included. Everything that arises in a month counts against the same ceiling.