If you have a pony to sell, where you advertise makes an enormous difference — to how quickly it sells, to the price you get, and above all to the kind of home it goes to. The UK has plenty of places to list a horse or pony, but they are not equal, and the biggest and busiest is not always the best for a family pony. This is an honest, up-to-date guide to the main options, what each does well, where each falls short, and how to choose the right one for your pony.
What actually makes a good place to sell a pony
Before comparing sites, it helps to know what you are really looking for. The volume of visitors matters far less than five things:
- The right audience. One buyer genuinely searching for a 12.2hh first pony is worth a thousand idle scrollers. A pony-specialist audience converts; a general one wastes your time.
- Honest, structured detail. Adverts that answer the questions families actually ask — temperament, experience needed, traffic, catching, loading, shoeing — bring serious, informed buyers to the gate and cut out wasted viewings.
- Trust and safety. How well does the platform filter out scammers and time-wasters? Does it encourage vetting, honest disclosure and safe viewings?
- Cost and commission. A listing fee is normal; commission on the sale is not. Beware "free" sites that only get you seen once you pay to be featured.
- Listing lifespan. Does your advert stay visible and searchable for weeks, or vanish under new posts within hours?
Hold each option below against those five, and the right choice for your pony becomes clear.
The UK pony & horse selling sites at a glance
| Platform | Best for | Cost to list | Pony focus | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pony Search | Family & first ponies | From £1 (launch) · £14.99–£29.99 · no commission | Ponies only | Newer site, still growing its audience |
| Horsequest | All types & disciplines | Paid per advert | Small slice | Pony buried among horses of every kind |
| Horsemart | Broad reach | Free & paid tiers | General | Free adverts get little visibility |
| Horse & Hound | Sport & quality horses | Paid | Leans upmarket/sport | Less suited to modest family ponies |
| Preloved | Local bargain hunters | Free & paid | None (general) | Mixed audience, more time-wasters |
| Whickr | App-first sellers | Free | General equestrian | App only; smaller audience |
| Facebook groups | Fast, free reach | Free | None | Scams, buried fast, no filtering |
| Auctions / sales | Quick, unsentimental sales | Entry + commission | Varies | Unpredictable price & unknown home |
Pony Search
We will be upfront: this is our site, so weigh what follows accordingly. Pony Search does one thing — ponies (up to 14.2hh) for UK families — and everything about it is built around that. Every advert answers the temperament and suitability questions families ask, so buyers arrive informed; adverts are checked before they go live; and buyers filter by stage (first pony, second pony, Pony Club), height, temperament and county to find exactly the pony they need.
A Standard advert is £14.99 and Premium £29.99, and there is never any commission — whatever your pony sells for is entirely yours. During our launch a ridden pony lists for just £1 with code LAUNCH50. You build and preview the whole advert for free and only pay when you publish. The honest trade-off: as a newer site, our audience is still growing, so for now many sellers list here and point their Facebook contacts to the advert. What you get in return is a listing with no time-wasters, aimed squarely at the caring families most first and second ponies deserve.
Horsequest
One of the longest-established horse sales websites in the UK, Horsequest has a large, loyal audience across every type and discipline — sport horses, cobs, youngsters and ponies alike. That breadth is its strength and its weakness for a pony seller: the audience is big, but ponies are a small slice of it, and your family pony sits alongside eventers and broodmares rather than among its peers. Listings are paid. If you are selling a competition or performance pony it is a strong choice; for a modest first pony, a specialist audience often serves you better.
Horsemart
Another large, well-known UK equestrian classifieds site, Horsemart carries horses, ponies, tack and everything in between, and pulls serious overall traffic. It offers free and paid listing tiers. The honest catch with most big classifieds is that a free advert tends to get limited visibility, and you are nudged towards paid upgrades to actually be seen. The audience is general equestrian rather than pony-focused, so expect a wider mix of enquiries — some serious, some not.
Horse & Hound classifieds
The classifieds arm of the famous magazine carries a trusted brand and a quality-minded audience, but it leans towards sport horses and the upper end of the market. It can work well for a smart, competitive pony with a record; for an honest, everyday family pony it is often more reach than you need, at a price that reflects the brand.
Preloved
Preloved is a large general second-hand classifieds site with a horses-and-ponies section. It is cheap or free to list and has decent local reach, which suits a quick, budget-conscious sale. But it is not equestrian-specialist: your advert sits in a marketplace built for sofas and lawnmowers, the detail buyers see is thin, and the general audience brings more casual browsers and time-wasters than a horsey site. Fine for a companion or a low-value sale; less ideal when the home matters as much as the sale.
Whickr
A newer, app-first marketplace built specifically to modernise horse buying and selling, Whickr is free to list and designed around in-app messaging to cut out some of the time-wasting that plagues free platforms. It is growing and worth knowing about, especially if you are comfortable selling from your phone. As a younger platform its audience is still building, and it covers all equestrian types rather than focusing on ponies.
Facebook selling groups
Facebook is where an enormous amount of pony buying and selling actually happens, and its reach is undeniable — post in the right local and breed groups and thousands of people may see it, instantly and for free. That is the upside, and it is a real one.
The downsides are just as real. Your advert is buried under newer posts within hours and is almost impossible to search later. There is no structure, so buyers cannot filter and you re-answer the same "is it still available?" messages endlessly. And it is the natural home of the "sad sale" scam and the pressure-buyer. Facebook is best used alongside a proper listing — post there to drive people to a complete, honest advert that lives somewhere permanent and searchable. Our honest, detailed comparison of selling a pony on Facebook versus a marketplace goes into this in depth.
Auctions and horse sales
A traditional horse sale or auction is quick and unsentimental: your pony sells on the day, for cash, with no adverts to write. For certain animals — a genuine project, or where a fast sale matters more than the destination — that suits. But you have little control over the price, which can fall well below a private sale, and none over the home your pony goes to. For a much-loved family pony, where who buys it matters, an auction is rarely the kind choice. If you want speed without an auction, weigh up selling privately versus through a dealer.
So where should you list your pony?
For most family ponies, the honest answer is: advertise on a pony-focused platform where the audience is actively looking for exactly your kind of pony, and use Facebook's reach to point people back to that complete, honest advert. Save the big all-type sites for competition and sport ponies, and reserve auctions for the rare cases where speed genuinely matters more than the home.
Whichever you choose, the advert itself does most of the work. A fair price on a thin, one-blurry-photo listing sells nowhere; an honest, complete, well-photographed advert sells on almost any platform. Get the advert right and price it honestly, and you have done the hard part.
Next steps
- Write a listing that sells: how to write a pony advert that sells.
- Set a fair figure: how much is my pony worth?
- Take photos that sell: how to photograph your pony for sale.
- Ready to list? Advertise your pony on Pony Search — from £1 during our launch, with no commission, in front of genuine family buyers.