Sell Your Used Paintings — 0% Fees

Used paintings typically sell for £20 to £300, and on WishThrift it costs you nothing to list — no fee, no commission, so you keep the whole amount you agree. A painting is worth what can be established about who made it, so photograph the signature, the reverse and the stretcher — and never clean or revarnish it before selling.

The short version

Typical range: £20 – £300 — see the full paintings value guide
What decides your price: condition, and how well you evidence it in photographs
Cost to sell here: nothing, at any price
Category: Art & Collectibles

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.

Photograph the reverse before anything else. Labels, stamps, inscriptions and gallery marks on the back are often where attribution comes from.
Look for a signature and any date, including in the corners and along the edges under the frame rebate.
Do not clean, varnish, retouch or reframe. Amateur cleaning removes glazes permanently and is the most common way value is destroyed.

The photographs that sell paintings

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 painting square on, whole, in even daylight without glare or reflection
The signature close up, legible
The complete reverse, including stretcher, labels and any inscription
The surface raked with side light to show texture, craquelure, and any damage or repair

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 It feels counterproductive, but a listing that shows the worst of an item gets fewer questions, fewer withdrawn offers and fewer arguments at handover.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

Artist, subject, medium and size: “Oil on Canvas Seascape, Signed [Name], 60x40cm”. If the signature is illegible, say so and photograph it clearly — buyers who collect a particular artist will recognise it faster than you can research it. Say oil, acrylic, watercolour or print.

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

Medium and support — oil on canvas, watercolour on paper, acrylic on board
Dimensions of the work, and separately with the frame
The signature as it appears, and any date or inscription
Condition of the surface and support, including craquelure, tears, flaking or previous restoration

What buyers will actually ask

You will receive the same three messages about paintings. 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.

“Who is the artist?”

Say what the signature reads and what you actually know about where it came from. Speculative attribution to a well-known name reads as a warning sign to serious buyers.

“Has it been restored?”

Disclose anything you know about, including relining, retouching or revarnishing. Restoration is normal on older work and buyers accept it — concealed restoration is what causes disputes.

“Is it oil or a print?”

Look at the surface at an angle in raking light. Real brushwork casts shadows; a print is flat even when textured varnish has been applied over it. Photograph it that way and the buyer can see for themselves.

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 paintings 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 £160 sale — roughly the middle of the range for paintings — 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	£160
Poshmark	−£32	£128
eBay	−£22	£138
Mercari	−£16	£144
Etsy	−£10	£150

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 to a collector and decorator audience. Signed work by identifiable artists sells fastest; unattributed decorative paintings compete on subject, size and frame.

Collection is far safer for anything sizeable or framed. If posting, use corner protectors, a rigid double-walled box and a face-protecting board, and never let bubble wrap touch the paint surface directly.

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 are used paintings worth?

Typically £20 to £300 for decorative and unattributed work, with identified artists far above. See the paintings value guide for the condition bands.

Should I clean a painting before selling?

No. Household cleaning of an oil painting removes glazes and original varnish and cannot be undone. If it genuinely warrants cleaning, that is a conservator’s job and the buyer should commission it themselves.

How do I find out who painted it?

Photograph the signature and the entire reverse and let buyers and collector communities weigh in. Labels on the back, from framers and galleries, often identify the work more reliably than the signature.