Marketplace Agreement
The operating rules of the marketplace itself — how lots are listed and scheduled, how offering and closing work, and how a won lot settles, is collected, and is paid out.
1. Scope
This Marketplace Agreement governs conduct on the Ultimate Recycling Inc. marketplace. It is incorporated into, and forms part of, our Terms of Service. Where the two conflict on a marketplace mechanic, this document controls; on anything else, the Terms of Service control.
It is versioned separately from the Terms so that operational rules can be updated without reopening the whole contract.
2. Listings and Approval
A seller creates a listing through the listing wizard. A submission may contain several committed line items; when it goes live, each committed line item becomes its own listing with its own end time, offer period, and settlement.
Inside our service area, a listing goes live when it is submitted. Where the pickup address is within the dispatch radius of one of our facilities, the listing is published immediately, without prior review. Where it is outside every facility's radius, or we cannot locate it, the submission is held for our review before anything goes live. We may approve a reviewed submission, reject it with a reason, or request changes. We are not obliged to approve any listing, and neither publication nor approval is an endorsement of the material or a verification of its description.
A rejected submission may be corrected and resubmitted. The seller must still meet the seller approval requirements in Section 2.3 of the Terms of Service at the moment of each submission.
Both the start and the close of a listing are set by us, not by the seller: the close follows the schedule in Section 3. The seller does not choose a pickup time when listing; we schedule collection after the listing closes.
2.1 Material Hold During Review
Submitting a listing commits the material described in it. From the moment a listing is submitted — and, for a submission held for review, throughout the review hold, which is the first 48 business hours after submission, measured in our local business time and excluding weekends and public holidays — the seller must keep the listed material available in the represented quantity and condition and must not sell, transfer, pledge, tamper with, alter, contaminate, commingle, relocate off the stated pickup site, dispose of, or otherwise make it unavailable.
The seller is released from this hold only upon the earliest of: (a) our decline of the listing; (b) expiration of the review hold, when the 48 business hours pass without a decision and the submission expires; or (c) listing fallout, where a live listing, including any automatic re-listing under Section 13, closes without a completed sale. Until one of these occurs, the seller has no right to withdraw, re-sell, or dispose of the material.
If the listing goes live and the material sells, the commitment continues through settlement, collection, and fulfillment under Sections 10 and 11 and does not end at the close of the review hold.
3. Scheduling Constraints
- All days and times in this Section and in Section 8 are US Central Time. A listing runs two business days: it closes on the second business day after the day it went live, or the third when it went live on a Sunday. US federal holidays are not business days, so a holiday during a listing moves its close a day later. In a week without a holiday: listed Monday it closes Wednesday; Tuesday closes Thursday; Wednesday closes Friday; Thursday closes the following Monday; Friday or Saturday closes the following Tuesday; and Sunday closes the following Wednesday.
- A listing held for review closes on the date we set when we approve it, moved where necessary so that it meets the rule below.
- A listing always closes on a business day between 8:00 AM and 3:00 PM inclusive. A late offer extends the close under Section 8, but never past 3:00 PM and never onto another day.
- We set the exact closing time within those hours. It is shown on the listing.
- A seller does not reserve a pickup slot when listing. Pickup capacity is finite and shared across all sellers, and we schedule collection after the listing closes, as set out in Section 9.2 of the Terms of Service.
4. Minimum Prices
A seller may set a minimum price — the lowest unit price at which they are willing to sell. The minimum price is not disclosed to buyers.
If offers end below the minimum price, the lot does not sell and the seller is under no obligation to transact. Where a minimum price is set, the displayed price is held at the minimum price until an offer meets or exceeds it, so that the minimum price itself is not revealed by watching the price move.
5. Offers
Offers are made as a unit price, not a total: dollars per pound for per-pound lots, or dollars per unit for per-unit lots. Your total is the unit price multiplied by the listed quantity, plus the buyer premium.
5.1 Increments
The minimum increment is $0.0025 per pound on per-pound lots and $0.01 per unit on per-unit lots. Increments are fixed and do not scale as the price rises.
5.2 Large offers
There is no limit on what an offer may commit you to. An offer whose total for the lot — the unit price multiplied by the listed quantity, before the buyer premium — is more than $10,000 flags your account as a high roller: before it is placed you must give the name of your bank and your company, and a member of our team may contact that bank to confirm it can cover a transaction of that size. A proxy maximum is measured at its full value, because the proxy may offer up to it automatically. A standing offer contract that could pass $10,000 on one lot is flagged the same way when it is saved, and one that has not been will not offer more than $10,000 on a lot. An account is flagged at most 3 times. Flagging never holds or cancels an offer.
5.3 Rate limits and availability
Offer activity is rate-limited to protect the platform. An offer is accepted only when the server records it; an offer composed in your browser but not accepted has no effect. We are not liable for an offer that fails to register because of network conditions, device problems, rate limiting, or a service interruption, including one occurring in the final moments of a lot.
6. Proxy Offers
You may set a proxy maximum — the highest unit price you are willing to pay. The platform then offers on your behalf, in minimum increments, only as far as needed to hold the lead, up to that maximum.
Your proxy maximum is never displayed and never becomes the public price. The leaderboard shows only the price required to hold the lead. If you win with headroom left, you pay the leading price, not your maximum.
Where two proxies overlap, the higher maximum leads at one increment above the lower. Where maximums tie, the earlier-placed proxy leads.
7. Standing Buyer Contracts
Buyer Pro and Champion members may create standing contracts — instructions to offer automatically on any lot matching a chosen material, up to a maximum unit price. A Buyer Pro member may hold 1 active contract at a time; a Champion member may hold any number. A buyer without either membership cannot hold a standing contract.
A contract that fires produces a real, binding offer, with the same irrevocability as a manually made one. You are responsible for offers your contracts make. Contracts stop running if the membership lapses, but offers already made stand.
8. Closing and Soft Close
Each lot has a soft-close window, five minutes by default. An offer accepted inside that window extends the end time so that the window runs again from the moment of the offer. This repeats for as long as offers continue, up to 3:00 PM on the closing day: no extension runs past that time, and the lot closes then.
The lot closes when the soft-close window elapses with no further accepted offer. The highest offer at that point wins, provided it meets any minimum price. The server's clock governs; a countdown shown in your browser is indicative only.
9. Prohibited Conduct
- Shill offering. A seller must not make an offer on their own lot, and must not arrange for anyone else to offer on it, to raise the price or trigger a minimum price.
- Offer suppression. Buyers must not coordinate to hold a price down or to allocate lots among themselves.
- Limit evasion. Holding multiple accounts to avoid a large-offer bank check or an account limit, or to continue making offers after a suspension, is prohibited.
- Off-platform circumvention. Using the platform to identify a counterparty and then transact off it deprives the platform of its fee and is grounds for termination.
- Automated interference. Scripted offer activity outside the interfaces we provide, or any attempt to defeat rate limits, is prohibited.
We may void an offer, cancel a lot, reverse an award, or suspend an account where we reasonably believe this section has been breached.
10. Settlement
When a lot closes above the minimum price, the buyer with the highest offer is awarded it and has 24 hours to pay. Payment is buyer- initiated; nothing is charged automatically at close.
The settlement is calculated as follows.
- Lot value = winning unit price × listed quantity, where quantity is listed net weight (gross − tare) for per-pound lots or listed skid count for per-unit lots. Rounded to the cent.
- Seller commission (15–50% for Seller Free depending on lot value, 15% for Seller Pro, 10% for Champion) is calculated on lot value and deducted. Seller proceeds = lot value − commission.
- Buyer premium (2% for Buyer Free, 1% for Buyer Pro, 0% for Champion) is calculated on lot value and added. Buyer total = lot value + buyer premium.
Rates are resolved to the nearest one-hundredth of one percent before the money is calculated, and each amount is rounded to the cent once, so proceeds plus commission equal the lot value exactly. Both rates are fixed from the memberships active when the lot closes and is awarded, as set out in Section 7 of the Terms of Service. Full rate tables are in Section 4 of the Terms of Service.
11. Fulfillment and Collection
After payment is confirmed, we collect the material from the seller with our own fleet and bring it to our facility. Co-located pickups may be combined into a single stop, and assignment is subject to per-driver daily capacity.
From our facility the buyer either has the material loaded onto their own carrier's truck or asks us to deliver it for a quoted charge. Both, and the fee for cancelling a paid delivery, are governed by Section 9.4 of the Terms of Service. Neither changes the settled price of a lot or the seller's payout.
Our driver records weights, photographs, and a signature at pickup. Title and risk of loss pass to the buyer when loading begins, as set out in Section 9.3 of the Terms of Service.
If the material presented does not match the listing, the driver records the discrepancy and our staff are notified. We may decline to load, hold the payout, or cancel the transaction. There is no automatic refund, automatic penalty, or fixed claims window.
12. Payout Release
Seller proceeds are recorded at settlement and held until the lot is fulfilled. Once released, the seller submits a payout request, we review it, and we settle it externally by the method on file.
Nothing disburses automatically. We do not commit to a settlement interval. We may hold a payout where a dispute, chargeback, discrepancy, or suspected breach is outstanding.
13. Adverse Events
If a buyer's payment is refunded, fails, or is cancelled after the lot was marked paid, the lot returns to awarded status with a fresh payment window, and the buyer may pay again.
If a chargeback or dispute is opened, we place a hold on the related seller payout and our staff are notified. Depending on the outcome we may reinstate the payout, void the transaction, or suspend the account responsible.
If the buyer with the accepted offer does not pay within the window, the award is forfeited. We may then offer the lot to the next eligible buyer through a time-limited second chance; if there is none, or it is declined or expires, we re-list the lot once automatically. The forfeiting buyer may appeal, and a granted appeal reinstates the win. Each step, its time limits, and when an appeal can no longer be granted are set out in Section 6 of the Terms of Service.
Version 2026-10-08, effective October 8, 2026. There is no longer a limit on what an offer can commit you to (Section 5.2): an offer of more than $10,000 for a lot flags your account as a high roller, and before it is placed you give us your bank and company name so we can confirm with the bank that it can cover it. Offers are never held, and we ask at most three times per account. Carried over from the 2026-10-07 version, which this replaces before it took effect: a winning buyer now has 24 hours to pay instead of 12 (Section 10). Carried over from the 2026-10-06 version, which this replaces before it took effect: a listing now runs two business days (three when it goes live on a Sunday), and a US federal holiday during the listing does not count, so the close moves a day later — listed Monday a listing closes Wednesday, listed Tuesday it closes Thursday, listed Thursday it closes the following Monday in an ordinary week (Section 3). Every day and time in Sections 3 and 8 is US Central Time. A close always lands on a business day between 8:00 AM and 3:00 PM, and a last-minute offer can no longer extend a close past 3:00 PM or onto another day (Section 8). Carried over from the 2026-09-25 version, which this replaces before it took effect: a listing whose pickup is inside our service area goes live as soon as it is submitted and only a listing outside it is reviewed first; we set when a listing closes, and no pickup slot is chosen when you list; if a winning buyer does not pay in time, we may offer the lot to the next eligible buyer and otherwise re-list it once, and the buyer may appeal the forfeiture (Section 13); Buyer Pro members may hold one standing contract and Champion members any number; one buyer account type; and Section 11 on moving won material from our facility. All fee rates are unchanged.
Prior versions are retained. When we publish a new version we record which version each account accepted and when. See our Terms of Service, Marketplace Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Cookie & Tracking Notice.