Fill in the unit once and get a paste-ready Craigslist title, a formatted ad body, the form fields in Craigslist's own order, and a Facebook Marketplace version of the same ad. No signup, no email address, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
Craigslist's posting fees read live on 16 September 2026 · Published by Shopframe, a dealer website platform — see the disclosure below the tool.
The short answer
Posting a vehicle on Craigslist as a dealer costs $5 per post in the US, in the cars & trucks — by dealer category (ctd). That is per post, not per month, and it is Craigslist's own fee — separate from anything your website vendor charges to post on your behalf.
A dealer ad needs four things Craigslist keeps separate: a title that survives the list view, a body a buyer can skim, the attribute fields on the posting form, and photos. The generator below writes the first three. The two fields it deliberately leaves blank are condition and title status, because those are claims only you can make about your car.
1 · The generator
Type the unit on the left, copy from the right. Everything runs in this page — no request is made, nothing is stored, and there is nothing to sign up for.
Lines about your dealership — all off by default
These are claims about how you do business, so this tool will not make them for you. Tick only the ones that are true of your lot, and they get added to the ad in your voice.
Nothing here is sent anywhere. Reload the page and it is gone.
Craigslist post title
Craigslist post body
Craigslist form fields
Facebook Marketplace version
Disclosure, up front: Shopframe sells dealer websites, and this is the same ad builder that ships inside our product — minus your inventory. Inside Shopframe you pick a vehicle and the fields are already filled from its record, with that unit's photos lined up beside the ad, ready to save. We are not affiliated with Craigslist, and we do not post for you: Shopframe has no automated Craigslist posting, because that requires bulk-posting access Craigslist grants case by case. Anyone telling you otherwise is usually charging per vehicle for it — Dealer Car Search publishes $6 per vehicle on top of their subscription, and that is on top of Craigslist's own $5.
2 · What Craigslist charges a dealer, and where you are allowed to post
Read from Craigslist's own posting-fees page on 16 September 2026.
Category
Fee
Who it is for
Cars & trucks — by dealer (ctd)
$5 / post
Licensed dealers. This is where your inventory belongs.
Cars/trucks, RVs, motorcycles — by owner
$5 / post
Private sellers. Dealer inventory does not go here.
All other for-sale by-dealer categories (US)
$5 / post
Includes the by-dealer categories a powersports, RV or marine lot uses.
Two things dealers get wrong about the fee. It is per post, so a forty-car lot posting its whole inventory once is $200, not a $5 subscription. And it is Craigslist's fee: a website vendor that offers Craigslist posting is charging you a service fee on top of it, not instead of it. When you compare vendors, ask which number you are being quoted — we put the ones that publish theirs on our comparison page.
By-owner is not a cheaper door
The by-owner categories cost the same $5, so the only thing a dealer gains by posting there is exposure to being flagged. Craigslist separates by-owner from by-dealer deliberately, buyers filter on it, and posting dealer inventory as a private sale is a common reason a dealer's posts stop appearing.
3 · The posting form, field by field
The attribute fields Craigslist shows on a cars & trucks post, and what the generator does with each one.
Field
What we fill
Why
condition
Nothing
Only you have seen the car. A tool that defaults every unit to “excellent” is writing a condition claim on your behalf, on a public listing, under your dealership's name.
title status
Nothing
Clean, salvage, rebuilt, lien — this is a legal status, not a guess. Pick it on the form.
odometer
Your number, as typed
Never rounded, never a placeholder. A unit with no odometer at all (a trailer) should leave this blank rather than post a 0.
VIN
Your number, as typed
Buyers search it, and it is the fastest trust signal in the ad.
fuel / transmission / drive
Only if you set them
A blank stays blank. Defaulting transmission to “manual” on a blank field posts a gearbox claim about a car nobody checked.
paint color, type
Your exterior color and body type
These drive Craigslist's own filters, so an empty one costs you searches.
make / model, year, price
From the fields above
Craigslist keeps these separate from the title. Fill them in even though your title repeats them.
This is the same discipline the builder inside Shopframe follows, and it was not always: until 15 September 2026 ours defaulted condition to “excellent” and title status to “clean” on every unit. We took both out. Two fields blank on a form is a better outcome than two claims nobody made.
4 · A title that survives the list view
The title is the only thing most buyers ever read.
Craigslist's list view is one line per post, and it truncates. Front-load the identifying words and let the separate price and image fields do their own work:
Year, make, model, trim, then price. That is what a buyer scans for and what a search matches. The generator builds exactly that, with your city in parentheses.
Cut the adjectives. “MUST SEE!!! CLEAN!!! LOW MILES!!!” costs you the model name in the truncated view and reads like every ad a buyer has already scrolled past.
No symbols to dodge filters. Spaced-out phone numbers, letters swapped for digits, and mid-word punctuation are the pattern filters look for, and they make you unsearchable to the buyer as well.
One post per vehicle. The same car posted into three nearby cities, or twice in one, is the most common reason a dealer's posts quietly stop showing.
Craigslist does not publish how flagging works, so treat the last two as what the rules say plus what the platform obviously rewards — not as a mechanism anyone outside Craigslist can verify.
5 · What this tool will not write for you
The lines a generator has no business putting in your ad.
Every claim in a Craigslist ad is a claim your dealership made, in public, in writing. So the optional lines above — financing, trade-ins, a history report — are off until you tick them, and there are things we will not add at all:
No credit claims. No “good credit, bad credit, everyone approved”, no APR, no “pre-qualify with no credit impact”. Those are regulated statements about lending and they need to come from you and your lender, not from a text generator.
No condition or history claims. Not “fully inspected”, not “clean history”, not “no accidents”. If you can produce a report, tick the box and the ad says you can produce a report.
No invented specs. Blank fields stay out of the ad. A generator that fills a gap with a plausible number is the single most expensive kind of bug in this category.
No urgency theatre. No countdowns, no “price good today only”. If you want a deadline in the ad, it should be one you will actually honour.
The tax/title/license line is on by default because an advertised price without it is the disclosure most states expect — but check what your state requires of advertised vehicle prices, because that varies and we are not giving you legal advice.
The same builder, with your inventory already in it
Inside Shopframe you pick a unit and the ad is already written from its record, with that vehicle's photos beside it ready to save for Craigslist's image step — on every plan, from $29 a month. Tell us about your lot and we will send you a preview of your site.
6 · Questions dealers ask about posting on Craigslist
How much does it cost for a dealer to post a car on Craigslist?
$5 per post. Craigslist's own posting-fees page lists cars/trucks by-dealer in the US and Vancouver BC at $5, along with every other for-sale by-dealer category in the US, read on 16 September 2026. The fee is charged per posting, not per month, so posting a forty-unit lot costs $200. Your website vendor's Craigslist tool, if you use one, charges a separate service fee on top of that.
Can a car dealer post in the “by owner” section?
No. Craigslist separates by-owner from by-dealer, and dealer inventory belongs in cars & trucks — by dealer. It costs the same $5 either way, so there is nothing to gain: buyers filter on that distinction, and posting dealership inventory as a private sale is a common reason a dealer's posts get flagged.
Can I post the same vehicle in more than one city?
Treat it as one live post per vehicle. Posting the same car across several nearby cities, or repeatedly in one, is the pattern most likely to get a dealer's posts removed, and each post costs $5 anyway.
Does Shopframe post to Craigslist automatically?
No, and we will not tell you otherwise. Our builder writes the title, body, form fields and Marketplace version and hands you the photos to save; you paste it into Craigslist yourself. Automated posting requires bulk-posting access that Craigslist grants case by case. Vendors that do have it generally bill per vehicle for it — Dealer Car Search publishes $6 per vehicle on top of their subscription.
Is this generator really free, and do you keep what I type?
Free, with no signup and no email address required. It runs entirely in your browser: nothing you type into it is sent to Shopframe or to anyone else, and reloading the page clears it. The only thing that reaches us is the preview form above, and only if you fill it in.
Why does the generator leave condition and title status blank?
Because they are claims about your specific car that only you can make, and a Craigslist ad is a public written statement by your dealership. Title status in particular is a legal status — clean, salvage, rebuilt, lien. A tool that defaults every unit to “excellent” and “clean” is putting words in your mouth about a car it has never seen. Ours did until 15 September 2026, and we removed it.
What should a Craigslist car ad include?
Year, make, model and trim with the price in the title; the odometer reading; exterior and interior colour; engine, transmission and drivetrain; your own description in plain words; a short highlights list; the stock number and VIN; your dealership name, address and a number to call or text; and the tax, title, licence and doc-fee disclosure your state expects on an advertised price. Photos matter more than any of the text — the first one is your thumbnail.
Does this work for RVs, motorcycles or boats?
The generator on this page is written for cars and trucks. Craigslist has separate by-dealer categories for RVs, motorcycles and boats, at the same $5, and the ad needs different fields — engine hours instead of an odometer on a boat, a hull ID instead of a VIN, and no MPG line. Shopframe's built-in builder switches to those automatically based on what your lot sells, across auto, RV, powersports and marine.
Sources: craigslist.org/about/help/posting_fees (fees read live 16 September 2026) · dealercarsearch.com craigslist posting tool ($6 per vehicle, verified August 2026 and itemised on our comparison page). Craigslist is a trademark of craigslist, Inc.; Shopframe is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or partnered with Craigslist. Fees and category rules are Craigslist's and can change — if something here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it. Nothing on this page is legal advice about vehicle advertising in your state.