Looking for an Auction Sniper alternative that doesn't bill per snipe and doesn't need your eBay password? Zero Hour is built for exactly that. AuctionSniper.com has been around since 1999 and pioneered the per-snipe pricing model. That model adds up alarmingly fast for active eBay buyers. Zero Hour is one flat price (or free), and your browser does the bidding.
Best for: Auction Sniper users who've watched the per-snipe charges compound, or who want to stop entering their eBay password into a third-party form.
Not ideal for: users who snipe a small handful of items per year and prefer never to commit to a subscription.
How Auction Sniper works
AuctionSniper.com is a server-side sniper, founded in 1999 and currently owned by Sniper Holdings. Like Gixen and eSnipe, you create an account on AuctionSniper, enter your eBay credentials into their settings page, and they place bids on your behalf from their servers. The first three snipes are free; after that, pricing is per-snipe, historically $0.25 to $1 or more depending on the win amount, with bulk packages available.
The model has worked for 20+ years. There's a real audience for it: occasional buyers who'd rather pay $1 to snipe a single $200 watch than commit to a subscription. But for anyone bidding regularly, the math turns sharply against per-snipe pricing within a few months.
The pricing math
At roughly $0.50 per snipe (the midpoint for mid-priced items on Auction Sniper), 10 snipes a month is $5. That's close to Zero Hour's monthly subscription, but with no caps and no usage anxiety. 20 snipes a month is $10. 100 snipes a year is roughly $50, which is exactly Zero Hour's lifetime price for unlimited use forever.
If you snipe more than 8 to 10 items a month, you're better off on a subscription. If you snipe more than 100 in your lifetime, Zero Hour Lifetime wins on cost.
The privacy trade-off (same as every server-side sniper)
Auction Sniper has the same architectural trust problem as Gixen and eSnipe:
- Your eBay password lives in their database.
- Bids fire from their data centre IPs.
- The service has visibility into every item you've ever sniped.
- Their breach is your breach.
Zero Hour was designed to make the trade-off unnecessary. Bids fire from your machine using cookies your browser already holds. Auction Sniper would need to invert their entire architecture to match. It would no longer be a web service.
Where Auction Sniper still wins
Honest assessment:
- Computer-off sniping. Server-side fires the bid whether or not your computer is on. Zero Hour can't.
- Per-snipe pay-as-you-go for very low usage. Three free snipes plus pay-per-use is genuinely cheap if you only buy one or two big-ticket items a year.
- Bulk and group snipes. Auction Sniper has mature "snipe groups." Zero Hour ships this in v2.
- Two decades of reliability data.
Feature comparison: head to head
The honest summary table is in the privacy comparison below. The headline differences:
- Auction Sniper requires your eBay password; Zero Hour never asks.
- Auction Sniper bills per snipe; Zero Hour bills flat or lifetime.
- Auction Sniper is a website; Zero Hour is a Chrome extension.
- Auction Sniper is closed-source; Zero Hour ships unminified.
Migration in 4 minutes
- Install Zero Hour from the Chrome Web Store.
- In Auction Sniper, cancel any pending snipes you'd like to move.
- Paste each eBay URL into Zero Hour's Add Snipe sheet, set max bid, save.
- If you'd like to permanently remove your eBay credentials from Auction Sniper's database, log into account settings and delete your account. Or simply change your eBay password. Their stored copy will stop working.