Used gear doesn't have one market. It has a few big platforms that ship anywhere and, under them, a local market in every country: Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace in the United States, Gumtree in the UK, Kleinanzeigen in Germany, Leboncoin in France, Wallapop in Spain, Mercari in Japan. The same Stratocaster can sit on five of them at five prices, and nobody browses them all.
This guide sorts them the way that matters for your money: who holds it while the gear travels, what the price on the screen really means, and what a border adds on top. Where it gives a number, the number is measured on the marketplaces Doirado watches, and it says so; the notes on platforms we do not measure are editorial.
One number to hold onto
Across the marketplaces we watch, asking prices sit about 34% above what the same gear actually sells for: comparing each product's live fixed-price asks for used gear in working order with recorded sales of the same product over the last 90 days (as of 4 October 2026, products with eight or more sales), the median ask is 34% over the median sale. Sellers anchor high and drift down. Two practical consequences: never treat an asking price as a market price, and never feel rude offering less, because the market already does. How a recorded sale differs from an ask, and how the typical price is built from them, is its own guide. For a concrete case, open a product page, the Quad Cortex say, and hold onto the typical used price there, not the asks around it.
Used gear in working order, fixed-price asks only; products with eight or more recorded sales (3,436 in all).
The split that actually matters: who holds the money?
Forget country-by-country lists. The real dividing line is escrow: whether the platform holds your payment until the gear arrives as described. On one side sit Reverb and eBay: fees, higher prices, and real recourse when a "mint" amp arrives rattling. On the other side sits everything local: no fees, the lowest prices, and nothing between you and a stranger with a guitar.
With a safety net: Reverb
Platform holds the money- Seller pays
- About 5%, plus payment fees
- Buyer pays
- Nothing extra, it's in the price
- Price level
- Asks 29% over recorded sales
- Best for
- Rare or valuable gear, and anything far away
The only major marketplace built solely for music gear, and the only one that behaves the same in every country. Payment goes through the platform, condition is graded, disputes have a referee, and shipping across borders is the norm. You pay for all of it: Reverb asks run high. The median Reverb ask sits 29% over recorded sales of the same product (last 90 days, as of 4 October 2026, products with eight or more sales). Serious sellers, serious gear, serious prices.
As a buyer: best for anything rare, anything far away, any purchase where recourse matters more than price. Just remember "Make Offer" is the norm, so the listed price is an opening position.
As a seller: the highest ceiling there is and the only audience of collectors, in exchange for ~5% plus payment fees and patient waiting. List anything rare or above ~€500 here even if you also list it locally: the right buyer for special gear is rarely in your city.
With a safety net: eBay
Platform holds the money- Seller pays
- About a tenth or more; private sellers in Germany and the UK pay nothing
- Buyer pays
- Nothing from businesses; a protection fee on private sellers in some countries
- Price level
- Fixed-price asks 93% over sales; a closed auction is a sale
- Best for
- Auctions, and mainstream gear bought from far away
eBay's country sites (ebay.com, ebay.co.uk, ebay.de and the rest) pair the same buyer protection with something Reverb lost long ago: auctions. A closed auction with bids is a sale, a hammer price, and we record it as one. A live bid is not an asking price and not a saving against the typical: the last minutes decide it. Auctions ending at odd hours are still where genuine bargains surface on a protected platform. eBay's fixed-price asks, on the other hand, run highest of the platforms we measure: the median ask sits 93% over recorded sales of the same product (same 90-day window), which is why the auction side of eBay is where to hunt.
As a buyer: best for mainstream gear, auction hunting, and protected buying from far away, in the US, the UK and Germany above all, where the auction habit is strongest. Watch shipping, and at a border the import costs, quietly erase the bargain.
As a seller: fees depend on the country: private sellers on eBay Germany and the UK pay none, most others pay around a tenth of the price or more, and disputes tilt toward buyers, but nothing else reaches as many buyers at once. Auctions close at a real price, fast, when an item is genuinely sought-after, and brutal when it isn't. Fixed price with offers is the safer default.
No safety net: the local classifieds
Nobody holds the money- Seller pays
- Nothing
- Buyer pays
- Nothing, and no recourse once cash changes hands
- Price level
- Lowest: asks 24% over sales where we measure them
- Best for
- Workhorse gear you can collect and play first
Now the other side of the line: no escrow, no fees, no recourse, and the lowest real prices anywhere, because the audience is one city deep and cash still talks. This is where most used gear in the world actually changes hands.
Every country has its own. Facebook Marketplace is everywhere, with the biggest audience, the thinnest listings, and asks close to what things sell for. Under it sit the national names: Craigslist in the United States, Kijiji in Canada, Gumtree in the UK and Australia, Kleinanzeigen in Germany, Leboncoin in France, Marktplaats in the Netherlands, Subito in Italy, Blocket in Sweden, OLX in Poland and Romania. All cases live there: the beaten Squier and the untouched Custom Shop, the honest seller and the scammer, sometimes on the same screen. Where we measure the local classifieds, their asks sit 24% over recorded sales of the same product (last 90 days, as of 4 October 2026), against about 34% across everything we watch.
Wallapop is the step up. Spain's classifieds app carries noticeably more real instruments at real prices than its siblings, and it plays on both sides of the escrow line. A shipped Wallapop order goes through the platform's protection: payment held until delivery, small fee on the buyer. A face-to-face deal is a cash deal like any classifieds. Many sellers simply won't ship an instrument, so in practice: use the protected route when a seller will ship, and treat the rest as any classifieds with better inventory: meet, play it, pay in person.
As a buyer: the lowest prices, you try before you pay, and heavy gear nobody ships lives here. There's no recourse after cash changes hands. Meet in person, test everything, and check the price against real sold data first. Ignore every "my courier will collect it" message; that's a script, not a buyer.
As a seller: free, fast for common gear, and cash in hand, paid for in lowballs, "is it still available?" silence, and no-shows. Your ceiling is lower here: local buyers pay local prices. Price near the real market and common gear moves in days; price at hope and it sits for months.
The odd one out: Vinted
Platform holds the money- Seller pays
- Nothing
- Buyer pays
- A protection fee
- Price level
- Below the classifieds, for beginner gear
- Best for
- First instruments and near-new beginner gear, in Europe
Europe's second-hand clothes giant quietly opened its doors to musical instruments, and it doesn't fit neatly on either side of the line: it does hold the money until delivery, but the shelf is nothing like Reverb's. Vinted's instruments are mostly casual sellers, not musicians: the parent selling the kid's guitar that never left its box, the drawer-cleanout microphone, the impulse-bought ukulele. That makes it a poor place to hunt professional gear and a genuinely good place to find barely-used beginner instruments below classifieds prices.
As a buyer: best for first instruments, near-new beginner gear, and buying for kids. Descriptions are written by people who can't tell a Stratocaster from a Telecaster, so study the photos, not the title.
As a seller: the fastest exit for casual and beginner gear. The buyer pays the platform's fee, shipping is handled, and the audience is huge. Just check what it's actually worth before listing, or you become the underpricing seller everyone else is hunting for.
Japan: the deep end
Platform holds the money- Seller pays
- Platform fees
- Buyer pays
- A proxy's fee from abroad, then import costs
- Price level
- Deep vintage stock, strict condition notes
- Best for
- Vintage and Japanese-made gear
Japan's used market is deep, careful and well kept, and a lot of the vintage gear that surfaces around the world comes out of it. At home it runs on Yahoo! Auctions, Mercari and Digimart, a marketplace of gear shops; from abroad most buyers reach those through a proxy service that bids, collects and reships for a fee. Japanese sellers on eBay and Reverb skip that step and ship worldwide, which is why Japan turns up so often among the deals: on 4 October 2026, 15 of the 71 shipped deals on Doirado were in Japan. Shop condition notes there tend to be strict, and a guitar crossing the Pacific still meets customs at the other end, which is the next section.
Buying across a border
A deal can stop being a deal at customs. Whenever gear crosses into a different customs area, the import costs land on top of the price, at the door:
- Into the EU: import VAT at your country's rate, around a fifth of the price plus shipping, customs duty on some gear, and the courier's clearance fee. Inside the EU nothing is due: a guitar from Germany to France travels like a domestic parcel.
- Into the UK: 20% import VAT, duty on some gear and the clearance fee, from the EU as from anywhere else.
- Into the United States: since the duty-free allowance for small parcels ended in 2025, nearly everything shipped in pays tariffs set by the country it comes from, plus a broker's fee.
Add the shipping of a guitar across an ocean, and 20 to 30% on top of the listed price is a fair rough guess. A listing 15% under the typical price on another continent is usually a loss by the time it reaches you. That is why the deals on Doirado show, where we know your country, only what is inside your own customs area, with the rest one click away.
The shop counter: Thomann, Sweetwater and the dealers
Shop warranty instead- Seller pays
- A trade-in, well under the market
- Buyer pays
- Nothing extra, it's in the price
- Price level
- Ceiling prices
- Best for
- Peace of mind, and the ceiling a used price should never cross
Thomann's B-stock in Europe, Sweetwater's used and demo gear in the United States, Guitar Center's used section, and the used walls of large dealers everywhere sell at retail-adjacent prices with warranties attached. You will not find a deal here in the flipper's sense, and that's the point: it's the option where nothing can go wrong, priced accordingly.
The comparison, in one table
| Platform | Escrow | Seller pays | Buyer pays | Real price level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reverb | Yes | ~5% + payment fees | Nothing extra, it's in the price | High asks (+29% over recorded sales, 90 days) |
| eBay | Yes | ~10% or more in most places; nothing for private sellers in Germany and the UK | Nothing extra from businesses; in some countries a protection fee on private sellers | Highest fixed-price asks (+93%); a closed auction with bids is a sale |
| Local classifieds: Facebook, Craigslist, Gumtree, Kleinanzeigen and the rest | No | Nothing | Nothing, and no recourse | Lowest (+24% where we measure them) |
| Wallapop | Both: shipped orders protected, cash deals not | Nothing | Protection fee when shipped | Better gear than its siblings, cash culture |
| Vinted (Europe) | Yes, held till delivery | Nothing | Protection fee | Below classifieds for beginner gear |
| Yahoo! Auctions, Mercari, Digimart (Japan) | Yes, at home | Platform fees | A proxy's fee from abroad, then import costs | Deep vintage stock, strict condition notes |
| Dealers: Thomann, Sweetwater, Guitar Center | Warranty instead | None | In the price | Ceiling prices |
Which one, then
If the thing is rare or over about €500, pay Reverb or eBay and let them hold the money. The fee is the price of being able to send it back. If it is a workhorse and you can collect it, use your country's classifieds: offer the sold number, not the ask, and take the first seller who says yes. Whatever you buy, buy it inside your own customs area when the same gear is there; open what is sitting under typical right now before you go. Vinted is for the unused Yamaha in a bedroom, not a Quad Cortex.
Selling is the same split the other way. Rare gear goes where the collectors already are. Common gear goes where someone can come over tonight. Listing on both is fine; the first person who pays decides.