Affiliate links included at no cost to you. All thoughts and opinions are my own as always. I like to keep it real!
I’ve been shopping with ThredUp, an online gently used clothing boutique for women and children, for several years now. I shop there far more frequently than I shop anywhere else except for the grocery store and Amazon. Until recently, it’s where I bought probably 90% of my clothing.
But I’ve never wanted to send in a bag to sell because I have heard rumors circulating that the pay is very disappointing for the clothing and that ThredUp seems unreasonably picky. In short, I didn’t want to get a bad taste in my mouth for a company I love so much so I just kept trekking as a shopper and not as a seller there.
But after many, MANY requests from readers to please give it a go and report back, I decided to just go for it. So in April of this year I requested a “clean out” bag from ThredUp. There is no fee to request the bag, and there is no up front fee to send it back filled with your stuff you no longer want. There is, however, a $4.99 processing fee that is taken out of whatever they offer you once they go through your bag. If they don’t offer you at least $4.99 my understanding is that they waive the outstanding fee so that you don’t owe them money, but you won’t actually be collecting money, either.
Wait a second…why wouldn’t you AT LEAST be earning $4.99 for a big bag of clothing??? Well, let me tell you all the reasons based on the experience I just had.
- The warnings are true: ThredUp is RIDICULOUSLY picky. I sent in 33 items that had already been edited by me for stains, being “worn” or just being out of style. I sent in Gymboree stuff new with tags that my kids just didn’t want to wear. Those NWT items were rejected if that gives you an idea of how unreasonably picky they can be. I had 15 items, in total, accepted for sale. That means that I had 18 items that ThredUp is going to donate. They are going to get the donation credit, and not me. I knew going in that it was a risk I was going to take, but I am still really disappointed with the result as I thought I had done a decent job of pre-screening. I was expecting to get around 75% of my items selected.
- The pay is SOOOOO low. For 12 of the items I sent in, they offered an up front payment of $7.63 (but then $4.99 got taken away for processing, leaving me with $2.64). This payout isn’t itemized by item, so I don’t really know what percentage I’m being offered, but it is LOW. It comes out to .63/item before the processing fee just to give you an idea. I could have made more per item at a garage sale! Already 3 of the 12 pieces have sold and ThredUp has made $23.98, with 9 more items from me still left to sell. I know this because you can see exactly what they list it for in your seller history and when it sells.
- They will offer things on consignment. This is another thing I just didn’t realize. If they want to buy your item but have concerns that it might take a little while to sell (for example, you send in something long sleeved that gets processed in June) they won’t pay you up front, but will list the item on consignment. You still get a crappy pay out (usually 10%, though it looks like they will offer me 20% for a blazer) but you can’t have the money until it sells. So that is another $6.00 that I can earn but I can’t have it right now and I’m not holding my breath because it might take a few months to sell. So already ThredUp is making out like a bandit, giving just 10% of what they will sell an item for to the seller, and then they won’t even take a tiny risk if they think it might not sell until the weather shifts and go ahead and pay you for the items. LAME, y’all.
- The wait for your pay is LONG. I sent the bag in late April. It was processed on June 15th (it was supposed to be June 13th but whatever) and I was offered not enough money for an iced coffee at Starbucks on June 16th. That’s a really long time to wait for less than $3, friends.
I let go of everything I put in that bag, emotionally, and declared it a worthy experiment to do for myself and for my readers. And it was certainly much easier to stuff a bag with clothes than to set up a garage sale or tag items for consignment. But now that I’ve seen what the return is (not even worth the time I had to spend waiting in line at the post office and the gas it took to get there!), I will NEVER EVER send clothes to ThredUp again. Instead, I will try out Swap.com next and report back on how that works out (they pay a much higher commission at 30%), and I will also continue to take clothes to my favorite local thrift store. I do feel bad now that all those clothes didn’t stay local and help support a nonprofit that does good work in the community. I bet the clothing I had in that bag could have made at a bare minimum $60 for Northside Neighborhood House. It was not at all worth giving that up for $2.64 in my pocket. 🙁
Have you ever sold to ThredUp? What was your experience like? Did you do better than me or about the same? Ever shopped with them? If not, my link will get you $10 to use on your first purchase. At least the shoppers can get a good deal, if not the sellers!
I sent thread up 39 huge bags of clothes most of them had new tags on it. They were very nice namebrand items. I didn’t get one penny off of all them 39 bags. It was freaking ridiculous. They kept telling me about all these fees and all that they didn’t tell me that from the beginning, I would never ever Send another piece of clothing to them. They are ripping people off, left and right lying to you and then they said some of them was donated they was not donated. They were too good to be donated and I’ve looked online and I’ve saw my items online for sale all my stuff they have sold some of them 80 bucks 90 Bucks. The lowest I found on some of the items was like $15 there would be no way I would ever send them anymore bags. They have sure sent me enough bags to send them some more items, but I’d be a fool to send them anything from now on whenever I want to get rid of something. I just take it outside And light it on fire because I am not given something that I bought to someone to make money from so that that’s what I do now when I get rid of stuff, I just take it out to my fire pit and I burn it stuff, waste my time and energy and give someone money in their pocket that they didn’t pay nothing for And I didn’t even get one cent and I planned on buying me and my daughter a new handbag with all that money that I thought I was gonna be getting with all the name-brand clothes cause we had so many so they just need to be out of business and no one needs to buy nothing from that company cause they are nothing but scan artiest and rip offs.
I sent ThredUp 39 huge bags of clothes most of them had new tags on it. They were very nice namebrand items. I didn’t get one penny off of all them 39 bags. It was freaking ridiculous. They kept telling me about all these fees and all that they didn’t tell me that from the beginning, I would never ever Send another piece of clothing to them. They are ripping people off, left and right lying to you and then they said some of them was donated they was not donated. They were too good to be donated and I’ve looked online and I saw my items online for sale all my stuff they have sold some of them 80 bucks 90 Bucks. The lowest I found on some of the items was like $15 there would be no way I would ever send them anymore bags. They have sure sent me enough bags to send them some more items, but I’d be a fool to send them anything from now on whenever I wanna get rid of something. I just take it outside And light it on fire because I am not given something that I bought to someone to make money from so that’s what I do now when I get rid of stuff I just take it out to my fire pit and I burn it. Why waste my time and energy and give someone money in their pocket that they didn’t pay nothing for And I didn’t even get one cent and I planned on buying me and my daughter a new handbag with all that money that I thought I was gonna be getting with all the namebrand clothes because we had so many so they just need to be out of business and no one needs to buy nothing from that company because they are nothing but scan artist and rip offs.
Thanks so much for your review and saving me the trouble of trying ThredUp. I’m sorry you had a lousy experience but appreciate you did it for your readers!
I started using ThredUp in 2009 and had a few good experiences with selling my clothes. Then I sent in a coat I bought at Dillards and never used. They rejected the coat and I couldn’t imagine why. So, picky? Yes, ridiculously. I stopped sending them my clothes and have been selling them on Poshmark and eBay. Also, for as picky as they are I bought a few items I didn’t think were up to par. So, done with ThredUp.
Actually, the cost of consigning items to Swap.com is much higher than the 30% commission you mentioned. When you provide your own box and print your own shipping label, each box you send in has an Inbound Service fee of $11.90 that will be deducted from your future sales proceeds. The Selling Fee is 30% of the sales price of the sold Item(s) + $1.50 per item. Also boxes must be less than 50 pounds and of a specified size that’s about the size of a medium shipping box.
Yes, there is a higher fee once your box is processed, but you know you will earn $1.50 per item plus 30% of the sale price, which is a price that you get to set. I am guessing I will come out money ahead even with the higher listing fee for my box since $1.50 is already twice was I was earning per piece with ThredUp, and then there’s another 30% on top of that. But it is, of course, going to require me actually doing it! I am expecting a shipping label from Swap.com any day now, and I’ve got a box set aside that I will stuff with as much as possible (I won’t be able to fit 50 pounds in…might need to look for a larger box for the future if it works!). I’ll be sure to do a post on my experience.
I also sent items to Thred up and was extremely disappointed . They rejected more than half of what I sent and only paid me about $2. This was a few years ago. I haven’t dealt with them since. Lesson learned.
It really causes me to wonder how they keep inventory. It seems that it is a very typical experience to send in a bag stuffed with clothes and to have less than $5 to show for it in the end. Seems like the kind of experience most folks would only have once!
I’m so glad you wrote this, Tiffany. As a professional organizer, one of the obstacles my clients often face is that they are caught up in the idea of getting a return-on-investment for whatever money they’ve put toward an article of clothing — whether it’s been well worn (and the cost long-since amortized) or never worn because it itched or didn’t fit or flatter. People hold on to clutter that doesn’t serve them in hopes of recouping a loss (that in many case wasn’t a loss at all).
I’m frugal, so I definitely don’t disagree with the value of testing ThreadUp or giving Swap.com a chance. But it’s my personal and professional view that the greatest return-on-investment comes from donating to an established non-profit, logging the donations (using a free tool like It’s Deductible), and taking the tax deduction. Whether a non-profit gives the clothing to people in need (victims of domestic abuse, homeless people, people in crisis) or sells the clothing to support their services to those in need, donations are always a blessing, a mitzvah, a good deed.
You are right, Julie! There is such an emotional attachment to our stuff. For me, it’s guilt as I realize the money I really wasted by buying things we really never needed. That’s where that hope of being able to sell them comes in. And sometimes that works out ok, but for the most part, it’s more freeing to just let it go and forgive yourself of your mistake, and try to do better in the future. And by letting it go to a charity, you turn your “mistake” into something good and helpful. 🙂
Wow! That is just awful! Thank you for researching this for your readers. I’ve been disappointed on how much consignment stores and places like Plato’s Closet will give for my items. It feels better to donate and take the tax credit although that’s probably not that much either.
I have tried consignment stores twice, I think, and they also reject the majority of items and have a pretty low payout, but it’s still better than 10% like at ThredUp!
Wowza. I have a ThredUp bag of hardly-worn clothes that I was getting ready to send. I’m going to find another option now! Thanks for being the guinea pig for the rest of us.
Yeah I recommend waiting based on my experience. I’m hoping to have a box to send to Ship.com within the next week and I’ll absolutely do a write up about it. I have no idea what their processing time is, but hopefully it’s faster than ThredUp!
My daughter also sent in a huge bag of clothing to them. There were also new items and some slightly used. She ended up getting credit for $4.00. She was very disappointed also. A hat that she sent them was listed on their website for more then what she got from her whole bag. Also it sold right away.
I LOVE shopping with ThredUp, but after my experience of sending items to the now closed Twice, I wouldn’t send items to anyone like ThredUp again!
I remember twice! I loved shopping there, too! And I do get it that ThredUp has to make a profit and that means that they need to make more than we do, and that they have to photograph, catalog, ship, possibly deal with returns, etc. Way more work than I’d want to do. But sheesh! The pickiness and payouts were both just terrible! I’d feel so much better making nothing and knowing that a local charity made money to put to good use!