The Process

Carvana offers are dynamic - Use this process to get the best offer.

Use Multiple Accounts

You will need, at least, two accounts. Let’s call one account the primary account, it has all your proper information. The secondary account is a ghost account, has made up information. You will need a unique email alias for each account.  Since you have to be logged in to get an offer, with your main browser, log into your primary account and in an incognito/private browser, log into your ghost account.

Frequently Update Your Offers

Once logged in, start with your primary account and collect your first offer. Then, every 4 to 6 hours, run the same vehicle on the secondary account. To get a new offer, where you have one already, you want to open that offer and then click “edit vehicle details” – but change no details on the corresponding screen(s), and the offer will update to the new amount. Sometimes you may need to refresh the offer screen to see the updated offer.

Switch To The Best Offer

If the offer on the secondary account is better then primary, immediate update the primary account, to lock in that higher offer. If the secondary offer is lower, do nothing. Once you get an offer you like on the primary, use the “extend my offer” feature to lock in the offer for 7 days. To use this feature, access the offer you want to extend, and one or two days before the offer expires, you should see a on-time “extend offer” button and it will provide a new deadline.

Keep Checking For Better Offers

You can now run the secondary account for a week, seeing if the offer improves. If it does, you can swap roles between your primary and secondary accounts. Swap the information around, so now you can use the 7 day locked feature on the better offer, repeating this process indefinitely, or until you get bored. I was seeing variations of almost $3000 over the course of 14 days.

Other Tips

Use these tips and tricks to maximize your chance of a best offer.

Run Late At Night

I almost always got better offers running late at night, usually after 12midnight EST.

Watch Comparable Inventory

I suspect a correlation with the offer and the amount of comparable inventory on Carvana, so if you see the comparable inventory change, run update offers immediately.  This can result in big swings.

Check Every Reasonable Option

When submitting your vehicle for an offer, check every reasonable “option” box you possibly can, they never seem to confirm the options.

Use A Different Zip Code

The zip code you use when you create your account will absolutely influence the Carvana offer.  The account zip code does not need to be the same as the pickup/drop-off zip code.