Decluttr Review: Is Selling on Decluttr Worth It?

Decluttr is a website and app that you can sell used items on. As mentioned, it primarily focuses on electronics, such as cell phones and game consoles, but you can also use it to offload other things, such as video games, CDs/DVDs, and even books and certain toys (LEGO).

Decluttr’s selling model

Decluttr differs from other selling apps, such as eBay and Facebook Marketplace, in that it isn’t an open marketplace.

This means it won’t connect you with buyers. Instead, Decluttr themselves will purchase your items. You’ll list the goods you want to get rid of and they’ll quote you a price. If you accept it, you’ll send them your items.

After receiving them, Decluttr will turn around and resell them to another buyer at a markup. This is how they earn their money. They won’t involve you in this part of the process, and you won’t get any additional money from it.

This selling model means that as a Decluttr user, you won’t have to deal with the hassle of listing and marketing your items or communicating with buyers yourself.

On the other hand, it also means that your earnings may be lower than if you sold on another platform, since Decluttr will probably pay you a bit less than the resale value of your items would be elsewhere. Essentially, when you use Decluttr, you’re trading money for convenience.

How will Decluttr determine the value of your items?

Decluttr offers free, instant valuations for your products. Once you receive an estimate, Decluttr will lock it in for 28 days, which gives you time to consider other options.

You can kick off the valuation process on Decluttr in several ways:

• Enter the make/model of your item: On Decluttr’s website or app, you can search for the model of your product (e.g., by entering “iPhone 15” and selecting how much storage it has, like 128 GB or 256 GB).
• Scan or enter the item’s barcode: If you download Decluttr’s smartphone app, you can use your phone’s camera as a barcode scanner. Alternatively, you can manually enter the number printed below the barcode (which communicates the same information) into the app.

Once your item pops up, Decluttr will ask you to confirm it and then indicate the condition that your product is in. You don’t have to describe it in detail; just select “Excellent,” “Good,” or “Poor,” as shown in the screenshot below.

It’s best to be honest at this stage. If you claim your iPhone is in perfect condition but the company disagrees, it’ll create unnecessary hassle for you further on down the line.

After you detail all of the products you want to sell, you’ll receive a quote indicating how much Decluttr will pay for them (in total).

How packing and shipping works

Once Decluttr quotes you a price and you accept it, it’s time to ship your order out.

You’ll receive a “Welcome Pack” by email after you complete your order. This will contain a shipping label for you to print out.

Decluttr will provide this free of charge, but they won’t send you a box to package your product; you’ll have to provide your own. You can use any box you like, but make sure to choose one that will adequately protect your product. If it’s damaged in transit, Decluttr may reject it or adjust their quote. Consider including packing peanuts or bubble wrap to protect your item from bumps or scratches.

If you want to send more than one box, you’ll have to print out additional shipping labels. To do this, select your order on the website or in the app and click on “Print additional labels.”

Inspection and payment

When your product arrives at Decluttr’s warehouse, a team will assess it and determine whether or not its condition matches your description.

If it does, your payment will be processed according to the original estimate. If not, you’ll be offered a revised quote based on the actual condition. You’ll have 14 days to either accept or decline.

Once you accept Decluttr’s offer, they’ll process your payment. They claim that this usually takes no more than a day.

What will Decluttr do with your sensitive data?

Decluttr’s warehouse employees will wipe all of your personal data from your devices using an automated process called PhoneCheck, meaning that no one will have access to it at any point.

That said, they still recommend wiping your devices on your end as well. 1 Moreover, they require you to remove your iCloud account from Apple devices before sending them in. If you fail to do this, your payment might be delayed.

Decluttr primarily buys used electronics, but it also accepts video games, DVDs, CDs, books, and certain toys. Refer to the table below to see what items they buy (and what they currently don’t accept).

Items Accepted by Decluttr

Decluttr’s other restrictions

Decluttr doesn’t accept any items that aren’t listed in the table above, including VHS tapes, vinyl records, or cassettes.

They also mention on their website that they do not accept damaged or incomplete items, pirated media, or “promo items that came free with a magazine or paper.” 2

Selling on Decluttr is fast and easy, but how much will they actually pay you? In this section, we’ll describe the factors that will affect your payouts and list a few example prices.

Factors that affect item valuations on Decluttr

Decluttr’s valuation algorithm is proprietary, so they aren’t upfront about exactly how they determine the price of each item. That said, they’re open about the most important factors they consider, which include:

• Brand
• Make and model
• Storage space
• Condition

As you’d expect, the newer your item is, the more storage it has, and the better its condition, the more it will sell for. Items from popular brands (such as Apple) also command higher prices.

One less obvious factor that affects the price of smartphones is whether or not they’re carrier locked. If your phone only accepts SIM cards from a certain carrier, like Verizon or T-Mobile, Decluttr won’t pay you as much for it.

What are Decluttr’s typical prices like?

Again, Decluttr isn’t transparent about how their pricing algorithm works, so it can be a bit unpredictable what they’ll pay you for any given product.

That said, we’ve assembled a list of fairly representative examples to give you an idea of what you can expect. We also searched for equivalent items (of the same make, model, and roughly the same condition) on eBay and compiled their average (mean) prices to provide a basis for comparison.

As you’ll see, while Decluttr certainly offers real money for your used items, they offer significantly less than what you’ll find elsewhere.

Example Electronics Prices on Decluttr

* Prices on both Decluttr and eBay change frequently. This list is current as of May 2024. 

To get an idea of what media products usually sell for, we also tested a few video games, CDs, DVDs, and textbooks (chosen essentially at random, although we attempted to cast a wide net to make our sample as representative as possible).

We found that—perhaps unsurprisingly—Decluttr quoted very low prices for media products compared to what they offered us for electronics.

Example Media Prices on Decluttr

* Again, prices change frequently. List current as of May 2024.

Decluttr’s prices for media products virtually never reach $10, and in many cases, they’ll just pay you a few cents for them.

This isn’t drastically out of step with what you’ll find elsewhere—it’s only natural for books and used CDs to sell for less than iPhones—but it means that unless you have a very large collection to offload, going through the trouble of packaging your items and sending them to Decluttr might not be worth the effort. (It’s significantly easier and only a little less lucrative to simply donate the contents of your shelves to a charity and claim a small tax deduction for it.)

How you’ll get paid on Decluttr

There are three different payment options on Decluttr:

If you choose to make a charitable donation, Decluttr will present you with a short list of options. The charities on offer may vary from time to time or location to location. When we tested the site (from an address in Northern Virginia), we had three options:

• Habitat for Humanity (Atlanta)
• United Way
• Waste Waid

Signing up for Decluttr is easy. We tested the process ourselves, and it took us just a few seconds to get up and running. All you have to do is visit their website and click Register in the top right-hand corner.

You’ll need to enter a few pieces of personal information, including your:

• Name
• Email address
• Home address
• Date of birth
• Cell phone number

Decluttr has no initial verification process. They won’t send you a confirmation text or email, so as soon as you enter all of that info, you’re ready to start listing your items.

Requirements for sellers

Per Decluttr’s terms of service, there are several requirements that you have to meet to sell on the platform. You must:

• Be at least 18 years old
• Be the legal owner of the items you want to sell, or have permission from the owner
• Live in the US or one of its territories or possessions

Decluttr also stipulates that all sellers must behave in a law-abiding manner that’s compliant with their Terms & Conditions.

There’s nothing tricky in there that you need to worry about; just don’t misrepresent your items, try to sell anything that’s stolen or counterfeit, or lie about your personal info.

Where to download Decluttr

It’s possible to sell your stuff via Decluttr’s website, but you can also sell via their mobile app, which you can download using the buttons below.

App Store Google Play

As we’ve mentioned, selling on Decluttr usually means earning less than you would if you sold your secondhand items yourself (e.g., on eBay, by holding a garage or yard sale, etc.).

That doesn’t necessarily mean that using Decluttr is a bad idea. While you can get more money if you sell your products yourself, doing so is a lot more work, and not everyone has the time or inclination to do that.

Decluttr may be worth using if you’re not a habitual eBay user, don’t know the ins and outs of the platform, and have no particular aspirations to start an ongoing side hustle as an online merchant. Just be aware that you’ll earn less money than you would elsewhere.

Customer complaints against Decluttr

It’s worth noting that some of Decluttr’s users have claimed that the company doesn’t always behave ethically.

If you spend a while browsing online product flipping (reselling) communities, you may encounter horror stories about Decluttr, such as the ones found in this Reddit thread in the r/Flipping community. These include:

• Decluttr’s warehouse evaluations are often unfair, causing them to drastically slash their original quoted prices
• When Decluttr returns rejected items, they package them badly, risking damage
• Decluttr may erroneously flag items as “reported stolen” (and refuse to sell or return them)
• Decluttr’s customer support staff are hard to get in touch with regarding these issues

These are serious allegations. We haven’t seen any hard evidence confirming them, but they’re widespread enough that we aren’t able to completely discount them, either.

Decluttr’s Better Business Bureau (BBB) page has an alert dated to April 2023 stating that “Decluttr has a pattern of complaint alleging Refund and Exchange Issues.” As of the time of writing, they have 775 complaints from the past 3 years and a (relatively low) customer rating of 1.86 out of 5 stars.

How to protect yourself when you use Decluttr

The allegations we just described don’t necessarily mean that Decluttr isn’t safe to use. Virtually all large companies accumulate at least a few horror stories online, which aren’t necessarily representative of the typical customer experience.

For context, Decluttr’s Trustpilot page also features many positive reviews from sellers who experienced no issues (although we can’t guarantee that these ratings are all legitimate).

The upshot is that using Decluttr isn’t necessarily a bad choice, but if you do, you should take steps to protect yourself. We recommend:

• Making a full list of everything you send to Decluttr
• Comprehensively documenting every item with pictures/videos

Take pictures of your electronics from every angle (with good lighting) so that any damage is readily apparent, and take a video of yourself packaging each item in case Decluttr erroneously reports any as missing.

If you do experience issues with Decluttr and Decluttr’s customer service isn’t helpful or responsive, file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. The BBB is a private nonprofit, not a governmental organization, and it has no official power to intervene, but companies still generally take claims filed with them seriously—provided you have enough documentation.