How to flip PCs for profit: $29 an hour net, sold locally

The numbers

Assumptions: bought for $300 and sold for $500 in person on OfferUp (both prices are our assumptions; the $0 fee is OfferUp’s), 6 hours of work (assumed), 20 miles at the IRS 76¢ rate, $10 of supplies (assumed), 15.3% self-employment tax (IRS) plus 12% income tax (assumed). Rounded to the nearest dollar.

To flip PCs for profit, buy a working desktop locally for clearly less than similar machines actually sell for. Clean and test it, wipe it properly, sort out Windows, then sell it locally where the fee is zero. The numbers say you make the margin when you buy and lose it when you sell. A $200 spread works out to about $29 an hour net if the buyer collects and pays in person. Put the same machine through eBay and it’s about $15 an hour.

The flip, step by step

1. Decide where you’ll sell before you buy. Some apps charge no fee on local sales, and selling locally means you don’t have to ship a bulky box. OfferUp stopped nationwide shipping in 2025: new listings lost the option on September 23, 2025, and existing listings lost it by October 21, 2025. Many older guides still say OfferUp ships. It is local pickup only now.
2. Buy against sold prices, not asking prices. Your ceiling is what similar machines actually sold for. Check in person that the machine boots and that the CPU, RAM, storage and graphics card match the listing, because misrepresented hardware is a common complaint in flipping forums. Write down the serial numbers of the main parts.
3. Check Windows 11 eligibility on the spot by looking up the processor on Microsoft’s list at aka.ms/CPUlist. A machine that can run Windows 11 is easier to describe and easier to sell (details below).
4. Clean, test and fix. Clear the dust, replace the thermal paste if needed, and run a stress test. Count these hours: they are the biggest block of time in the whole flip.
5. Wipe the drive. In Windows, go to Reset, choose “Remove everything” and turn on the “Clean data” option. Microsoft recommends this before selling a PC because it makes files harder to recover. Microsoft also says it does not meet government or industry data-erasure standards.
6. Price and list the machine, with RAM capacity and speed in the title. In 2026 that detail is worth more than it used to be (see the RAM section).
7. Take payment at the handover, and never accept a check for more than the price (see the risks section).
8. Log the purchase price, miles, fees, supplies and hours. You need them for the per-hour math, and possibly for your taxes.

Assumptions

Swap in your own values.

1. Purchase price: $300 for a used desktop bought locally (assumed).
2. Sale price: $500, sold in person on OfferUp, which charges no fee or commission on in-person sales.
3. Mileage: 20 miles round trip for the pickup (assumed). The buyer collects from you, so selling adds no miles.
4. Mileage rate: 76¢ per mile, the IRS business rate for driving on or after July 1, 2026. Driving from January to June 2026 uses 72.5¢, per the IRS standard mileage rates page. The rate covers fuel, wear and depreciation in one number.
5. Supplies: $10 per flip for cleaning supplies and thermal paste (assumed).
6. Hours: 6.0 in total (assumed, broken down below). This includes unpaid time: messaging, driving, and one buyer who doesn’t show up.
7. Tax: 15.3% self-employment tax (IRS) plus 12% income tax (assumed), so 27.3% combined. We apply it to the whole profit, which is a conservative simplification. State tax is ignored.
8. Rounding: arithmetic is done to the cent, and summary figures are rounded to the nearest dollar.

Worked example: one desktop, start to finish

Where the hours go:

The money, line by line:

Sale price                          $500.00
Purchase price                    - $300.00
Gross margin                        $200.00

Mileage: 20 mi x $0.76            -  $15.20
Supplies (assumed)                -  $10.00
OfferUp fee (in person)           -   $0.00
Total costs                          $25.20
Net profit: 200.00 - 25.20          $174.80

Gross per hour: 200.00 / 6           $33.33
Costs per hour: 25.20 / 6             $4.20
Net per hour: 174.80 / 6             $29.13

Tax rate: 15.3% + 12% (assumed)       27.3%
Tax: 174.80 x 0.273                  $47.72
After tax: 174.80 - 47.72           $127.08
After tax per hour: 127.08 / 6       $21.18

For a pickup before July 1, 2026, the mileage line is 20 x $0.725 = $14.50, which is 70 cents less.

Where you sell sets the fee

The same $500 sale on each channel, using each platform’s own fee pages. Fees are calculated on the $500 item price, before sales tax and shipping, unless noted.

Notes on the rows:

• Facebook: Meta’s Seller Protection Policy sets a fee of 10% per transaction with a $0.80 minimum. It is calculated on the entire transaction, including delivery fees and taxes. Some older Facebook pages still say 5%. The policy page is the authoritative source. On shipped orders you pay your own shipping, and charges for under-reported weight can be taken out of your payouts.
• eBay: according to eBay’s selling fees page, the 13.6% is charged on the full total, including the shipping the buyer pays and sales tax. With an assumed 7% sales tax on the $500: 535.00 x 0.136 = $72.76, plus $0.40 = $73.16, which is $4.76 more than the table shows. Selling to an overseas buyer without eBay International Shipping adds 1.65%. For eBay set against another marketplace on a single sale, see Etsy fees vs eBay fees.
• Mercari: payouts by direct deposit are free, and Instant Pay costs $3 per cash-out. Sellers who cancel often pay 5% of the item price, capped at $25.
• PayPal: Goods and Services is listed at 2.99%, and PayPal Checkout at 3.49% + $0.49. Confirm on PayPal’s fee page whether a fixed fee applies to your transaction type.

Does an eBay Basic Store pay for itself?

A Basic Store or higher cuts the fee on laptops, desktops, all-in-ones, CPUs, RAM, motherboards and motherboard/CPU combos from 13.6% to 7.35%. A Starter Store ($7.95 a month, or $4.95 a month on a yearly plan) still pays 13.6%, so it saves nothing on fees.

Fee saving: 13.6% - 7.35%              = 6.25% of sales
Basic, yearly plan:  $21.95 / 0.0625   = $351.20 of computer sales a month
Basic, monthly plan: $27.95 / 0.0625   = $447.20 of computer sales a month

The store pays for itself above roughly $350 to $450 of computer sales on eBay a month. Below that, it costs you money, and the yearly plan keeps charging in slow months. Graphics cards are not on eBay’s reduced-rate list, so check the GPU rate in Seller Hub before counting on the saving. Either way, the first 250 listings each month are free.

Shipping a tower: the cost the margin forgets

Get a quote for your actual box before you list. What is confirmed is how the box is billed. Since mid-2026, USPS has used a dimensional-weight divisor of 139 for Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express, Ground Advantage and Parcel Select, and rounds each package dimension up to the next whole inch. On Priority Mail this applies to packages over 1,728 cubic inches (one cubic foot), and a boxed tower is well over that. So the postage is set by the size of the box rather than its weight. eBay and Mercari also take their percentage from the shipping the buyer pays, so charging the buyer for shipping still costs you the fee on that amount.

The 2026 RAM factor

Memory prices are the biggest change in PC flipping this year. From Engadget’s 2020 vs 2026 price comparison:

Engadget’s reasons: AI data centers are taking memory supply, less DDR4 is being made, TrendForce reported DRAM contract prices up about 93% to 98% quarter on quarter in Q1 2026, and Micron is leaving the consumer Crucial business.

For a flip, this means the RAM inside a used PC is now worth far more on its own than it was a year or two ago. Run the one used-kit sale above through eBay’s standard fee:

Sale (incl. shipping)                 $138.99
eBay fee: 138.99 x 0.136 = 18.90
  + 0.40 per order                  -  $19.30
Left before your postage              $119.69

A single sale doesn’t set a market price. Even so, if a $300 desktop has 32GB of DDR4 inside, the memory alone could cover a large share of what you paid. Price the machines you buy with that in mind. There is a downside too: buyers who would otherwise add RAM face the same prices, which may squeeze what they can spend on the machine itself.

Windows: what you can honestly promise

• Windows 10 support ended October 14, 2025. Microsoft’s consumer Extended Security Updates program now runs to October 12, 2027, after a one-year extension in June 2026, so articles that say October 2026 are out of date. US users can enroll for free by syncing PC settings, with 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points, or with a one-time $30 plus tax. Enrollment requires Windows 10 version 22H2, the latest updates, and an admin Microsoft account that isn’t a child account. The license is tied to the Microsoft account, so the listing should tell your buyer they need to enroll with their own account.
• Windows 11 needs a compatible 64-bit processor (1 GHz, 2 cores, on Microsoft’s list), 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, UEFI with Secure Boot, TPM 2.0, and DirectX 12 graphics with a WDDM 2.0 driver. If a machine meets all of these, put “Windows 11 eligible” in the listing.
• After a big hardware change such as a new motherboard, a digital license linked to a Microsoft account can be reactivated with the Activation troubleshooter, as long as the edition (Home or Pro) stays the same. A retail copy reactivates with its retail product key. It isn’t confirmed whether other license types can move to new hardware. If you don’t know what a machine has, describe the activation status as you found it and don’t promise a transfer.

Risks that cost money

• Fake checks: the FTC says don’t accept a check for more than the selling price. It can take weeks for a bank to discover a check is fake, and then the seller repays the bank.
• eBay “not as described” claims: buyers can claim up to 30 days after delivery (longer if your return window is longer), even on listings marked “no returns.” For items sold “for parts or not working” with no returns, the buyer has 3 days after delivery to open a request. Orders of $750 or more need signature confirmation as proof of delivery. Your serial-number log is your evidence in these disputes.
• eBay penalty surcharges: a “Below Standard” seller rating adds 6% to final value fees, rising to 7% after four or more months in a row. A “Very High” rate of not-as-described cases adds 5%, rising to 6%. At 13.6% + 6%, the fee on the $500 sale becomes 500 x 0.196 = $98.00 plus $0.40.
• eBay’s User Agreement bars anyone under 18.
• Some purchases turn out to be duds. The table below shows what one in five does to the hourly rate.

What changes the answer

All figures are net per hour before tax, starting from the worked example.

The less obvious rows:

60-mile trip: 200.00 - (60 x 0.76 = 45.60) - 10.00     = $144.40
Failed flip: bought $300, parted out for $200 after
  fees (assumed), less 25.20 costs                     = loss of $125.20
Five flips: (4 x 174.80) - 125.20                      = $574.00
eBay: 200.00 - 15.20 - 10.00 - 73.16                   = $101.64, before any postage you absorb

Sale price moves the result most. Taking $100 off the spread removes more than half the hourly rate, because the hours stay the same whatever the margin. Selling on eBay comes next. A Facebook transaction fee and a 60-mile pickup each cost about $8.50 an hour, so long drives matter as much as the channel fee if you make them for every machine.

Compared with

• Minimum wage: check your state’s rate against the net-per-hour column. A flip stops being obviously worth the time somewhere between the $12.47 and $29.13 rows, depending on where your state’s wage sits.
• Hourly jobs: entry-level part-time jobs pay $15 to $21.53 an hour with no buying risk, which beats the weaker flip scenarios. A wider ranking is in the most effective side hustles by after-tax pay.
• Parting out: with RAM at 2026 prices, selling a machine in parts can beat selling it whole. Every part adds its own fee, postage and packing time. On eBay, RAM and CPUs qualify for the 7.35% store rate, which helps at volume.

Tax: hobby, personal sale or business

This section is arithmetic and isn’t tax advice. A tax professional can tell you how your situation is treated.

• Marketplaces and payment apps only have to send a Form 1099-K when you have more than $20,000 in payments and more than 200 transactions. That threshold was restored retroactively, replacing the planned $600. The IRS says you must report income whether or not you get a 1099-K. States can set their own rules, so check with your state’s tax agency.
• Selling your own old PC at a loss: the loss isn’t deductible. Report it at the top of Schedule 1 or on Form 8949/Schedule D. Selling at a gain: the gain is taxable and goes on Form 8949 and Schedule D.
• Flipping as a business (sole proprietor) is reported on Schedule C. Self-employment tax is 15.3% (12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare) once net self-employment earnings reach $400. The 2026 Social Security wage base is $184,500. The standard mileage rate is a business rate, so it applies when you file on Schedule C, not when you sell your own old machine.
• To tell a hobby from a business, the IRS looks at factors such as businesslike records, a profit motive or history of profit, and whether you change methods to improve profit. Hobby income goes on Schedule 1, line 8, and hobby losses can’t offset other income. The log from step 8 counts as businesslike records.

Verdict in one number

$29 an hour, net of fees, miles and supplies, on a $200-margin desktop sold locally (about $21 after the tax estimate). Shrink the spread or move the sale to eBay and it falls to the low teens.