Auction Budget Calculator
Get the purse, max-bid ceiling, and increment ladder for your player auction — tuned so bidding stays exciting from the first player to the last.
Your league
Headroom of 3–4× suits most leagues: enough for a marquee bid war without every player selling at base price.
Purse per franchise
10,000
Identical points budget for every team
Max safe bid
7,500
Keeps base price in reserve for the other 5 required slots
Average per player
1,667
3.3× base price — the bidding sweet spot
Player pool needed
36+
42 recommended (15% buffer so late picks aren't forced)
Suggested bid increments
Small steps keep bargain battles alive; big steps stop marquee wars from taking fifty raises.
Total points economy: 60,000 across 6 franchises. These are the same three numbers the Gaim.zone scheduling wizard asks for on its Points step — max budget, minimum bid, and the increment ladder — and the app applies the same rule this calculator does: a franchise must always keep enough points to fill its remaining squad slots at base price.
Assigning icon players before the auction charges those franchises up front, so their spendable purse is lower than the figure above by whatever you set those players' prices to.
New to running auctions?
The numbers are step 2 of 6. Our complete guide covers the player pool, franchise owners, auction night, and the mistakes that ruin it.
Read the full auction guide →Now run it for real
Enter these exact numbers in Gaim.zone and your auction enforces them automatically — budgets, reserves, increments, and all.
🎯 No real-money auctions · Pure strategy · Free to download