Where are the St. Louis CarMax stores?

They have locations on South Lindbergh Boulevard and in St. Peters. We are not going to argue they are far — the honest comparison here is about one wholesale number versus two different offer structures.

Can I bring a CarMax offer to you?

Please do. A CarMax appraisal is physical and written, which is exactly what qualifies under our $300 Best-Offer Guarantee. Bring the paperwork to Ballwin or O'Fallon.

Does CarMax pay a share of the resale the way profit sharing does?

No. When they retail your car, the spread between your offer and the sale price is their margin. Profit sharing pays you a reserve check up front and a second check for your share when the car sells at retail.

The $300 Best-Offer Guarantee

Sell My Car STL vs. CarMax.

CarMax is a good buyer and they are genuinely close by — that is the honest starting point. The difference is that their number is one number, and ours are two.

Get My Two Offers

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Sell My Car STL vs. CarMax — two offers for your car

The honest rundown

How selling to CarMax actually works

CarMax invented the no-haggle appraisal: start online or walk in, get a written offer good for seven days, and they will buy the car whether or not you buy one from them. The offers are real, the checks are same-day, and the process is genuinely low-pressure. We say that plainly because it is true, and because our Instant Cash Offer works the same way.

We are also not going to pretend they are inconvenient here. CarMax has St. Louis locations on South Lindbergh and in St. Peters, so for most of this metro they are a reasonable drive. The difference is structural, not geographic: CarMax's number is a wholesale-side number. They buy thousands of cars a week to retail or auction, and their margin lives in the spread between what they pay you and what the car later sells for. You never see that spread, and there is no mechanism by which you could.

A clean car parked curbside, ready to be appraised

Side by side

The comparison, in plain rows

CarMaxSell My Car STL

Offers you seeOne — a 7-day written offerTwo — same-day cash and profit sharing, side by side

What the number targetsWholesale-side value; the retail spread is theirsCash offer is competitive wholesale; profit sharing targets what the car sells for at retail

Upside after the saleNone — the retail profit is theirsProfit sharing pays a second check from the retail sale

Illinois-titled carsHandled, as a national processRoutine — Metro East titles are a weekly occurrence, not an exception

A car that fails emissionsBought, priced to their reconditioning modelBought, with the deduction shown to you at our repair cost

If they beat us—Bring their written, physically reviewed offer — we pay $300 more

Fair is fair

Where CarMax honestly wins

If their appraiser writes a number that beats both of ours, take it. A strong offer in hand beats loyalty to anybody, including us. Their scale also means they will bid on nearly anything, and if you are already shopping their inventory, doing both halves of the transaction under one roof is real convenience that we cannot match.

One more honest note in their favor: because their written offers come from a physical appraisal, they are exactly the kind of offer our $300 Best-Offer Guarantee applies to. Getting a CarMax number first does not hurt you here. It helps you.

Our side of the ledger

Where we win

Profit sharing always targets more than an instant offer — it is a retail number rather than a wholesale one, and no instant-cash model, theirs or ours, can match retail by design.
Our Instant Cash Offer is usually competitive with theirs — and if their physically reviewed offer is higher, we pay $300 over it.
Two offers side by side means you pick the trade-off, speed or maximum payout, instead of accepting the only number on the table.
We are a two-lot local operation, so the appraiser who writes your number is the person you can call about it afterward.

The honest verdict

Get the CarMax number — they are close, it is a legitimate offer, and it activates our $300 guarantee. But if the goal is the most money rather than the fastest exit, profit sharing targets the retail price CarMax is planning to sell your car for, and pays you a share of it instead of keeping all of it.

Get both of our numbers

Don't take our word for it — ask the robots

An honest comparison has nothing to hide from a second opinion.

FAQ

CarMax vs. us: quick answers

Sometimes. No honest buyer claims to win every appraisal. Ours is usually competitive, and if their physically reviewed written offer beats it, we pay $300 more. Separately, our profit-sharing option targets retail value, which no instant offer does.

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