Sell Your Used Kettle — 0% Fees

A used kettle typically sells for £8 to £45, and on WishThrift it costs you nothing to list — no fee, no commission, so you keep the whole amount you agree. Kettles are cheap, plentiful and sold almost entirely on limescale and cleanliness — a scaled kettle photographs as finished whatever its condition.

The short version

Typical range: £8 – £45 — see the full kettle value guide
What decides your price: condition, and how well you evidence it in photographs
Cost to sell here: nothing, at any price
Category: Kitchen & Appliances

Before you photograph it

Ten minutes here is worth more than anything else you will do. Buyers are deciding between your listing and someone else’s, and preparation is what visibly separates the two.

Descale it thoroughly and rinse until the water runs clear. This is most of the work.
Check the lid hinge, the spout filter and the base contacts, and confirm it seats properly.
Boil it and check it cuts out automatically, which is the safety function.

The photographs that sell a kettle

Four photographs do almost all the work. Shoot in daylight, near a window, with the item against something plain — and do not use the flash, which flattens texture and hides exactly what buyers are trying to see.

The kettle whole, clean, on its base
The interior looking down, descaled
The lid, spout filter and base contacts
The model marking, plus any limescale, crack or discoloured element

Photograph the flaws too. It feels counterproductive, but a listing that shows the worst of an item gets fewer questions, fewer withdrawn offers and fewer arguments at handover. Buyers who can see the damage stop imagining something worse.

Writing the title and description

Brand, capacity and features: “Russell Hobbs Kettle, 1.7L, Rapid Boil”. Capacity is the search. Variable temperature and quiet boil are genuine features worth naming, and so is a removable, washable filter.

Then state these in the description, because a buyer who has to ask is a buyer who might not bother:

Capacity in litres and wattage
Material, and whether it is cordless with a 360-degree base
Whether it has variable temperature settings or a keep-warm function
That it boils and cuts out, plus the interior condition

What buyers will actually ask

You will receive the same three messages about a kettle. Answering them in the listing itself removes the back-and-forth, and answering them well when they do arrive is what turns an enquiry into a sale.

“Is it descaled?”

Descale it and say so. It is the single question buyers have about a used kettle and the answer is twenty minutes of work.

“Does it cut out automatically?”

Boil it and confirm. A kettle that does not switch off is a genuine hazard, not a quirk.

“Is the filter present?”

Check the spout. Filters are model specific and awkward to replace, and their absence is worth stating.

Pricing it so it actually sells

Start from the honest condition grade rather than the price you hope for. WishThrift listings use five grades — New with Tags, Like New, Good, Fair and For Parts — and what each grade means is worth reading before you choose, because grading up is the most expensive mistake sellers make. It does not raise the price; it produces a buyer who arrives expecting something else.

The kettle value guide prices all five grades for this item. Pick your grade, take the figure, and if you sit between two grades price toward the lower one. Items priced honestly sell faster than items priced hopefully, and on a free platform there is no fee eating the difference anyway.

What you keep, compared

On a £26 sale — roughly the middle of the range for a kettle — here is what the commission-charging platforms would take, and what you would keep on each:

Where you sell it	Fee	You keep
WishThrift	£0	£26
Poshmark	−£5	£21
eBay	−£4	£22
Mercari	−£3	£23
Etsy	−£2	£24

Seller-side rates verified 26 Jul 2026 — Poshmark: 20% commission on sales of $15 and above; eBay: 13.6% final value fee, plus a per-order fee; Mercari: flat 10% selling fee; Etsy: 6.5% transaction fee, plus a listing fee and payment processing. Percentages are applied to the sterling figure above; the fixed per-order and processing charges those platforms add are quoted in their own currency and are not included here, so the real deductions are slightly larger. Full breakdown: marketplace selling fees compared.

Timing and getting it to the buyer

Steady year round with a lift in September when students move. Sells quickly at low prices because it is usually the cheapest working option available.

Light and easy to post, though bulky for its weight. Empty it completely and pack the base with it — a cordless kettle without its base is useless.

WishThrift does not process payments or arrange delivery — you and the buyer agree both directly — so confirm payment has cleared before the item leaves your hands, and keep the conversation on the site so there is a record of what was agreed.

Ready to list it? It takes about two minutes, costs nothing, and there is no commission when it sells — create a free account or see how selling works.

Frequently asked questions

What is a used kettle worth?

Typically £8 to £45, with variable-temperature and designer models above. See the kettle value guide for the bands.

Should I descale before selling?

Always. It costs almost nothing, takes twenty minutes and transforms the photographs. Nothing else you can do to a kettle listing has a better return.

Do people buy used kettles?

Yes, constantly — students, people moving and anyone whose kettle has just failed. Clean, descaled and tested is all it takes.