Garage Sale Pricing Guide: What to Charge for Everything

Typical price ranges

Every neighborhood is different, but these ranges hold up across most of the country:

• Adult clothing: $1–$5 per piece; coats and quality denim $5–$10
• Kids clothing: $0.50–$2 per piece, or bundle by the bag
• Paperback books: $0.50–$1; hardcovers $1–$3
• DVDs and CDs: $1 or less — streaming killed this market
• Kitchen items and dishes: $0.25–$5; small appliances that work $5–$15
• Toys: $0.50–$3; large or nearly-new items $5–$15
• Furniture: dressers $30–$100, sofas $25–$150, tables $20–$75 — condition is everything
• Working power tools: 30–50 percent of retail; hand tools $1–$5
• Electronics: TVs and consoles 20–30 percent of retail if recent; anything older than 8 years is nearly worthless
• Exercise equipment: $10–$50 no matter what it cost new

Rules that keep items moving

Price everything in quarter increments so change is fast. Use colored stickers with a posted key (yellow = $1, blue = $5) if labeling hundreds of small items sounds miserable.

Leave room to haggle — mark items about 20 percent above your true floor. When someone bundles several items, round the total down without being asked; it turns browsers into buyers of more.

If an item would sell for over $75–$100 (quality furniture, current electronics, collectibles, tools), consider selling it separately on a marketplace app instead. Garage sale traffic rarely pays fair value for genuinely expensive things.

The last-hour rule

Decide in advance that nothing goes back in the house. In the final hour, announce half price on everything, then fill-a-bag deals. Whatever survives goes straight into the donation pickup you scheduled for Monday — the real profit of a garage sale is the empty garage.