How to Sell Postage Stamps Online: The Three Routes Compared
Selling postage online sounds simple until you look at what the word online is actually covering. It spans three completely different transactions, and they pay differently, take different amounts of time, and carry different risks.
Here is what each one involves, what it realistically returns, and how to tell which one fits the postage you are holding.
Three different things are called selling stamps online
Selling to an online postage buyer
An online postage buyer purchases unused United States postage directly and pays a percentage of face value. The transaction is a sale to the buyer rather than a listing that waits for a purchaser, so the outcome is known in advance. The seller ships the postage once, receives a firm offer, and either accepts the offer or has the postage returned.
The percentage is set by a published schedule rather than negotiated case by case. Forever stamps attract the highest percentage because Forever stamps remain valid at the current First-Class rate and are therefore the simplest postage to resell.
Listing on an auction or marketplace site
An auction or marketplace listing puts the postage in front of the general public and leaves the price to the market. The seller retains control over the asking price and may in principle recover a larger share of face value than a postage buyer pays.
The seller also takes on every operational cost. Photographs must be produced, a listing must be written, questions from prospective purchasers must be answered, each sale must be packed and shipped separately, and platform fees and payment-processing fees are deducted from whatever the listing realizes. A listing that attracts no purchaser realizes nothing at all, and ordinary modern postage frequently attracts no purchaser.
Selling through a collector forum or dealer site
A collector forum or dealer site values postage on philatelic criteria rather than on postage value. Scarcity, condition, centering and provenance determine the price, and those criteria describe a small fraction of the postage held by the general public.
Ordinary modern Forever stamps carry no philatelic premium, because ordinary modern Forever stamps were printed in very large quantities and remain purchasable at face value from the Postal Service. A collector route suits genuinely scarce material and suits nothing else.
What each route returns and what it costs in time
| Route | Typical return | Time to payment | Work required | Outcome known in advance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Online postage buyer | 30 to 50 percent of face value | Days | One shipment | Yes |
| Auction or marketplace | Variable, less fees | Weeks, or never | Substantial and ongoing | No |
| Collector forum or dealer | High for scarce material only | Days to weeks | Moderate | Only after appraisal |
What makes postage sellable at all
Postage must be unused to carry refund value. Postage that has been cancelled, torn, stuck down, water damaged or soaked off an envelope cannot be resold as postage and therefore cannot be refunded by any buyer on any route.
Certain categories are excluded regardless of condition. Presort-rate, bulk-rate and nonprofit-rate stamps may not be applied to ordinary First-Class mail by a member of the public. Postage-due stamps, official stamps and foreign postage are excluded for the same reason. None of those categories has a resale market among ordinary mailers.
Denomination relative to the current First-Class rate affects the percentage. Stamps denominated above the current rate are straightforward to use and attract a higher percentage. Stamps denominated below the current rate must be combined with additional postage before the stamps become usable, and the additional handling is reflected in a lower percentage.
The risk that is specific to selling online
Counterfeit Forever stamps circulate in large volume through social media marketplaces and third-party sellers. Counterfeit postage has no value, cannot be used for mail, and cannot be refunded by any legitimate buyer. Mail bearing counterfeit postage is treated by the Postal Service as abandoned and may be disposed of without notice to the sender.
A seller who acquired postage at a deep discount from an unofficial source may therefore be holding material with no value at all. Any legitimate buyer authenticates every submission, and authentication protects the seller as much as the buyer.
A separate risk applies to marketplace listings. A seller who ships before payment clears has no recourse if the payment is later reversed, and postage is easy to resell and hard to trace once it has been handed over.
How to choose between the routes
Volume is the deciding factor for most sellers. A small quantity of unusual material justifies the time that a marketplace listing or a collector appraisal requires. A large quantity of ordinary modern postage does not, because the per-item premium a marketplace might return is smaller than the per-item effort the listing demands.
Certainty is the second consideration. A postage buyer states the figure before the seller commits, and a marketplace does not. Sellers who need a known outcome rather than a possible one are better served by a buyer.
Sell Unused Stamps pays 50% of face value on Forever stamps
We have been buying unused postage since 2016. More than 3,600 customers have sent us stamps, and we have paid out over $8.2 million. Our rates are published, so you know what your postage is worth before you send anything.
Ship your stamps once. We authenticate them, send you a firm Purchase Offer, and pay you within 3 business days of your acceptance. If the offer is not what you hoped for, decline it and we return your stamps.