Free tool
Resale profit calculator
What you actually take home from a flip, across all four US marketplaces at once. Enter three numbers and the fees, the label and your cost come off automatically.
Best net on these numbers
Poshmark$29.00
20% at $15 and over, a flat $2.95 below that. The buyer always pays shipping.
| Marketplace | Fees | Net profit | Margin | Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poshmark | $9.00 | $29.00 | 64% | 414% |
| Depop | $1.94 | $27.06 | 60% | 387% |
| Mercari | $4.50 | $24.50 | 54% | 350% |
| eBay (Basic Store) | $6.12 | $22.88 | 51% | 327% |
| eBay | $6.52 | $22.48 | 50% | 321% |
Margin is net profit as a share of what the buyer paid. Return is net profit against what you spent on the item — the number that tells you whether your cash is working hard enough. Most resellers hold a floor of roughly $15 net and 3× return (300%) per item.
Method — Fee rates are read from each marketplace’s own published fee documentation and were verified on 8 September 2026: eBay 13.6% (12.7% with a Basic Store) plus a $0.30–$0.40 per-order fee; Poshmark 20%, or a flat $2.95 under $15; Mercari a flat 10% with no processing fee; Depop no US selling fee, with 3.3% + $0.45 processing. Sales tax is excluded — eBay does charge its fee on collected tax, so real eBay figures run slightly worse than shown. Full sourcing is in Reseller fees explained.
Valuation
The six analyses behind the number you type in
A calculator cannot tell you what something is worth — it needs you to already know. Everything above happens after the hard part. This is the hard part.
Sold comparables, never asking prices
An active listing is somebody’s hope. A sold listing is evidence that a price exists. eBay is the only US marketplace that publishes completed sales, which is why an honest valuation starts there — and why any Poshmark, Depop or Mercari number is an estimate rather than a measurement.
A sample, not a single sale
One $180 result proves nothing. Pull the most recent ten to twenty sold comps for the same item, discard the visible outliers at both ends, and take the median. If you cannot find five genuine matches, you do not have a valuation — you have a guess with a number attached.
Sell-through, the number most people skip
Price and probability are different questions. An item that fetches $120 once a year is worth less to you than one that fetches $45 every week, because the second returns your capital eleven more times. Compare sold against active listings for the same search before you judge a price good.
Condition and completeness, adjusted before you buy
Comps assume the photos. A missing box, cracked hardware, an old repair, pilling, a faint underarm mark — each one moves the number, and the buyer will find it. Take the deduction at the rack while putting the item back is still free, not after the return request.
Identification precision
Your valuation can never be more accurate than your identification. Two visually identical Carhartt jackets can differ threefold on the tag alone, and a comp search for the wrong model returns a confident, useless answer. Read the label, the composition tag and the country of manufacture first.
Fees, shipping and season
Only now does the gross figure become money. Subtract the marketplace’s cut, the label, and what you paid; on a $40 sale those routinely take a third. Season matters too — a wool coat comped in July is being valued in its worst month.
Method — Only the first step rests on published data: eBay is the sole US marketplace that releases completed-sale prices. The comp-count, sell-through and condition rules above are practitioner method rather than measured statistics, and are worth testing against your own sold history. Identification technique is covered in vintage brands worth money and the sourcing side in how to price a thrift find.
Questions
- How do I find out what a thrift item is worth?
- Search completed, sold listings for the exact item — not active listings, which only show what sellers hope for. Take the median of the most recent ten to twenty genuine matches, adjust down for condition and missing pieces, then subtract marketplace fees and shipping. eBay is the only US marketplace that publishes real completed-sale data, so it is where a valuation should start.
- What is the best way to value a thrift find before buying it?
- Value it at the rack, in this order: identify the item precisely enough to write a listing title, find sold comparables for that exact identification, check how often it actually sells rather than only what it sells for, deduct for condition, then subtract fees and shipping. If the net figure does not clear your floor, put it back — that decision is free before the register and expensive after.
- How do you calculate resale profit?
- Take the sale price, add any shipping the buyer paid, then subtract the marketplace commission, any payment processing and per-order fees, the cost of the shipping label, and what you paid for the item. What remains is net profit. The most common error is forgetting that eBay charges its percentage on the shipping and sales tax as well as the item.
- Which marketplace gives the highest profit?
- It depends on the item and who pays shipping. Depop has no US selling fee, so it wins on light items. Poshmark takes 20% but the buyer always pays shipping, so it often wins on heavy items. Enter your own numbers above rather than relying on a general answer.
- What is a good profit margin on a thrift flip?
- Most working resellers hold two floors at once: at least about $15 net profit per item, and at least a 3× return on what they paid. The dollar floor covers the fixed effort of listing and shipping; the multiple keeps cash moving rather than tied up.
- Does this calculator store my data?
- No. Every calculation runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, logged or sent to a server, and the page sets no cookies.
All six steps, from one photo, at the rack
The calculator needs you to already know the sale price. Thrift Snap finds it — photograph the item and it identifies the piece, pulls real eBay sold comparables, runs this same fee maths and gives you a net figure and a buy-or-skip call before you reach the register.
Free to start, no card required. See how Thrift Snap works or compare plans.