What's a Good Profit Margin for Reselling? (The Real Numbers)

Bought a vintage leather jacket at an estate sale for $15 last month. Sold it on eBay for $85.

Felt great until I actually did the math. Fees were like $11 and change, shipping was $12, had to buy a poly mailer... ended up with around $45 profit. Still pretty good but nowhere near the "$70 profit!" I thought I made when I was just subtracting $15 from $85.

This is where I think most people screw up when they start reselling. They see the price difference and think that's their profit. Then wonder why they're not actually making money.

The Two Numbers You Actually Need to Track

Forget ROI formulas and complicated spreadsheets. Here's what matters:

1. Profit Margin (Percentage)

How efficiently you're making money.

My jacket: $44.76 profit ÷ $85 sale price = 52% margin

2. Profit Per Item (Dollars)

Whether the item is worth your time.

My jacket: $44.76

If I spent 30 minutes sourcing, listing, and shipping that jacket, I made ~$90/hour. Worth it.

If I spent 3 hours? $15/hour. Not worth it.

What actually counts as costs?

What I subtract from my sale price:

What I paid for the item
Platform fees (Poshmark 20%, eBay ~13%, whatever)
Shipping if I'm paying for it
Shipping supplies - mailers, boxes, tape, all that stuff
Payment processing fees if they're separate

What I probably should track but don't really:

Gas to the thrift store
Storage space if you're renting
Listing fees (Etsy's $0.20 adds up)
Returns - I've had maybe 5-10% of sales returned over time

I'm pretty good about tracking the first list. The second one I just kind of estimate every few months and try to average it out.

What's a "Good" Margin? Depends on What You're Selling

When I started in 2019, I thought 50% was the magic number. Turns out it's way more nuanced.

Clothing (everyday brands): I aim for 40-60% margins.

Why the range? A $30 Target sweater I bought for $5 and sold for $18 after fees is technically a 72% margin, but only $8 profit. Not amazing. I'd rather have a 40% margin on a $100 designer item ($40 profit) any day.

Electronics: I avoid these unless the margin is 25%+ and the dollar amount is high.

I sold an iPad last year. Bought for $180, sold for $265. After fees and shipping, I cleared $62. That's a 23% margin, but $62 for one sale? I'll take it.

Books: 60-80% margins, terrible per-item profit.

I used to sell books. Made $6-12 per book after fees. Great margins on paper, terrible use of time. Stopped doing it.

The Rule I Use When Sourcing

Can I sell this for at least 3x what I'm paying?

Found a jacket for $10? Can I sell it for $30+? If not, I pass.

The 3x rule leaves room for fees, shipping, and still hitting a healthy margin.

Example:

Buy: $10
Sell: $32
Fees (20%): $6.40
Profit: $15.60
Margin: 49%

That's workable.

If I can only sell it for $25, the math breaks:

Buy: $10
Sell: $25
Fees (20%): $5
Profit: $10
Margin: 40%

Still technically profitable, but $10 profit isn't worth photographing, listing, storing, and shipping unless it's a super fast sell.

When I Accept Lower Margins

Sometimes 20% is fine.

High-value items. A 20% margin on a $500 designer bag is $100. That's worth my time.

Fast movers. If something consistently sells within 48 hours, I don't care if the margin is lower. My money isn't tied up for months.

Dead stock. If an item's been sitting for 6 months, I'll take a 15% margin just to move it. Better than $0.

Mistakes I made early on

I got really into finding high margin items when I started. Found a dress for $3, sold it for $15. 80% margin after fees! Look at me go!

Except I made $8. And it took me like 20 minutes to photograph and list. Would've been way better to buy one $20 coat and sell it for $60 than five $3 dresses but I didn't think about it that way at the time.

Platform Fees Change Everything

Same item, same $50 sale, different platforms:

Facebook (local): ~$2.50 fees = $47.50 take home (95% margin)
Mercari: ~$7.50 fees = $42.50 (85%)
eBay: ~$7 fees = $43 (86%)
Poshmark: $10 fees = $40 (80%)

That's a 15-point margin swing just from platform choice.

This is why I cross-list. An item might sit on Poshmark for a month (eating into my effective margin because of time), but sell in a week on eBay.

What I Actually Track

I use a simple Google Sheet. Three columns:

Item cost
Sale price
Platform fees + shipping

Everything else (gas, supplies, storage) I estimate monthly and average out across all sales.

After six months of tracking, I learned:

My average margin is 42%
Poshmark has my highest per-item profit ($28 average)
eBay has my fastest sell-through time (12 days average)
Mercari is my lowest margin (35%) but lowest effort

That data changed how I source and list.

The Real Answer

A "good" profit margin is whatever lets you hit your income goals without burning out.

Hobby seller clearing your closet? 30% is great.

Side hustle trying to make $500/month? You need 40-50% margins and decent volume.

Full-time? You're optimizing for $/hour, not just margin percentages.

I aim for 40% minimum, $20+ per item, unless it's a high-value item where the dollar amount makes up for a lower percentage.

If you want to see what you'd actually take home after fees, I built a calculator that breaks it down by platform. Sometimes the math surprises you.