How to Sell on ThredUp and Consignment in 2026: Payouts, Fees & When It Pays

Consignment means someone else photographs, prices, lists and ships your item, and pays you a share when it sells. You trade most of the sale price for your time. For a closet of $8 tops that’s a good deal. For a $120 pair of boots it usually isn’t. This guide covers ThredUp, the biggest online option for everyday clothing, and local consignment shops. Luxury pieces are a different game: see how to sell on The RealReal.

Who ThredUp is for, and what it takes

ThredUp takes up to 30 lb per Clean Out of gently used women’s and kids’ clothing, handbags, shoes and accessories. Items must be clean, in good condition, unaltered and have a size label. It accepts all brands, but about 5% of its brand catalog earns no payout at all (unless the item sells for $20 or more).

What ThredUp won’t take:

• Men’s clothing and accessories.
• Items without size tags (luxury brands and Lululemon excepted). Kids’ items must also have a brand tag.
• Undergarments, slips, pajamas, slippers and robes.
• Tailored, homemade or altered items; wedding dresses and ballgowns.
• Work uniforms and adult costumes; local team or place graphics; “free with purchase” promo items.
• Most jewelry (watches are fine), phone and tablet cases, hair accessories.

It’s best for someone clearing out a lot of mid-market women’s or kids’ clothing who wants it gone with no listing work. It’s a poor fit for anyone trying to maximise what each piece earns.

Standard vs Premium Clean Out

Premium is aimed at better brands. The fee is bigger, but you get your rejects back and a longer window to sell. Lower-end brands get the shorter window in each tier (30 days Standard, 60 Premium); higher-end brands get the longer one. In September 2026 ThredUp was advertising the Standard service fee and bag fee as $0 for bags returned within 30 days — a promotion, so check the current terms when you order.

How to send your first Clean Out

1. Sort first. Pull out anything worth roughly $25+ to sell yourself (check with a quick sold search). Pull out men’s, altered, untagged and stained items — ThredUp won’t take them.
2. Check brands. Look up anything borderline in ThredUp’s earnings estimator and no-payout brand list, which also shows each brand’s consignment window.
3. Choose Standard or Premium. Mostly mall brands: Standard. A handful of contemporary or designer pieces you’d want back if rejected: Premium.
4. Order a bag or a label. The bag holds 30 lb and takes about a week to arrive. A label works on any box and ships free from a UPS drop-off; you can also book an Uber pickup for a fee.
5. Review prices when items go live. ThredUp prices everything with its own algorithm. You can raise prices (within the limits above) or lower them to $4.99, any time before an item is added to a cart.
6. Decide on reclaims. In the last 7 days of an item’s window you can pay $5.99 plus shipping to get it back. Only worth it for pieces you can sell yourself for well above that.

ThredUp payouts: the real numbers

You earn a percentage of the final selling price, only if the item sells inside its consignment window. The percentage rises with the price. ThredUp’s published examples:

For prices in between, use ThredUp’s earnings estimator. Three things shrink the number further. ThredUp lowers prices over time and discounts to buyers, and both cut your share (Premium caps the buyer-discount impact at 20%). The service fee comes off your total. And on average 38% of accepted items don’t sell in their window at all.

Worked example: a Standard bag of 20 items

Say you send 20 mall-brand pieces. Using ThredUp’s own averages and price points (the mix is our assumption):

• About 70% accepted: 14 items listed. The other 6 are recycled.
• About 62% of those sell in the window: 9 items.
• One jacket sells at $50 (30% = $15.00), four tops at $20 (15% = $3.00 each, $12.00), four at $5 (3% = $0.15 each, $0.60).
• Gross earnings: $15.00 + $12.00 + $0.60 = $27.60.
• Minus the $14.99 service fee: $12.61 in ThredUp credit.

Convert that to cash and ThredUp’s cash-out page lists a small PayPal or Stripe transfer fee. Now compare the jacket alone: sold yourself on Poshmark at $40 after an offer, you’d keep $32.00 (the 20% fee is $8). One decent item sold yourself beats the whole bag. That’s the point of sorting first.

Shipping and timeline

Shipping to ThredUp is free either way: the prepaid bag or a free label on your own box, dropped at UPS. From ordering a bag to your final payout, ThredUp says most Standard Clean Outs take 10–14 weeks and Premium 16–20 weeks. Most items go live within a day of processing, the rest within 15 days. Earnings trickle in as individual items sell. If a buyer returns an item, its consignment window resumes from the day it originally sold.

Local consignment shops

Experience, not survey data: a local consignment or resale boutique usually pays 40–60% of the sale price — often 40% for clothing and closer to 50–60% for furniture, higher ticket items or designer pieces. Contracts typically run 60–90 days, with automatic markdowns (often 20–30% after 30 days, more after 60). Terms vary shop to shop, so read the contract for:

• The split and whether it changes at higher prices.
• The markdown schedule and whether you can set a floor price.
• What happens at the end. Many shops donate or keep unsold items if you don’t pick up within a short grace period. Put the date in your calendar.
• How and when you’re paid: check, store credit (often a bigger share), or account balance you must request.
• Intake rules: seasons accepted, item limits, hangers, appointment-only drop-off.
• Damage and theft: who bears the loss while the item is in the store.

Local shops are pickier than ThredUp — current-season, on-trend, spotless — but on a $60 item a 40–50% split pays $24–$30, versus under $20 at ThredUp’s published rates. Buy-outright resale stores pay less still, but they pay on the spot.

When consignment beats selling it yourself

Consign when:

• Items are low value. Photographing, listing and shipping a $10 top can take 20–30 minutes for $5–$7 net. If your time is worth more than that, a bag of them belongs at ThredUp or a donation bin.
• You have volume and no storage. A 30 lb bag clears a closet in an afternoon.
• You won’t actually list it. A $3 payout beats an unlisted pile.
• You don’t want buyers, messages, offers or returns.

Sell it yourself when:

• It’s worth about $25 or more. On Poshmark, Mercari or eBay you keep roughly 80–90% before shipping; ThredUp pays 30% at $50. See which marketplace to sell on.
• It’s men’s, vintage or niche, which ThredUp rejects or underprices.
• It’s bulky or local, like furniture — try selling locally first.
• You’re building a reselling business. Consignment has no margin in it for you.

Experience, not data: the best approach for most closets is a split. Sell the top 10–20% of pieces yourself, take the mid-range to a local shop, and send the rest to ThredUp or donate it.

Common mistakes

• Sending your best pieces in a Standard bag. They get the same low percentage and a short window, and rejects never come back.
• Forgetting the service fee when judging whether a small bag is worth sending.
• Sending men’s or untagged items to ThredUp. They’ll be recycled, not paid.
• Paying to reclaim cheap items. $5.99 plus shipping only makes sense for pieces worth $30+.
• Missing a local shop’s pickup deadline, and losing unsold items to donation.