How to find sold prices on eBay (and read them correctly).

An asking price is what a seller hopes for. A sold price is what a buyer actually paid. A listing can sit at a high price for months without a sale, so a page of active listings tells you about seller expectations, not demand. When you research an item before you buy it or before you list it, sold results are the better starting point, and active listings are useful as a second check on competition.

A sold price is still one data point. The rest of this guide covers where to find sold results and how to read them so you compare like with like.

On ebay.com, choosing the sold option redirects a signed-out visitor to sign in, so you need to be signed in to use the sold filter.¹ Regular eBay search shows sold items from the last 90 days.¹

For a longer window, eBay's Product research gives access to the last 3 years of eBay sales data, according to the same help page.² In a seller account, Terapeak (Product Research) sits inside Seller Hub's Research tab and goes back up to 3 years.³ eBay says sellers with access to Seller Hub can use Product research, from the Research tab and the mobile apps.² The help page lists these figures among the results it can show:²

• Average sales price and sold price range.
• Average shipping cost and the number of listings offering free shipping.
• Sell through rate, for searches of items sold 90 days ago or less.

When you fill in the create-listing form, the Pricing section shows "Sold listings in the last 90 days" with a recommended price and a "See similar listings" link.⁴ Treat that as a starting point and open the similar listings to check them yourself.

The 90 day window shows recent sales, which suits items whose prices move quickly. The 3 year window helps with items that sell rarely, because a single quarter may hold only one or two sales, or none. If you suspect seasonality, such as outdoor gear or holiday items, the longer window lets you compare the same time of year across years. These are our suggestions for using the two windows, not eBay rules.

The checks below are our suggestions for comparing sold items, not eBay rules.

• Match condition and completeness. A used item with its box, cables or parts is a different product from the same model without them. Compare your item to sales in the same condition and with the same included pieces.
• Separate lots from single items. A sale of several items in one listing says little about the price of one. Set lots aside, or divide carefully and treat the result as rough.
• Watch for Best Offer sales. Regular sold search does not display the price a Best Offer was accepted at.¹ If the listed price looks high next to similar sales, a Best Offer may be the reason. This guide could not confirm from eBay's help page how Product research shows Best Offer sales, so look at an example in your own account before you rely on it.
• Compare the same shipping. A free shipping listing and a paid shipping listing can show different item prices for a similar total. Look at price plus shipping.
• Count the sales. One sale can be an outlier, a mistake or an unusual buyer. Several recent sales at similar prices are more reliable than a single one.

A sold price tells you what the item fetched. Sell through rate tells you how many of the listings for that kind of item ended in a sale. eBay's help page lists a sell through rate for searches of items sold 90 days ago or less.² You can also work it out yourself from sold and active counts with the sell-through calculator, then set a ceiling on what to pay with the max buy price calculator.

These are sample numbers, not real sales. Say you have a used camera lens with its caps and no box. Search the sold results and find six sales in the last 90 days:

• Two sales of the lens with box and hood, at 140 and 150 dollars. Different completeness, so set them aside.
• One sale of a lot of the lens plus a camera body, at 380 dollars. A lot, so ignore it.
• Three sales of the lens with caps and no box, at 110, 115 and 120 dollars, all in similar condition.

The three matching sales cluster close together, so a working figure of about 115 dollars is reasonable for comparison. Before you treat that as your price, check the shipping on each sale and whether any was a Best Offer sale. Then subtract eBay fees, shipping and what you paid in the eBay fee calculator, and check your listing costs against eBay's own fee page.

A sold price means little without the cost to get the item to the buyer. Estimate boxes and padding early, and see the shipping supplies guide for what to keep on hand.

Strooply shows live eBay listings and a sold-price figure for an item. The sold-price figure is marked as an estimate, or shown as saved data with its age, so you can tell it apart from the live listings; it is not live sold history. It can identify an item from a photo, and it shows profit after fees and shipping. See how Strooply works for the full picture. Treat any estimate as a starting point and read the comps the way this guide describes.