FAAB Bid Calculator

How it works

FAAB isn't a pricing problem — nobody knows what a waiver-wire running back is "worth." It's an auction against psychology: your only job is to bid one dollar more than the most optimistic rival, and not a dollar more than that. This calculator turns that into a repeatable formula:

bid = remaining budget × tier % × need multiplier × season urgency, capped at your remaining budget. Every input is a percentage of what you have left, not your season-opening $100 — a $30 bid means something very different in week 10 with $40 remaining than it did in week 2.

The whole matrix

This table is the tool: the percentage of your remaining budget to bid, by player tier and roster need, before the week multiplier.

Suggested bid as a percentage of remaining FAAB budget, by player tier and roster need, before the season-urgency multiplier
Tier (base %)	Desperate ×1.3	Real need ×1	Depth ×0.7	Luxury ×0.5
League winner (60%)	78%	60%	42%	30%
Solid starter (30%)	39%	30%	21%	15%
Streamer (10%)	13%	10%	7%	5%
Lottery ticket (5%)	6.5%	5%	3.5%	2.5%
Handcuff (8%)	10.4%	8%	5.6%	4%

Multiply any cell by the week multiplier — ×1.02 in week 1 up to ×1.4 in week 17 — for the final number.

Why those tiers

League winner — 60%. The season-changing back or WR1-in-waiting.
Solid starter — 30%. A weekly flex/starter the rest of the way.
Streamer — 10%. One good matchup, then back on the wire.
Lottery ticket — 5%. Upside stash that probably never hits.
Handcuff — 8%. Worthless today, a league winner if one guy goes down.

Two of those numbers do the most work. League winner at 60% because a true league winner hits the wire maybe twice a season — when the lead back goes down in week 3 and his backup inherits 20 touches, the manager who empties the clip wins the trophy, and the manager who "saves budget" wins nothing with $55 left in January. And handcuff (8%) above lottery ticket (5%) on purpose: a handcuff has defined contingent value — you know exactly what job he inherits — while a lottery ticket is a story about a role that doesn't exist yet.

The need multiplier

Need scales the bid because the same player is worth more to a roster that has to start him. Desperate (×1.3) means you have a hole in your lineup this week — overpaying beats taking a zero. Real need (×1.0) is the baseline. Depth (×0.7) and luxury (×0.5) discount bids on players who'd ride your bench — you're only buying him to keep him from someone else, and that's worth about half price.

Why late-season money bids bigger

The urgency multiplier is 1 + 0.4 × (week ÷ 17) — a straight ramp from ×1.02 in week 1 to ×1.4 in week 17. The logic is brutal: FAAB left over after week 17 is wasted money. Every dollar you hoard has fewer future waiver runs left to be spent on, so its option value decays every week. Early on, saving is a real alternative; by the fantasy playoffs there is no "later," and the formula pushes you to spend accordingly.

The odd-number edge

Rival bids cluster on round numbers — $5, $10, $20, $25. So after computing the raw bid, the calculator rounds to the nearest dollar and, if it lands on a multiple of 5, adds $1: bid $11, not $10, and you beat the entire $10 crowd for the price of a coffee. That one dollar wins more contested claims than any other dollar in your budget, and it's applied to the low, suggested, and high numbers alike.

Worked example: week 9, $100 left, a streamer you actually need. Raw bid = $100 × 10% × 1.0 × 1.21 = $12.12. The range comes out $11 / $12 / $16 — the low end is $9.69 rounded to $10, then nudged to $11 to clear the round-number pile.

FAQ

Should I use my waiver priority instead of FAAB?

If your league runs rolling priority (you drop to the back of the line after a claim), priority is a scarce asset — hold it for league-winner-tier players and let streamers come to you in free agency. If priority only exists as a FAAB tiebreaker, ignore it entirely: identical bids are rare, and managing your budget well matters far more than where you sit in the tiebreak order.

Should I drop Player X to bid on Player Y?

That's a roster question, not a bid question — it depends on your bench, your bye weeks, and what X still does for you. That's exactly what the AI assistant is for: give it both names and your roster and let Chalk and Sharp argue it out.

Are $0 bids ever right?

Yes — constantly. End-of-bench churn, kickers and defenses, and lottery tickets nobody else is watching should all go for $0. A $0 bid still wins if it's uncontested, and most waiver claims are. Save real dollars for players other managers will actually fight you for; the calculator's $0 output on a cheap lottery ticket is a feature, not a bug.