What are the best platforms for selling vintage clothing?

It depends on what you're selling and how hands-on you want to be. Depop and Grailed favor curated, trend-driven and streetwear pieces with younger buyers. Poshmark and eBay have broader reach and built-in payment protection. ThredUp and similar consignment sites take a cut of the sale in exchange for handling photography, listing, and shipping for you.

How much do resale platforms charge in fees?

Most marketplaces land somewhere between 10% and 20% of the sale price. Depop and Mercari charge around 10%, eBay's final value fee is typically around 13%, and Poshmark charges a flat $2.95 on sales under $15 and 20% above that. Consignment platforms can take 40% to 60% but include service work in exchange.

Can you make a profit selling vintage online?

Yes, but the margin depends on accounting for every cost, not just the platform's cut. Sellers who only subtract the listed fee percentage from their sale price routinely overestimate profit because they forget shipping, packaging, payment processing, and the time spent on photography and listing.

What costs are involved in selling secondhand clothing?

The core costs are platform commission, payment processing fees (sometimes bundled into commission, sometimes separate), shipping (your cost or a deduction from buyer-paid shipping), packaging materials, and the cost of returns or cancelled sales. Sourcing cost, if you bought the item to resell, sits on top of all of that.

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The Hidden Costs of Selling Vintage Clothing Online

Kevin GuiJune 19, 2026

Short answer: Platform fees are the most visible cost of selling vintage clothing online, but shipping, payment processing, packaging, and returns combine to take a meaningfully larger bite than most sellers budget for. Price with the full cost stack in mind, not just the headline commission rate.

Most resale platforms charge a commission somewhere between 10% and 20% of the sale price, and that number is usually the only one sellers account for when they set a listing price. The problem is that commission is rarely the only cost. By the time shipping, packaging, and processing fees are subtracted, a $50 sale can net well under $35, and a seller who priced against a 15% fee assumption ends up disappointed every payout cycle.

The fee stack, beyond the headline commission

Platform commission. Depop and Mercari sit around 10%. eBay's final value fee runs close to 13% on most clothing categories. Poshmark takes a flat $2.95 on sales under $15 and 20% on anything above that. Consignment-style platforms that handle photography and shipping for you can take 40% to 60%, but that's a different business model entirely.
Payment processing. Some platforms fold this into the headline commission; others charge it separately, typically 2.9% plus a small flat fee per transaction. Always check whether the advertised rate is the total cut or just the marketplace's share.
Shipping. If you offer free shipping, that cost comes straight out of your margin. If the buyer pays, platforms often still take their commission on the shipping amount, not just the item price.
Packaging. Poly mailers, boxes, tissue paper, and branded inserts are small individually but add up across volume. Sellers shipping 20+ items a month often spend $1 to $3 per package without tracking it as a real cost.
Returns and cancellations. A return doesn't just cost you the sale, it can cost you return shipping, a relisting effort, and sometimes platform fees that aren't refunded even when the sale is reversed.

Where sellers miscalculate

The most common mistake is mental math that stops at "the platform takes 20%, so I'll price 20% higher." That covers commission but ignores everything else. A seller shipping a $60 jacket with free shipping, a $6 shipping cost, $2 in packaging, and a 20% platform fee nets about $40, not $48. Sellers who don't track this tend to either underprice systematically or feel like their margins are mysteriously thinner than expected.

A second miscalculation is ignoring time. Photography, listing, customer messages, and packing all take real time. It's not a fee in the traditional sense, but it changes whether a low-margin item is actually worth listing at all.

Factoring fees into your pricing

Work backward from the net amount you actually want to keep. If you want $40 net on an item, and the platform takes 20% commission plus you're covering $6 in shipping and $2 in packaging, your list price needs to clear roughly $60, not $48. Build a simple per-platform cheat sheet of commission rate, typical shipping cost, and packaging cost so you're not redoing this math on every listing.

How shipping costs change the real revenue number

Shipping is the cost most sellers underestimate because it varies by item weight and platform. A lightweight tee ships cheaply almost anywhere. A wool coat or pair of boots can run $12 to $18 in shipping, which is a meaningful percentage of a $50 to $80 sale. Sellers who offer flat-rate "free shipping" across all categories without adjusting price for heavier items are quietly subsidizing every coat and boot sale out of their own margin.

Knowing your real cost per platform before you list means you're pricing from your actual numbers instead of guesswork. Crawli lets you compare listings and pricing across Depop, Poshmark, Grailed, eBay, and more side by side, for free, so you can see where an item is positioned before you decide where and how to price it.