The most you can pay and still make money
Profit calculators tell you how a flip went. This one tells you what to do next: given what the item sells for and what you want to earn, here is the number above which you should walk away.
No account, no email, nothing saved. Change any input and the ceiling updates.
What it sells for, and what you want
Use sold comps, not asking prices.
Typical published rate. Yours may differ.
Fuel plus your time for the round trip.
Do not pay more than
$104.80
Pay $104.80 and you clear $60.00 — a 57.3% return on what you put in. Anything above that number is a favour to the seller.
- Resale price
- $200.00
- Platform fee (13.6%)
- − $27.20
- Shipping, supplies, pickup
- − $8.00
- Left to split with the seller
- $164.80
- Profit you want
- − $60.00
Put this number in your watchlist's maximum price and listings above it never reach you. Estimates only — fees, condition and local demand all move the real result.
How the number is worked out
Deliberately simple arithmetic, run in the order the money actually leaves.
- Start at the resale price. Use sold comparable sales rather than asking prices. Everything below is subtracted from this number, so an optimistic figure here makes every other number wrong.
- Subtract the platform fee. Charged on the sale price, not on your profit. On a $200 sale a 13% fee is $26 — typically more than the fuel.
- Subtract shipping, packaging and the pickup. The costs people leave out. A 30-mile round trip is real money on a $40 margin.
- Subtract the profit you want. Either as a dollar figure or as a return on what you tie up. What is left is the ceiling.
Use it as a negotiating anchor
Knowing the ceiling changes how the conversation goes, because you stop negotiating against the asking price and start negotiating against your own number.
If the ceiling is $120 and the listing is $150, you now know exactly what you are asking for and exactly when to stop. If the seller will not move, that is a clean walk-away rather than a decision made in the moment.
It also tells you which listings are worth a message at all. A listing priced above your ceiling with no room to move is not a deal you lost — it is a deal that never existed.
Questions people ask
How do I work out the most I should pay for a flip?
Start from what the item sells for, then subtract everything that happens to that money before it reaches you: the platform fee, shipping and packaging if you post it, the cost of collecting it, and the profit you actually want. What is left is your ceiling. Paying above it means you are working for free or worse.
Should I target a dollar profit or a percentage return?
Dollar profit is the right frame for one-off buys, because your time cost is roughly fixed regardless of the item's value. Percentage return is the right frame when capital is your constraint — if you only have $500 to work with, a 60% return on a $100 item beats a 20% return on a $400 one even though the dollar profit is smaller.
Should I include my own time in the cost?
Yes, or at least once, to see the number. Sourcing, collecting, cleaning, photographing, listing and posting an item routinely adds up to more than an hour. If a flip nets $22 for two hours of work, that is worth knowing before you build a habit around it.
Which resale price should I use?
What comparable items sold for, not what they are listed at. Unsold listings stay visible, so the asking prices you see skew high — pricing from them is the most common way people talk themselves into a bad buy.
Can I use this number in a watchlist?
That is exactly what it is for. Put the ceiling in the maximum price field of your saved search and listings above it never become alerts, which means you never spend attention on deals that could not have worked.
Related tools and guides
- Flip profit calculatorThe full breakdown after the fact: profit, ROI, margin, break-even, effective hourly.
- Pickup cost calculatorThe travel figure this calculator asks for, worked out properly.
- Is it actually underpriced?Sold comps versus asking prices, and the six things that decide a deal.
- How to maximize profit on every flipWorked examples of the same arithmetic across categories.
FlipDar is an independent product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or partnered with Meta, Facebook, or eBay. Trademarks belong to their owners. Informational only, not financial advice; resale outcomes vary by category, condition, geography, fees, and timing.