WPL Auction Rules
Each team builds a squad of 15 to 18 players with no more than six overseas, base prices run in five slabs from ₹10 lakh to ₹50 lakh, and bids rise in ₹5 lakh steps up to ₹1 crore. Below is every rule, a calculator for any team’s real maximum bid, and one bid followed paddle by paddle. That example lands on ₹1.1 crore, the exact price of the top buy at the 2027 auction. See the full WPL 2027 schedule, teams and squads.
WPL auction rules at a glance
How a WPL auction works
Teams tell the BCCI who they’re keeping. For 2027 the deadline was 28 September 2026: 63 players kept, 23 overseas.
Players register and choose a base price. Teams submit shortlists and the BCCI publishes the final list: 146 players for 27 slots in 2027.
Players come up in sets: capped batters, all-rounders, keepers, bowlers, then uncapped sets. The highest bid when the hammer falls wins.
No bid at base means unsold. Teams can ask for them again later in an accelerated round. Injury replacements can bring some back mid-season.
Full list, base prices and who was sold: WPL 2027 auction player list.
Purse rules: what a team can actually spend
The purse is the total salary a franchise can spend on its squad. It was ₹12 crore per team in 2023 and ₹15 crore from the 2026 mega auction onwards, including 2027. What matters on auction night is what’s left after retentions, because every retained player’s salary comes off first.
| Team | Purse going in | Slots | Overseas slots | Spent in Kochi | Purse left |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UP Warriorz | ₹3.75 crore | 8 | 3 | ₹2.60 crore | ₹1.15 crore |
| Gujarat Giants | ₹1.25 crore | 3 | 1 | ₹80 lakh | ₹45 lakh |
| Royal Challengers Bengaluru | ₹1.15 crore | 5 | 2 | ₹1.10 crore | ₹5 lakh |
| Delhi Capitals | ₹1.10 crore | 5 | 1 | ₹1.05 crore | ₹5 lakh |
| Mumbai Indians | ₹90 lakh | 6 | 0 | ₹70 lakh | ₹20 lakh |
| Total | ₹8.15 crore | 27 | 7 | ₹6.25 crore | ₹1.90 crore |
“Purse going in” includes the Tara Norris trade of 12 October 2026 (UPW to MI, ₹10 lakh). 25 of the 27 slots were filled; DC and RCB each left one place empty.
The rule nobody prints: the maximum single bid
A team’s purse is not its maximum bid. Squads need at least 15 players and the cheapest costs ₹10 lakh, so a team must keep ₹10 lakh back for every compulsory slot still unfilled.
Maximum bid = purse left − (₹10 lakh × compulsory slots still to fill after this player)
Delhi Capitals went into Kochi with 13 players, so they had to buy at least two. If one is the player on the block, they still need one more at ₹10 lakh: ₹1.10 crore − ₹10 lakh = ₹1.00 crore. In the end they spent ₹75 lakh on Kiran Navgire and filled three more places at ₹10 lakh each. Gujarat Giants already had 15, so they could have put their full ₹1.25 crore on one name. (A minimum squad spend existed in 2023, ₹9 crore of ₹12 crore, but the current figure hasn’t been published, so it is left out here.)
Max-bid calculator
Pick a team to load the numbers it took into the 2027 auction, or move the sliders for any situation.
Team situation
Squad size & overseas limit
15 to 18 players
Teams can stop buying once they reach 15, which is why a franchise sometimes goes quiet in the last sets even with money left. In 2027, DC and RCB stopped at 17.
Max 6 in the squad
The rule that shapes mini-auctions most. MI had six overseas after the Norris trade, so they couldn’t bid for a single overseas name. Only seven overseas slots were open in 2027, and all seven were filled.
4 overseas, or 5
A fifth is allowed if one is from an Associate nation like Scotland, the Netherlands, the UAE or the USA. Two Associates were bought in 2027: Scotland’s Kathryn Bryce (UPW) and Kirstie Gordon (DC).
Capped vs uncapped
Capped means she has played international cricket. It decides base price slabs and separate retention limits.
The five base price slabs
The base price is the opening bid, chosen by the player at registration. Capped players register at ₹30–50 lakh and uncapped players at ₹10 or ₹20 lakh. It is a floor, not a valuation: a high base signals confidence but can scare off teams with small purses.
| Base price | Typical player | 2027 pool |
|---|---|---|
| ₹50 lakh | Established internationals | 2 (Dunkley, Molineux) |
| ₹40 lakh | Capped players with strong WPL records | 4 |
| ₹30 lakh | Capped Indian and overseas players | 30 |
| ₹20 lakh | Uncapped players with some pedigree | 4 |
| ₹10 lakh | Uncapped domestic and Associate players | 106 |
Base price tells you little. Kashvee Gautam went from ₹10 lakh to ₹2 crore in 2024, and Simran Shaikh topped the 2025 auction at ₹1.9 crore. Meanwhile Dunkley went unsold at ₹50 lakh in 2025, Alyssa Healy found no takers at ₹50 lakh in 2026, and in 2027 Dunkley went unsold again while Kiran Navgire nearly doubled her ₹40 lakh base.
Bid increments & the paddle
| Current bid | Next bid goes up by | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Up to ₹1 crore | ₹5 lakh | ₹40 L → ₹45 L → ₹50 L |
| ₹1 crore to ₹2 crore | ₹10 lakh | ₹1 cr → ₹1.10 cr → ₹1.20 cr |
| ₹2 crore to ₹3 crore | ₹20 lakh | ₹2 cr → ₹2.20 cr → ₹2.40 cr |
| Above ₹3 crore | Auctioneer’s call, min ₹20 lakh | ₹3 cr → ₹3.20 cr or more |
A team raises its paddle to accept the next price; it can’t jump ahead with its own number. When nobody takes the next step, the last paddle wins. The auctioneer’s team checks purses live, and no team can bid for an overseas player once its six overseas spots are full. Those two checks explain most bidding wars that stop suddenly.
One bid, paddle by paddle
“Player A” is an imaginary overseas all-rounder at a ₹40 lakh base, bid for with the purses teams took into Kochi. We published it before the auction as an illustration, not a prediction. Mumbai Indians can’t bid (no overseas slot) and Gujarat Giants sit this one out.
| Team | Purse | Squad now | Compulsory after | Max bid for Player A |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UP Warriorz | ₹3.75 cr | 10 | 4 | ₹3.35 cr |
| Gujarat Giants | ₹1.25 cr | 15 | 0 | ₹1.25 cr |
| RCB | ₹1.15 cr | 13 | 1 | ₹1.05 cr |
| Delhi Capitals | ₹1.10 cr | 13 | 1 | ₹1.00 cr |
| Mumbai Indians | ₹90 L | 12 | – | Cannot bid |
What changes after the sale
| UP Warriorz | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Purse | ₹3.75 cr | ₹2.65 cr |
| Squad size | 10 | 11 |
| Slots left (overseas) | 8 (3) | 7 (2) |
| Compulsory slots left | 5 | 4 |
| New maximum single bid | ₹3.35 cr | ₹2.35 cr |
What the rules did. DC didn’t lose because they wanted her less: the ₹10 lakh reserve and the ₹1 crore increment jump stopped them at exactly ₹1 crore. RCB walked away early to protect their second overseas slot. The final price was set by the second-highest ceiling in the room, not the highest.
Right to match: how it works
RTM lets a franchise buy back a player from its previous season’s squad by matching the winning bid. The WPL first used it at the 2026 mega auction.
The Deepti Sharma case, 2026
The rule protects the original team but lets a rival make it expensive, which is exactly what DC did. UPW also used RTMs for Sophie Ecclestone (₹85 lakh), Kiran Navgire (₹60 lakh) and Kranti Gaud (₹50 lakh).
How many RTM cards each team got
| Players retained | RTM cards | Retention slab |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 5 | – |
| 1 | 4 | Player 1: ₹3.5 crore |
| 2 | 3 | Player 2: ₹2.5 crore |
| 3 | 2 | Player 3: ₹1.75 crore |
| 4 | 1 | Player 4: ₹1 crore |
| 5 | 0 | Player 5: ₹50 lakh |
Teams could retain at most three capped Indians, two overseas and two uncapped Indians. For 2027, reports said RTM isn’t used at mini-auctions, so released players had to be won back in open bidding. Asha Sobhana is the one released player UP Warriorz bought back, for ₹30 lakh. Navgire, whom UPW had kept with an RTM in 2026, went to Delhi this time for ₹75 lakh.
Mega vs mini auction
| Rule | Mega (2026) | Mini (2024, 2025, 2027) |
|---|---|---|
| Retention limit | Up to 5 players | No limit |
| RTM cards | Up to 5, linked to retentions | Reported as not used |
| Purse on the day | ₹15 cr minus retention costs | Whatever is left after retained salaries |
| Slots available | Large (73 in 2026) | Small (19 to 30) |
| Typical top price | ₹3 crore or more | ₹1 crore to ₹2 crore (₹1.1 crore in 2027) |
| Main strategy | Build a core | Fill gaps, buy injury cover |
How the rules and numbers have changed since 2023
| Auction | Type | Venue | Players / slots | Rule change | Top buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 2023 | Inaugural | Mumbai | 409 / – | ₹12 cr purse; 15–18 squads; 6 overseas | Mandhana, ₹3.4 cr |
| Dec 2023 | Mini | Mumbai | 165 / 30 | First mini-auction | Sutherland, Gautam, ₹2 cr |
| Dec 2024 | Mini | Bengaluru | 120 / 19 | – | Simran Shaikh, ₹1.9 cr |
| Nov 2025 | Mega | New Delhi | 277 / 73 | ₹15 cr; 5 retentions; first RTM | Deepti Sharma, ₹3.2 cr |
| Oct 2026 | Mini | Kochi | 146 / 27 (25 sold) | No retention limit; no RTM (reported) | Molineux, ₹1.1 cr |
Three numbers decided every bid
Filling all 27 slots at the minimum would have cost ₹2.7 crore, leaving ₹5.45 crore of real bidding money. UPW held ₹2.95 crore of it, about 54 per cent.
What happened: teams spent ₹6.25 crore, and UPW alone spent ₹2.6 crore.Steps double at ₹1 crore, and most ceilings sat around there, so we expected very few sales above it.
What happened: one sale above ₹1 crore (Molineux, ₹1.1 crore). The next highest was ₹75 lakh.A team with six overseas is out of every overseas set. Count them on the night and you can predict when prices crash.
What happened: all seven overseas places were filled, and Dunkley, Athapaththu and Mlaba went unsold.The final price of a good player is set by the second-highest ceiling among teams that still need her role and still have the right slot. Kochi showed that again.
Related WPL posts
Final squads, auction results, rules, history and tickets.
- WPL 2027 schedule, teams & squads →
- WPL 2027 all teams final squad →
- WPL 2027 auction results: sold players & purse left →
- WPL 2027 auction player list (all 146) →
- UP Warriorz squad 2027 →
- Gujarat Giants women squad 2027 →
- RCB women squad 2027 →
- Delhi Capitals women squad 2027 →
- Mumbai Indians women squad 2027 →
- WPL auction live streaming & start times →
- WPL winners list 2023–2026 →
- WPL 2027 tickets: price & booking →
- All Women’s Premier League posts →
Auction rules FAQs
What is the purse limit in the WPL auction?
₹15 crore per team, used in 2026 and 2027. What’s available at the auction is what remains after retained salaries: in 2027 that ranged from ₹90 lakh (MI) to ₹3.75 crore (UPW).
How many overseas players can a WPL team have?
Six in the squad. In the playing XI, four, or five if one is from an Associate nation.
What is the minimum and maximum squad size in the WPL?
At least 15 and at most 18. Teams can stop buying once they reach 15.
What is RTM in the WPL auction?
Right to match lets a team buy back a player from its previous squad by matching the winning bid. The highest bidder gets one final raise, then the old team matches or lets her go. First used at the 2026 mega auction.
Was RTM used at the WPL 2027 auction?
Reports before the auction said RTM is not used at mini-auctions like Kochi, so released players had to be won back in open bidding.
What are the base prices in the WPL auction?
Five slabs: ₹50, 40, 30, 20 and 10 lakh. Capped players register at ₹30 lakh or above; uncapped at ₹10 or ₹20 lakh.
How much is the bid increment in the WPL auction?
₹5 lakh up to ₹1 crore, ₹10 lakh from ₹1 to ₹2 crore, ₹20 lakh from ₹2 to ₹3 crore, and the auctioneer’s call above that (minimum ₹20 lakh).
Who is the most expensive player in WPL auction history?
Smriti Mandhana, ₹3.4 crore (RCB, 2023). Ashleigh Gardner, Nat Sciver-Brunt and Deepti Sharma (RTM, 2026) follow at ₹3.2 crore. The top buy of the 2027 auction was Sophie Molineux at ₹1.1 crore.
Last updated: 29 October 2026, after the auction in Kochi.
