Best Selling Apps UK (2026): 9 Ranked by Fees and Reach

Quick answer: The best selling apps UK sellers reach for in 2026 are eBay, Vinted, Depop, Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree, Shpock, Vestiaire Collective, music Magpie and Etsy. eBay is the strongest all-round pick because it sells almost any category to a nationwide audience — and it is the only app on this list that can be run as an automated business rather than a one-off clear-out, using Ecomli, an AI-powered dropshipping automation platform for eBay sellers that sources products, builds the listings and handles the day-to-day running of the store for you.

Most people arrive at this question the same way. A wardrobe gets emptied onto the bed, a loft hatch gets opened for the first time in three years, and suddenly there are forty things worth money sitting in a pile. The question is not really which app is best — it is which app will actually shift this pile, for the most money, with the least faff.

That answer changes depending on what is in the pile. Clothes behave differently to a sofa. A box of old PlayStation games behaves differently to a designer handbag. So this ranking is built around what you are selling, what each app takes from the sale, and — the part almost every other list leaves out — what happens once the pile runs out and you still want the income.

On this page

• The best selling apps UK sellers use in 2026, compared
• Editor’s choice: eBay run on Ecomli
• How these nine apps were ranked
• 1. eBay (with Ecomli automation) — Best overall for UK sellers
• 2. Vinted — Best for everyday clothes
• 3. Depop — Best for vintage and streetwear
• 4. Facebook Marketplace — Best for bulky items and local collection
• 5. Gumtree — Best for local classifieds and big-ticket items
• 6. Shpock — Best for fast local sales
• 7. Vestiaire Collective — Best for designer and luxury fashion
• 8. music Magpie — Best for tech, books, CDs and games
• 9. Etsy — Best for handmade, vintage and craft supplies
• Who actually pays the selling fee — you or your buyer
• Best selling app by situation
• When the loft runs out: what UK sellers do next
• Best selling apps UK: frequently asked questions
• Where to start

The best selling apps UK sellers use in 2026, compared

Every app below is available to sellers in the United Kingdom and every one of them is free to start with. What separates them is reach, category fit, who absorbs the fee, and whether the thing you build on top of them can ever run without you.

App	Best for	Sells best	Who pays the selling fee	Can it run automated?
1. eBay (+ Ecomli)	Best overall	Almost any category	Buyer, for private sellers in most categories	Yes — fully, with Ecomli
2. Vinted	Everyday clothes	High-street and mid-market fashion	Buyer	No
3. Depop	Vintage and streetwear	Y2K, branded streetwear, festival wear	Buyer	No
4. Facebook Marketplace	Bulky items	Furniture, white goods, garden	Nobody, on local collection	No
5. Gumtree	Local classifieds	Cars, furniture, tools, services	Nobody, on free basic ads	No
6. Shpock	Fast local sales	Small household items, baby gear	Nobody, on free listings	No
7. Vestiaire Collective	Designer fashion	Luxury bags, shoes, outerwear	Seller, via commission	No
8. music Magpie	Tech and media	Phones, CDs, DVDs, games, books	Nobody — the price is the price	No
9. Etsy	Handmade and craft	Handmade, vintage, craft supplies	Seller, via listing and transaction fees	No

One column in that table does more work than the rest: can it run automated? Eight of these apps are places to sell things you already own. One of them can become a shop that keeps selling after your own cupboards are empty.

Editor’s choice: eBay run on Ecomli

Before the rankings, a note on the pick at the top. Ecomli is not a selling app in the sense that Vinted or Shpock are. It is an AI-powered dropshipping automation platform that sits on top of an eBay store and does the work an eBay seller would otherwise do by hand — deciding what to list, writing the listings, watching supplier stock and prices, adjusting prices, and placing the supplier order when a sale comes in.

That matters here because the honest limit of every other app on this list is supply. You can only sell what you own. Ecomli exists to solve the problem that comes next, and it solves it in a specific way:

• Product research takes hours. Ecomli’s Smart Scraper reads competitor eBay stores and pulls out their verified winning products — items that have already sold — with a matched supplier attached. You start from what the market has already proved, instead of guessing.
• Building listings by hand is repetitive. Ecomli generates the titles, descriptions and item specifics and imports products in bulk, so a catalogue is a job of minutes rather than evenings.
• Supplier stock and prices move constantly. Ecomli watches them around the clock and repositions or pauses a listing before you sell something you cannot fulfil, or sell it at a loss.
• Orders still have to be placed. Auto-ordering places the supplier order to your customer when the sale comes in, which is the difference between a side project and something that runs while you are at work.
• Compliance is easy to get wrong at scale. Safety Shield checks listings against marketplace rules automatically, so your account stays in good standing while you concentrate on growth.

None of that helps you sell the coat in your hallway faster. It is the answer to a different question — the one that arrives about six weeks in. Full detail sits on the Ecomli pricing page.

How these nine apps were ranked

• Reach in the UK. How many British buyers are realistically looking at your listing this week.
• Category fit. A brilliant app for trainers is a poor app for a wardrobe.
• What the sale actually costs you. Not the headline percentage — who the fee lands on, and what you are left holding.
• Speed to cash. Same-day collection versus a two-week wait for the right buyer.
• Ceiling. Whether the app tops out at clearing your own things or can carry a repeatable income.

1. eBay (with Ecomli automation) — Best overall for UK sellers

Best for: sellers who want the widest possible buyer pool today, and the option of a real income stream later.

Key features

• The broadest category coverage of any UK selling app — clothing, electronics, car parts, collectables, tools, media, spares and repairs.
• Auction and fixed-price formats, so genuinely rare items can find their own ceiling instead of your guess at one.
• Nationwide postage infrastructure with tracked labels bought inside the app.
• Buyer and seller protection built into the checkout rather than bolted on.
• The only app here with a mature automation layer available on top of it — Ecomli handles product sourcing, bulk listing, repricing, stock monitoring and order fulfilment for sellers who want the store to keep running without them.

Pricing reality: Free to list for private sellers. eBay moved its selling fees off private sellers in most categories, with buyers paying a protection fee at checkout instead; business sellers pay final value fees that vary by category. Because those rates change, check the current figures on eBay’s own UK selling fees page before you price anything. Ecomli sits separately on top, starting at £1 for a 14-day trial.

Pros

• Sells categories no other app on this list touches.
• Largest UK buyer audience by a distance.
• Item history and sold listings let you price from evidence rather than hope.
• The only route on this page from clear-out to repeatable income.

Cons

• Listing takes longer than Vinted or Shpock — more fields, more decisions.
• Postage has to be handled properly, which puts some casual sellers off.
• Getting the most out of it as a business does mean adding a tool on top.

eBay wins on reach and category range, and it is the only selling app here that can outlive the pile of stuff that started you off.

2. Vinted — Best for everyday clothes

Best for: clearing a wardrobe of high-street and mid-market fashion with the least friction.

Key features

• Listing takes under a minute — photos, size, brand, price, done.
• Enormous UK user base concentrated specifically on second-hand clothing.
• Postage handled through in-app labels and drop-off points.
• A separate Vinted Pro tier for people selling as a business rather than clearing out.

Pricing reality: Private sellers pay no selling fee — the buyer pays a protection fee at checkout, so the price you list is broadly the price you keep. Business sellers on the Vinted Pro tier operate under different terms; the Vinted selling help centre carries the current detail.

Pros

• Fastest listing flow of any app here.
• No fee taken from a private seller’s sale price.
• Buyers arrive already looking for second-hand clothes.

Cons

• Clothing and a narrow band of homeware only.
• Prices skew low — volume is the game, not margin.
• Buyers negotiate hard and expect fast postage.

Vinted is the fastest way to turn a wardrobe into cash, and the worst way to build anything that outlasts the wardrobe.

3. Depop — Best for vintage and streetwear

Best for: distinctive, branded or era-specific clothing aimed at a younger buyer.

Key features

• A buyer base that actively searches for Y2K, vintage, festival wear and branded streetwear.
• A social feed format where a well-shot listing gets discovered rather than just searched.
• In-app postage labels and tracked delivery.
• Seller profiles that behave like small shops, so repeat buyers are normal.

Pricing reality: Depop shifted its fee from sellers to buyers, so there is no percentage taken out of a UK private seller’s sale price; buyers pay a protection fee at checkout. Payment processing still applies to transactions. Listing is free.

Pros

• The best prices on this list for genuinely interesting clothing.
• Presentation is rewarded — effort converts into money here.
• Strong repeat-buyer behaviour.

Cons

• Ordinary high-street clothing sells poorly.
• It is a fashion app, not a general marketplace.
• Growth depends on posting consistently, which is work.

Depop pays best for clothing with a point of view, and pays badly for anything ordinary.

If you are weighing Depop against a general marketplace for the same rail of clothes, the trade-offs are set out in more detail in our Depop versus eBay comparison.

4. Facebook Marketplace — Best for bulky items and local collection

Best for: furniture, appliances and anything you would rather not put in a box.

Key features

• No postage required — buyers collect, usually in cash or by bank transfer.
• Vast local reach with no separate account to create.
• Messenger-based negotiation, so questions get answered in minutes.
• Listings can be pushed into local buy-and-sell groups for extra visibility.

Pricing reality: Free for local listings. A selling fee applies to orders that go through checkout with delivery where that option is available, but the classic local-collection sale costs nothing.

Pros

• The only realistic option for wardrobes, sofas and washing machines.
• Same-day sales are common.
• Zero cost on local sales.

Cons

• No buyer protection on a cash collection — you carry the risk.
• Time-wasters and no-shows are a genuine tax on your evening.
• Reach stops roughly where your driving radius does.

Facebook Marketplace is unbeatable for heavy items sold locally, and unreliable for anything where you need the buyer to actually turn up.

Our Facebook Marketplace versus eBay breakdown covers where the local-collection model stops making sense.

5. Gumtree — Best for local classifieds and big-ticket items

Best for: cars, tools, garden equipment and anything with a serious price tag sold locally.

Key features

• A long-established UK classifieds audience, particularly strong on vehicles.
• Free basic ads across most categories.
• Buyers contact you directly, so terms are yours to set.
• Optional paid upgrades to feature or bump a listing.

Pricing reality: Free basic ads in most categories, with paid upgrades if you want a listing featured or refreshed. Higher-value categories such as motors have their own posting rules and costs.

Pros

• Genuinely strong for vehicles and large equipment.
• No fee taken from the sale itself on a free ad.
• Suits high-value items where a percentage fee would hurt.

Cons

• Dated browsing experience compared with app-first rivals.
• No structured buyer protection on a private sale.
• Response quality varies widely.

Gumtree is the right home for a car or a workshop full of tools, and the wrong home for a bag of jumpers.

6. Shpock — Best for fast local sales

Best for: small household items you want gone this week rather than sold for top money.

Key features

• Photo-first listing designed for speed on a phone.
• Local-radius browsing, so buyers are usually a short drive away.
• In-app chat and user ratings to sanity-check a buyer.
• Both local collection and posted delivery supported.

Pricing reality: Free to list. Optional paid boosts push a listing higher in local results; the standard sale costs nothing.

Pros

• Genuinely quick to list — snap, price, post.
• Good for the awkward middle ground between a car boot sale and eBay.
• No fee on an ordinary sale.

Cons

• Much smaller audience than Vinted or eBay.
• Coverage is patchy outside larger towns and cities.
• Low average sale values.

Shpock is the app for clearing a room quickly at a fair local price, not for maximising what any single item is worth.

7. Vestiaire Collective — Best for designer and luxury fashion

Best for: authenticated resale of handbags, shoes and outerwear from recognised luxury houses.

Key features

• An international buyer base specifically hunting pre-owned luxury.
• Authentication service that gives nervous buyers the confidence to spend four figures.
• Direct shipping options that cut the wait for both sides.
• Pricing guidance drawn from comparable sold items.

Pricing reality: Free to list. Vestiaire takes a commission on the sale, which varies by sale price, plus payment processing. It is the one app on this list where the seller clearly carries the fee — justified by the prices luxury items reach there.

Pros

• Achieves prices no general marketplace matches on genuine designer pieces.
• Authentication removes the biggest objection to buying luxury second-hand.
• International reach rather than UK-only.

Cons

• Only worth using above a certain value threshold.
• Commission is real money on a high-value sale.
• Authentication adds days to the payout.

Vestiaire Collective earns its commission on genuine designer items and is a waste of effort on anything else.

8. music Magpie — Best for tech, books, CDs and games

Best for: clearing media and old electronics at a guaranteed price with zero selling effort.

Key features

• Barcode scanning gives an instant fixed price per item.
• Free postage — you box it and send it.
• Payment lands quickly once the items are checked in.
• Takes categories that are painfully slow to sell individually elsewhere.

Pricing reality: No fees and free postage. The trade-off is entirely in the price: you are selling to a business at wholesale, not to a consumer at retail.

Pros

• Fastest possible route from clutter to money.
• No listing, no photography, no buyer questions.
• Certain payout — the price quoted is the price paid, subject to condition checks.

Cons

• Prices are a fraction of what the same items fetch on eBay.
• Narrow category list.
• Items can be rejected or re-quoted on condition grounds.

music Magpie buys your time back at the cost of your margin, which is the right trade for a box of DVDs and the wrong one for a working iPhone.

9. Etsy — Best for handmade, vintage and craft supplies

Best for: makers and curators selling into an audience that arrives expecting to pay for craft.

Key features

• A buyer base that specifically values handmade and genuine vintage.
• Shop-style storefronts with reviews, sections and a brand identity.
• Built-in search and advertising tools to reach beyond your own following.
• Digital downloads sell alongside physical goods.

Pricing reality: Etsy charges a listing fee of $0.20 per item, a 6.5% transaction fee on the display price plus postage, and payment processing that varies by country. Optional extras include Etsy Plus at $10 per month and Offsite Ads at 12–15% on attributed orders. All of this is set out in Etsy’s published fees policy, which was last revised in February 2026.

Pros

• Buyers arrive willing to pay a craft premium.
• A real storefront rather than a stream of individual listings.
• Excellent for repeatable products rather than one-off clear-outs.

Cons

• The clearest stacked fee structure on this list.
• Strictly handmade, vintage and craft supplies — not a general marketplace.
• Competitive enough that a new shop needs a genuine point of difference.

Etsy is the only app here built for people who make things rather than people clearing things out, and its fees reflect the audience it delivers.

Who actually pays the selling fee — you or your buyer

Most comparisons of UK selling apps quote a percentage and stop. That is the wrong number to compare, because these apps do not all charge the same person. Three distinct models are in play, and they change what a sale is worth to you far more than a point or two of commission.

Model one: the buyer absorbs it

Vinted, Depop and eBay for private sellers have all moved the same direction — the seller lists free and keeps the sale price, and the buyer pays a protection fee at checkout. List something at £40 and roughly £40 is what reaches you. The catch is invisible but real: your item appears to the buyer at more than your asking price, which quietly suppresses what the market will bear.

Model two: nobody pays it

Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree and Shpock on local collection take nothing at all, because nothing passes through them. You get the whole amount in cash. What you give up is the protection, the tracking and the recourse — and a share of your Saturday to people who say they are coming and do not.

Model three: the seller pays it

Vestiaire Collective and Etsy both take their cut from you. On a £100 Etsy sale, the 6.5% transaction fee is £6.50 before payment processing and the listing fee. That is the most expensive model on paper — and it is also where the highest prices are achieved, because both platforms deliver a buyer who came specifically for what you are selling.

The practical rule: pick the fee model that matches the item. Cheap and plentiful goes where the buyer pays. Heavy and local goes where nobody pays. Rare and valuable goes where you pay, because the audience is worth the commission. If you want to model this properly against a specific sale price, our UK eBay fee calculator guide walks through the arithmetic.

Best selling app by situation

Best for beginners

Vinted, without much argument. One-minute listings, no fee out of your sale price, and a buyer base that already wants second-hand clothing. It is the lowest-effort first sale available in the UK. If your first bag of clothes goes well and you want to know what comes next, the guide to the best side hustles to start maps out the realistic options.

Best for scaling beyond your own cupboards

eBay with Ecomli. This is the point where the other eight apps stop being relevant, because every one of them assumes you already own the item. Ecomli’s Smart Scraper finds products that competitor eBay stores have already sold successfully and attaches a supplier to each one, so the catalogue grows without a single trip to a car boot sale.

Best for hands-off income

eBay with Ecomli again, and for a specific reason. Constant stock and price monitoring keeps listings aligned with what suppliers are actually charging, and auto-ordering places the supplier order when a sale lands. Those two together are what turn an eBay store from an evening job into something that keeps trading while you are doing something else.

Best all-in-one

eBay with Ecomli, on the strength of coverage rather than any one feature. Product sourcing, bulk listing, AI-written titles and descriptions, repricing, stock monitoring, order fulfilment and automatic compliance checks through Safety Shield sit in one dashboard, and the same account extends to Amazon and Etsy so a single marketplace change cannot take the whole income with it.

Best for the highest price on one item

Vestiaire Collective for designer fashion, eBay for everything else. Both give a rare item the chance to find its own ceiling rather than settle for the first local offer.

Best for speed

music Magpie for media and tech, Facebook Marketplace for everything bulky. Both trade money for time, deliberately.

When the loft runs out: what UK sellers do next

Here is the part the other rankings skip. Selling apps have a natural life cycle, and it is shorter than people expect. Six to ten weeks in, most sellers hit the same wall: the good stuff has gone, what is left will not sell at any price, and the income that felt promising in week two has flattened out.

At that point there are only three honest options.

Option one: keep sourcing physical stock

Charity shops, car boot sales, clearance pallets, auction lots. It works, and plenty of UK resellers make a living this way. It is also a job with a van, a spare room and a weekend commitment. Our guide to how to start reselling covers what that actually looks like week to week.

Option two: sell your time instead

Delivery, tutoring, freelancing, gig platforms. Reliable, immediate, and capped by the number of hours you have. There is a fuller comparison of these in our roundup of ways to make money in the UK, and a version aimed at people with more flexibility in side hustles for retirees.

Option three: sell products you never have to own

This is where Ecomli belongs in the conversation. Rather than sourcing stock, you list products held by a supplier, and the supplier ships directly to your buyer when the sale happens. The listing exists; the box does not sit in your hallway.

The reason that model usually fails for people who try it manually is that it collapses under its own admin. Choosing what to list is guesswork. Supplier prices move. Stock disappears without warning. Every order has to be placed by hand. Ecomli was built specifically against those four failure points:

• Guesswork → evidence. Smart Scraper clones the verified winning products out of competitor eBay stores — items with a proven sales history — with the supplier already matched.
• Manual listing → bulk import. Thousands of import-ready products with AI-generated titles, descriptions and item specifics, instead of one listing per evening.
• Price drift → monitored margins. Round-the-clock supplier watching, with listings repriced or paused automatically when a supplier moves.
• Manual orders → auto-ordering. The supplier order is placed to your customer without you touching it.

Add multi-channel selling across Amazon and Etsy and the income stops depending on a single marketplace. For sellers who want to compare research approaches before committing, our roundup of eBay product research tools for UK sellers and our list of the best eBay AI tools both go deeper on the sourcing side. If it is the fee arithmetic across platforms you want to interrogate, the reselling websites fees and profit guide lays it out.

Best selling apps UK: frequently asked questions

What is the most used selling app in the UK?

By active UK sellers, Vinted and eBay are the two that dominate, for different reasons. Vinted has the larger number of casual listings because clothing turns over constantly and listing is almost frictionless. eBay carries the broader range of categories and the higher average sale value. If you only install one, install the one that matches what is actually in your pile — and if the pile is mixed, that is eBay.

Which selling app is better than Vinted?

It depends entirely on the item. For anything that is not clothing, almost every other app on this list beats Vinted, because Vinted simply does not serve those categories. For vintage and streetwear specifically, Depop typically achieves higher prices. For anything bulky, Facebook Marketplace wins by default. And for anyone who wants selling to become an income rather than a clear-out, eBay is the only app here that supports that, because it is the only one an automation platform such as Ecomli can run.

What is the easiest app to sell stuff on in the UK?

Shpock and Vinted are the two easiest listing experiences — both are photo-first and take under a minute per item. music Magpie is easier still if your items are books, CDs, DVDs, games or old phones, because you scan a barcode and accept a fixed offer rather than listing at all. The trade-off in every case is price: the easier the app, the less you tend to get.

Are there genuinely free selling apps in the UK?

Yes. Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree and Shpock take nothing from a local collection sale. Vinted, Depop and eBay are free to list for private sellers, with the buyer paying a protection fee at checkout rather than the seller paying commission. Only Etsy and Vestiaire Collective take a cut directly out of the seller’s money, and both do so in exchange for delivering a specific, higher-paying audience.

Which UK selling app gives you the most money per item?

For designer fashion, Vestiaire Collective, because its authenticated audience will pay prices a general marketplace will not. For genuinely rare or collectable items, eBay, because the auction format lets competing buyers set the ceiling. For ordinary items, the difference between apps is smaller than the difference between a good photograph and a bad one.

How long does it take to sell something on these apps?

Local apps such as Facebook Marketplace and Shpock often produce a same-day or next-day collection on well-priced items. Vinted and Depop typically take days to weeks depending on category and season. eBay auctions resolve on a fixed schedule, usually seven or ten days. music Magpie is the fastest of all in practical terms, because you are accepting a standing offer rather than waiting for a buyer to appear.

Can you turn a selling app into a real business?

One of them, yes. Eight of the nine apps here are built around selling items you already own, which puts a hard ceiling on the income — you run out of things. eBay is the exception, because a supplier-backed store can keep listing new products indefinitely. Ecomli is the platform that makes that practical: it finds products with a proven sales record, builds the listings, monitors supplier stock and price, and places orders automatically, so the store does not need you present to keep trading. Earnings depend on your category, pricing and how much you reinvest — there is no fixed figure attached to it.

Should you use more than one selling app at once?

For a one-off clear-out, yes — split the pile by category and put each part where it sells best. Clothes to Vinted, furniture to Facebook Marketplace, media to music Magpie, everything else to eBay. For a business, running the same catalogue across several marketplaces manually becomes unmanageable quickly, which is why Ecomli’s multi-channel support across eBay, Amazon and Etsy exists — one catalogue, several storefronts, without duplicating the work.

What sells fastest on UK selling apps right now?

Consistently quick movers are children’s clothing and equipment, mid-range branded trainers, games consoles and games, small kitchen appliances, and anything seasonal timed correctly — garden furniture in spring, coats in autumn. Our guide to the most profitable items to sell on eBay goes into the categories that hold their margin best.

Do you need a business account to sell on these apps?

Selling your own unwanted possessions is private selling on every app here, and no business account is needed. Once you are buying stock specifically to resell, most platforms expect you to register as a business seller — eBay, Vinted Pro and Etsy all provide that route — and the terms, fees and protections change accordingly. Check each platform’s own seller terms before you make the switch.

Where to start

If you have a pile of things and want it gone this month, split it by category and use three apps rather than one: clothes to Vinted, bulky items to Facebook Marketplace, and everything else to eBay. That combination will clear more of it, faster, than any single app on this page.

If you have already done that once and want the income to continue after the pile is gone, the question changes from which app to where does the next product come from. That is a sourcing and automation problem, not a marketplace problem — and it is the one Ecomli was built to solve. There is a broader view of the options in our roundup of the best side hustles in the UK, and a faster-cash angle in how to make quick money in the UK.

Ready to put the #1 pick to work? Ecomli is an AI-powered dropshipping automation platform that finds proven winning products, lists them across eBay, Amazon and Etsy, reprices 24/7, and fulfils orders automatically. Start for $1 → Full 14-day trial, cancel anytime.