Kijiji Car Alerts: How to Get Notified the Second a Listing Goes Up (2026)

You're refreshing Kijiji five or six times a day hoping to catch a good one before another buyer gets there first, because Kijiji's own alert only checks in once. That gap between "once a day" and "the second it posts" is exactly what a dedicated Kijiji car alerts app is built to close.

This page covers Kijiji's native alert, how to set it up and how to turn it off, what the paid tools that promise faster actually cost and cover, and where CarSnag does it differently: Kijiji, Facebook Marketplace and AutoTrader in one feed, priced against real comps, with your first month of Pro free.

How do you get notified of new Kijiji listings the second they post?

You can't, not with Kijiji's own alert. Its fastest option is once a day.

Kijiji's own help pages lay out the setup: on the website, run your search, apply the filters you want, then click "Notify me when new ads are posted." On the web that delivers "new matching listings once per day." In the app, the frequency choice narrows to Daily or Weekly, and notifications arrive by email or push, nothing faster than that on either surface.

We track about 2,500 new Kijiji car listings a day, 41% of them from private sellers. Bundle that volume into one email a day and a private seller who lists at 7am could already have three replies by the time your alert lands that night. Say you're watching for a 2019 to 2021 CR-V under $22,000 within 50 km of Hamilton. Kijiji's own alert bundles every match from the whole day into a single message, so if three sellers post between breakfast and dinner, you hear about all three at once, hours after the first one already had offers sitting in their inbox.

The verdict: turn Kijiji's own alert on regardless, it costs nothing, but do not mistake it for real-time. If being first actually matters to you, it cannot get you there on its own.

How do you set up Kijiji alerts?

Kijiji builds this into search itself, on both the website and the app, and it takes under a minute either way.

On the website: run your search and apply the filters you want (price, location, keywords), then click "Notify me when new ads are posted" near the top of the results. Signed-in accounts save the alert automatically; otherwise you enter an email address to receive it.

In the app: run the same search with your filters set, tap the ribbon icon on the search results screen, then pick a frequency. Daily or Weekly is the entire choice, there is no instant or hourly setting built into the app.

That is the whole setup, and it is worth doing even if you also use a faster tool: Kijiji's own alert is free, and it catches anything a third-party tool's Kijiji connection ever misses. CarSnag runs the same kind of saved search underneath, minus the once-a-day ceiling, across Kijiji, Facebook Marketplace and AutoTrader at once from $50 CAD a month.

The verdict: set up Kijiji's own alert first, it takes a minute and costs nothing, then decide separately whether once a day is actually fast enough for what you're trying to do.

Does a Kijiji-only alert cover the whole car market?

No. Watching only Kijiji misses a real slice of the cars that are actually for sale on Kijiji.

At least 37% of the Kijiji listings we track also turn up for sale on AutoTrader. Some of that overlap is dealers running the same unit on both sites, but plenty of it is a private seller who posts to AutoTrader first, or a car you would have found faster on the other platform even though it is sitting on Kijiji too.

Say the same CR-V from Hamilton actually goes up on AutoTrader an hour before the seller cross-posts it to Kijiji. A Kijiji-only alert, however fast, cannot see it until the second post exists. A feed that watches both platforms at once sees the car the moment either listing appears, whichever site the seller reached for first.

The verdict: a Kijiji-only tool, even a fast one, only ever shows you Kijiji's own listings. If you're actually trying to see the market, not just one site in it, that gap is bigger than the speed difference between Kijiji's own alert and a paid one.

What's the best Kijiji car alerts app in 2026?

For most Kijiji-focused buyers and flippers, CarSnag, because it is the only major tool that covers Kijiji, Facebook Marketplace and AutoTrader together instead of pricing Kijiji as an afterthought.

App	Kijiji coverage	Platform	Starting price	Notes
CarSnag	Included on every plan, with Facebook Marketplace and AutoTrader too	iOS + Android app	$50 CAD/mo	Priced by trim against comps in your own region, with a 0-5 star Deal Score on every match
Swoopa	Not on the cheapest plan; Kijiji needs the Turbo tier	iOS + Android app	$99 USD/mo for Kijiji	Kijiji only unlocks at the $99 USD Turbo tier; the cheapest plan is Facebook Marketplace only
Marketplace Monitor	Included, but priced through a custom calculator, no listed rate	iOS + Android + desktop	From $24.99 USD/mo (Facebook only)	No published Kijiji price; its fastest published tier, Facebook-only, still runs $169.99 USD/mo
Flipify	Included, general classifieds tool, not car-specific	iOS + Android + web	$5 USD/mo (10-min scans)	General classifieds tool, not car-specific; fastest scan is 60 seconds, not instant

Swoopa markets Kijiji as one of seven monitored platforms on its homepage, but its cheapest tier, Go, is "Facebook Marketplace only" at $28 to $47 USD a month. Kijiji coverage only switches on at Turbo, $99 to $144 USD a month, three to four times the entry price. CarSnag includes Kijiji on every tier starting at $50 CAD a month, with a real 0-5 star Deal Score on every match, priced against comparable listings in your own region by trim, not just year, make and model.

Marketplace Monitor is built for resellers and has a dedicated Kijiji landing page, but it never states a Kijiji price or scan speed anywhere on its site: you build a custom package through its calculator to find out. Its only published numbers are Facebook-only tiers, $24.99 to $169.99 USD a month, with "Instant" find time reserved for the top tier. CarSnag's price is on the page you're reading right now, no calculator required, and everything runs on our own servers, so there's no browser tab or desktop app to leave open.

Flipify is the cheapest dedicated option that actually lists a Kijiji price, $5 USD a month for 10-minute scans or $10 USD for 60-second scans on Premium, and it is a real native app, not a browser extension. But it is a general classifieds tool built for Kijiji, Facebook Marketplace and more, not cars specifically: its own Deal Rating compares prices against sold listings on eBay, which does not price cars at all. CarSnag was built by wholesalers for exactly this job, valuing every match by year, make, model and trim against real comps in your own market, and everything runs server-side with nothing to babysit.

The verdict: pay Swoopa's price and you still only get Kijiji at the $99 USD tier; use Marketplace Monitor and you never see a number until you build a custom package; use Flipify and you get a fast, cheap scan with no car pricing behind it. CarSnag is the one built to cover Kijiji, price the car, and tell you the number up front.

Should you use a Kijiji car alerts app?

Yes, if you're buying or flipping more than the occasional car, because refreshing Kijiji by hand against a once-a-day email is not a real way to compete with anyone running a tool.

CarSnag was built by wholesalers who wanted this exact screening tool for themselves, not a generic listings feed retrofitted for cars. Every match is priced against comparable listings in your own region first, by trim, not just year, make and model, so a base trim never gets priced like a Limited. Everything runs on our own servers, so there's no browser tab to keep open and nothing to babysit: set your profit threshold and let the app flag the deals. Every plan covers Kijiji, Facebook Marketplace and AutoTrader together, every province and territory, with a 125 km search radius, on a real iOS or Android app priced in CAD. Save a lead with notes, set a follow-up reminder, and on Pro you can fill, sign and share a bill of sale from the app itself (Alberta today). If Facebook Marketplace or AutoTrader is more your speed, see how we cover instant Facebook alerts and how CarSnag stacks up as a Swoopa alternative on their own, or how we handle AutoTrader car alerts specifically. If you're sourcing at dealer volume instead of one car at a time, our dealer sourcing page breaks the tool down from that side, and our other alerts and tools guides round out the rest of this lane.

The verdict: Kijiji's own alert is free and worth turning on as a floor, the dedicated tools charge real money for Kijiji-only or Kijiji-as-an- afterthought coverage, and CarSnag is the one built to show you Kijiji, Facebook Marketplace and AutoTrader together with a real price on the car, not just the listing.