About Us

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** The first version of Android app was launched. Download it from the Google Play Store at: Autopten: Cheap Used Cars USA.

Autopten is a search engine project focused solely on the U.S. used car market. It is not a company or business. Autopten does not sell cars, leads, or advertising packages, nor does it charge for posting vehicles on its platform. Development of Autopten began in mid-2006, and it launched in early 2007 with the initial idea of publishing a printed magazine featuring the ten cheapest cars from small car dealers in each state. However, due to the recession and limited budget at the time, the project shifted to an online, nationwide platform offered for free. Over 15 years later, Autopten’s goal remains the same: to find and list genuinely affordable used cars for sale at no cost, with the mission to achieve three objectives:

• 1) Assisting small U.S. car dealerships in selling the most affordable vehicles in their inventories.
• 2) Helping U.S. car buyers with limited budgets find used cars priced within their means, while providing informative articles to guide their purchasing decisions, such as identifying reliable used cars when a new car is unaffordable. .
• 3) Through blog articles and forum posts, encouraging buyers to reconsider purchasing a new car due to cost and offering guidance on the cheapest and best used car alternatives currently available in the U.S. market.

Any vehicle owner or dealership can publish used car classifieds here for FREE.

What do we do, and how do we do it?

Autopten promotes vehicles which it believes are the best deals for the users, based on research and statistics that identify the types of cars they search for online and the parameters they use in the platform. These vehicles are promoted across the platform's social media channels, including YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, etc., and also through our RSS Feed where subscribers receive regular updates on the latest car deals. When a car dealership signs up, they can create and upload unlimited ads at their discretion and responsibility. By registering with Autopten, dealers also authorize the platform to review and promote their online inventory creatively. Our promotions typically include ads that highlight the vehicle's price, year, model, type, and key features, while providing additional information such as its benefits, specifications, reviews, and reasons why it's a good purchase. These efforts align with Autopten's core mission of connecting dealers with buyers to facilitate sales. Dealerships are responsible for removing sold vehicles from the platform but may choose to mark them as "SOLD" to showcase other available deals, provide information about their business, and give users insight into the average prices of their inventory. We recommend dealers mark vehicles as “SOLD” before removing listings to maximize visibility.

How much does it cost?

Nothing. Zero. Nada. Autopten is not a business or established company. The service is completely FREE for private owners, dealerships, and independent sellers. If you're associated with a dealership, please create a "dealer account" and refrain from posting vehicles for sale as a private owner. Thank you. Any revenue generated from Google Ads is used to cover domain renewal, hosting, and some advertising on digital platforms.

What is the target?

Since 2007, Autopten has been helping private owners and dealers sell their most affordable cars. We aim to continue this mission by publishing as many used cars for sale as possible from U.S. dealerships on our search engine, with a focus on small dealerships that typically offer pre-owned vehicles priced under $5,000 and $10,000. If you’re a car dealership with 5, 10, 50, or even 100+ cars in your inventory, and at least 10 are priced under $10,000 or $5,000, we want to help you sell them by featuring them on our platform. Based on our experience, Autopten's visitors—primarily teenagers, college students, first-time drivers, and first-time owners—are not looking for overpriced cars. They seek affordable, reliable commuter cars they can easily afford, and that’s what we strive to provide.

What is a cheap car for us?

There is no standard price or metric to determine whether a used car is cheap; it depends primarily on the buyer’s budget and how much they are willing to pay. Secondary factors, such as the car’s overall condition, mileage, title status, and location, also play a role. Based on our search statistics and analysis, most Autopten users seek used cars priced below $10,000, with a strong preference for those under $5,000. If you are a car dealership with inventory in this price range, we invite you to sign up with Autopten and let us promote your cars on our website and social media channels.

If you want to see which car dealerships are registered to get an idea of the types of cars and prices they offer, please follow the link. We work with small car dealers across all U.S. states, cities, and towns. These small dealers typically provide the lowest prices, which is exactly what our users seek.

How do people and users find or come to Autopten?

In our forum and blog, we continuously share and discuss the latest automotive industry updates. For example, we track the cheapest new and used cars entering the U.S. market, write articles about them, and recommend the best options to our users. We cover their specifications, features, highlights, and pros and cons, which attracts users to Autopten through search engine queries related to these topics. In the past, we used various content management systems (CMS) to publish articles, but we discontinued them due to usability issues as they became obsolete. Instead, we now use our forum as our primary platform for both discussions and blog content. To explore our news archive, please follow the link.