Where to Sell Used Items: Fees Compared on 9 Platforms, With the Math

The best place to sell used stuff, matched to what you are selling

The best platform is the one where buyers already look for your kind of item, at the lowest fee that still reaches them. Bulky things sell locally; small, branded things ship well; electronics and vintage have specialist markets.

If you are unsure, list heavy things locally and anything that fits in a box on one shipping app.

Selling things you already own is one of the few ways to make money with nothing to buy first, which is why it features in our guides to real ways to make money from home for free and how to earn money fast.

Work out what you'll keep before you list: fees on a $40 sale, platform by platform

Before you decide where to sell used items, enter your price, any buyer-paid shipping and sales tax in the calculator below, and it applies each platform's published formula. It matters because platforms charge their percentage on different things: some on the item price only, some on price plus shipping, and some on the whole order including sales tax.

Here is a $40 item with no buyer-paid shipping and no sales tax, computed from each fee page as read on October 13, 2026.

Two notes on the arithmetic. Swappa's processing line uses $41.20 because, per Swappa, PayPal's 3.49% + $0.49 applies to the payment total, which includes the buyer's separate 3% fee ($40 × 1.03 = $41.20); $41.20 × 3.49% is $1.43788, rounded to $1.44.

Fees are only part of the picture: a free local sale takes a meet-up, and a shipped sale takes packing. Our side hustles hub compares selling with other ways to earn.

Selling locally for $0: OfferUp and Facebook Marketplace

For anything heavy or awkward to ship, local selling wins on fees and speed.

OfferUp

OfferUp's help center says it "only supports local, in-person transactions", and it doesn't charge fees or take a commission from in-person sales. Optional paid features, such as promotions, extra listings beyond the free monthly allotment, and Premium, cost extra.

The notable change: OfferUp ended nationwide shipping. According to its support page, new listings could not select shipping from September 23, 2025, and shipping was removed from all remaining listings on October 21, 2025. Any calculator or article still showing a shipped-sale fee for OfferUp is out of date.

Facebook Marketplace

Local pickup paid in person outside Marketplace checkout carries no Meta selling fee. For shipped orders that go through checkout, Meta's Seller Protection Policy sets the selling fee for individual sellers at 10% of the entire transaction, meaning item price plus shipping plus applicable taxes, with a minimum fee of $0.80.

The minimum matters for cheap items. On a $5 shipped sale, 10% would be $0.50, so the $0.80 minimum applies and you keep $4.20. One more thing to know: an older Meta marketing page still says 5%, but the binding policy says 10%, so plan on 10%.

Sell used items online and ship them: eBay and Mercari

When the right buyer probably lives in another state, a shipping marketplace reaches them.

eBay

eBay charges 13.6% of the total amount of the sale on the first $7,500 per item, plus 2.35% on any portion above $7,500, plus a per-order fee of $0.40, or $0.30 if the order total is $10.00 or less (eBay: Selling fees). There is no separate payment-processing fee. Your first 250 listings a month are free; after that, insertion fees are $0.35 per listing.

The catch is the fee base. "Total amount of the sale" includes the item price, handling, buyer-paid shipping and sales tax, so your effective rate on the item price alone is higher than 13.6%. Worked example: a $40 item where the buyer pays a hypothetical 8% sales tax ($3.20) has a total of $43.20. The fee is 13.6% × $43.20 = $5.88, plus $0.40, so $6.28, and you keep $33.72 of your $40 price. For an $8 sale with no shipping or tax, the fee is 13.6% × $8 = $1.09, plus $0.30, so $1.39.

Some categories differ: books, movies and music (excluding vinyl) are 15.3%, and sneakers are 8% with no per-order fee when the total sale is $150 or more.

Mercari

Mercari takes 10% of the item price plus any buyer-paid shipping, with no separate seller payment-processing fee (Mercari: Fees). That flat structure took effect January 6, 2025, for listings created or updated on or after that date. Direct deposit payouts are free. Optional Instant Pay costs a flat $3 per cash-out. Buyers pay their own fees, which don't reduce your payout.

Apps to sell used stuff that's mostly clothing: Poshmark, Depop and ThredUp

Clothing has its own marketplaces, and their fee designs differ sharply.

Poshmark

Poshmark's fee policy is two-tiered: under $15, a flat $2.95; at $15 and up, 20% of the final order price, so you keep 80%. A $12 sale nets $9.05; a $15.00 sale falls in the 20% tier, so the fee is $3.00 and you keep $12.00. Listing is free, and the buyer pays for the shipping label.

Depop

US sellers pay no Depop selling fee. Payment processing through Depop Payments is 3.3% + $0.45 per sale, charged on the item price plus shipping and any applicable taxes (Depop: Seller fees). The newer cost is optional boosting: from March 23, 2026, Boosted listings in the US carry a 12% fee on the item price, plus shipping if you didn't use a Depop label. On a boosted $40 sale with no shipping, that adds $4.80 to the $1.77 processing fee. All fees are reversed if the sale is refunded.

ThredUp Clean Out

ThredUp is consignment, not a fee formula. You send a bag of women's or kids' clothing, handbags, shoes or accessories (no men's items), and ThredUp prices and lists what it accepts. If an item sells within its consignment window, you earn a percentage of its selling price that rises with price. ThredUp's own examples: a $200 sale pays 80% ($160), $100 pays 60% ($60), $50 pays 30% ($15), $20 pays 15% ($3) and $5 pays 3% ($0.15).

ThredUp also says about 5% of brands earn no payout, an average of 38% of accepted items don't sell within their window, and a per-bag service fee ($14.99 Standard, shown discounted to $0.00 when we read the page; $34.99 Premium) comes out of earnings after items sell.

Specialist markets: Swappa for electronics, Etsy for vintage

When you are working out where to sell used items like a phone or a 1970s lamp, a specialist market can beat the general apps.

Swappa

Swappa is built for used phones, tablets, laptops and game consoles. The seller pays 3% of the sold price to Swappa; the buyer separately pays a 3% fee on top of the listing price. PayPal then takes 3.49% + $0.49 of the payment total, or Stripe 2.9% + $0.30 where available (Swappa: Fees). Listing is free.

Etsy (vintage only)

Etsy is only an option for vintage items 20 or more years old, craft supplies and handmade goods; ordinary used things don't qualify. The fees stack: a $0.20 listing fee per item whether or not it sells, a 6.5% transaction fee on item price plus shipping plus gift wrapping (not on sales tax for US sellers), and payment processing of 3% + $0.25 on the total sale including tax and shipping (Etsy: Fees & Payments Policy; Etsy Help: payment processing). Ads fees are extra.

Meeting buyers and getting paid without getting scammed

The FTC's advice for people selling online notes that many sites recommend selling to a local buyer you meet in person for cash, and lists the traps that catch sellers most often:

• Overpayment. "Never deposit a check for more than the selling price." A buyer who sends too much and asks for the difference back is running a fake-check scam.
• Fake payment notices. "Don't accept a mobile payment from someone you don't know." Scammers send a fake payment notification and hope you ship first.
• Verification codes. "Don't share your Google Voice verification code — or any verification code — with someone you don't know." A buyer who wants to "confirm you're real" with a code is trying to take over your number.
• A cleared check is not a good check. "When a bank says the check cleared, that doesn't mean it was a good check." The FTC says fake checks can take weeks to be discovered, and by then you owe the bank.
• Shipped sales. If you're not selling locally, the FTC suggests seeing what seller protections the site offers. In practice, that means keeping the whole conversation and payment inside the app.

For meet-ups, practical habits help: meet in a public place, tell someone or bring someone with you, and count the cash before you hand over the item. Some police departments offer a designated spot for these exchanges. The Opelika, Alabama police department, for example, offers citizens a safe location to meet up for buying and selling online goods. Ask your local department whether it has one. The same red flags appear in job offers, and our page on work from home scams covers those.

Do you pay tax when you sell your own used stuff?

Usually not, if you sold it for less than you paid. The IRS says, in its guidance on what to do with Form 1099-K: "If you sold items at a loss, which means you sold the items for less than you paid, there is no tax liability." It adds that "a loss on the sale of a personal item can't be deducted from your taxes." So the $40 jacket you bought for $120 creates no tax, and also no write-off.

The other side of the rule: "If you made a profit or gain on the sale of a personal item, your profit is taxable." A collectible bought for $20 and sold for $60 is a gain, reported on Form 8949 and Schedule D.

Will you get a 1099-K? Payment apps and online marketplaces are not required to file one unless your payments exceed $20,000 and the number of transactions exceeds 200, the threshold the IRS says a 2025 law reinstated (IRS, Oct. 23, 2025). Some platforms send one anyway. If you receive a 1099-K for personal items sold at a loss, the IRS page explains how to report it so the amount zeroes out.

When it becomes a business. Buying items in order to resell them is different from clearing out your closet. Profit from that is business income, and the IRS says income must be reported whether or not you receive a Form 1099-K. Our explainer on what a side hustle is covers where the IRS draws that line, and our guide to side hustles from home covers reselling as a business. This is general information, not tax advice. For the full range of ways to earn beyond selling, see our main guide on how to make money from home.