Where our numbers come from, and when we refuse to give you one
Counts read live from our database on September 12, 2026.
Most used-boat pricing is a guess dressed as a guide number. We would rather show you the evidence and let you audit it. This page states exactly what we hold, how a number is produced, and the rules that stop us publishing when the evidence is thin.
What we hold
| Market listings observed | 432,291 | Craigslist and Rightboat, collected continuously since June 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Live, priced, used listings right now | 22,124 | What today's price bands are computed from |
| US states and territories covered | 51 | Listing coverage, not registry coverage |
| State vessel registrations | 875,076 | Public records from Texas and New York |
| Recall records | 1,807 | Complete USCG and CPSC recall history |
| Builders in the USCG MIC register | 16,188 | Hull Identification Number decoding |
| Canonical boat models identified | 4,293 | Built from listing titles and structured make/model data |
| Model pages we actually publish | 104 | The rest fail the evidence rules below |
Asking prices, not sold prices
There is no free source of sold boat prices in the United States. Everything we publish is an asking price, which runs above the transaction price. We say so on every page rather than implying we know what a boat sold for. When we show a range, the range is what sellers are asking, and the negotiating gap is yours to close. See how much to offer on a used boat.
Reposts are removed before anything is counted
Classified sellers repost the same boat for weeks, and dealers cross-post one boat into four cities. Left alone, that turns one boat into hundreds of fake data points and destroys a price band. We fingerprint each boat on model, year and price without the city, because a city-based fingerprint misses exactly the cross-posts that do the most damage. One seller in our set had posted the same boat 498 times.
The rules that decide whether a page exists
A page only publishes when the evidence behind it is deep enough to mean something. A model page needs at least 10 distinct boats after repost removal, 6 of them priced, spread over 4 or more states, with no single city supplying more than half the observations, across at least 2 model years. A make-and-year value page needs 10 priced listings across 3 states.
That is why we publish 104 model pages out of 4,293 models we can name. The other pages are not missing. They are refused, on purpose, and the page tells you which rule it failed.
What we know we cannot see
- No sold prices. Asking prices only, as above.
- Short history. Continuous observation began in June 2026, so we do not yet publish long-run trends or days-on-market.
- Registry has no model. State registration records carry the builder but not the model, and we hold Texas and New York only.
- Recalls skew to bigger builders. A brand with no recalls on file is not proof of a trouble-free boat.
- We have not seen the boat. Nothing here replaces a marine survey. Read what a survey actually covers.
Who pays us
You do, once, for a Deal Report. We take no listing fees, no dealer commissions and no marketplace referral money, so nothing about our business changes if you walk away from a boat. That is the point of the design, and it is why the verdict is allowed to be "do not buy this".
Corrections
If a number here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it and say what changed. Contact us.