Sell Your Used Projector — 0% Fees

A used projector typically sells for £50 to £300, and on WishThrift it costs you nothing to list — no fee, no commission, so you keep the whole amount you agree. Projectors sell on lamp hours and brightness, and the number every buyer wants is how many hours are left on the bulb.

The short version

Typical range: £50 – £300 — see the full projector value guide
What decides your price: condition, and how well you evidence it in photographs
Cost to sell here: nothing, at any price
Category: Electronics

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.

Find the lamp hours in the menu, usually under Information or Status, and note the rated lamp life.
Check the brightness in lumens and the native resolution from the label or manual.
Project a white image and check for dust spots, dead pixels and colour banding.

The photographs that sell a projector

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 projector from the front, lens visible
The menu screen showing lamp hours
A projected white image on a wall, showing any spots or banding
The ports, remote and any cables or bag included

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 It feels counterproductive, but a listing that shows the worst of an item gets fewer questions, fewer withdrawn offers and fewer arguments at handover.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

Resolution, brightness and lamp: “Epson 1080p Projector, 3000 Lumens, 800 Lamp Hours Used”. Lamp hours in the title is unusual and immediately credible. State native resolution rather than the supported maximum, which is how projectors are commonly oversold.

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

Native resolution and supported maximum, stated separately
Brightness in lumens and contrast ratio
Lamp hours used and the rated lamp life
Ports available, and whether the remote, cables and bag are included

What buyers will actually ask

You will receive the same three messages about a projector. 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.

“How many lamp hours?”

Read it from the menu and photograph the screen. Replacement lamps are expensive, so this figure sets the price.

“What is the native resolution?”

Give the panel’s actual resolution, not the maximum input it accepts. Many projectors accept 1080p and display far less.

“Is the remote included?”

Say so. Projector menus are difficult to navigate without the remote and replacements are model-specific.

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 projector 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 £175 sale — roughly the middle of the range for a projector — 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	£175
Poshmark	−£35	£140
eBay	−£24	£151
Mercari	−£18	£157
Etsy	−£11	£164

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

Lifts before Christmas and in summer for outdoor viewing. Bright, genuine 1080p and 4K models sell fastest.

Reasonably robust but the lens needs protecting. Use the original bag if you have one, and never post with a hot lamp recently used.

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 projector worth?

Typically £50 to £300 depending on resolution, brightness and lamp hours remaining. See the projector value guide.

How long do projector lamps last?

Typically 2,000 to 5,000 hours depending on the model and whether it has been run in eco mode. Read the hours used from the menu and state both that and the rated life.

What is the difference between native and supported resolution?

Native is what the panel actually displays; supported is what it will accept as an input and downscale. Always quote native — quoting the supported figure is how projectors get oversold.