According to Jarred Cohen’s post on the Conceptualist blog, Bido is now moving from a percentage based fee system to a credit based system. While the fee for domains with a reserve used to be the greater of 3% of the reserve or $29.99, it is now based on pre-paid credits.

The reserve pricing schedule is now 1 credit per $1,000 of the reserve (capped at 10 credits maximum). One credit costs $8.88 but users can save money by purchasing credits in bulk.

From Jarred’s post:

A reserve auction of $900 would previously cost $29.99, however now it only costs 1 credit ($8.88), a savings of $21.11. The credits are returned in the same fashion [ed. as before] if the auction completes with a winner. If the auction sells, you can reuse the credit(s).

While the credit system does mean lowered prices for listings with reserve, it does seem to complicate the payment structure and pricing a little. In addition it gives Bido some money reserves that can potentially work with, comparable to Registrars and Registries that require pre-paid account balances from their clients.