Worthy

Worthy Review:

Worthy launched as a great place for the divorced and jilted to sell expensive engagement and weddings ring via auction. However, it’s morphed into a wider jewelry marketplace that offers a seamless selling process for expensive diamond jewelry and luxury watches.

How it works

People with jewelry to sell can plug the details into the site’s value estimator. This will calculate a value based on the type of product — i.e. ring, necklace or bracelet — as well as the designer; and the size, shape and clarity of the diamonds. Don’t bother trying to sell another type of stone here. Worthy is all about the diamonds.

You’ll also be asked to upload photos. At the end of that process, the site may provide an estimated value. Or it may urge you to provide more information or call.

Many people who have reviewed this site say it’s smart to pick up the phone and call. They talked to Worthy representatives, who were exceptionally helpful in walking them through the process.

Shipping

If you decide you want to send in your jewelry for a formal appraisal and possible sale, the site will send you a shipping label, and (if you want it) packing materials. Worthy insures all the jewelry sent to it. If it needs to return your jewelry, it will also ship it back with full insurance.

Evaluations

Once received in Worthy’s offices, jewelry is evaluated by Gemological Institute of America and similar experts. In some cases, diamonds need to be removed from their settings to get a proper look at their quality. If that’s necessary, Worthy will contact the seller to get approval.

In a few cases, the settings can’t be saved when the stone has been removed. This was once the top complaint about the site, with sellers saying they didn’t want the setting to be lost. The site now takes great pains to maintain the stone in the setting and warn sellers if it must be removed.

Setting a reserve price

Once the jewelry has been graded, sellers are given an estimate of its resale value, based on market interest for that stone and/or piece. If the value seems reasonable to you, you set a “reserve price” — i.e. the minimum price you’re willing to take at auction. When the piece is auctioned, it will only sell for that reserve price or more.

If there are no bids that are high enough — or if you don’t like the valuation enough to sell — Worthy will return your jewelry at no cost.

Selling

Assuming you like the valuation and want to go forward with the sale, Worthy will clean and photograph your jewelry and schedule it for auction. Auctions are held online and are mainly attended by professional buyers. You, however, are also invited to attend when you’re selling an item.

Commissions and fees

If you sell jewelry here, Worthy will take a commission from the sales price. The commission rate varies based on the value of the sale.

Sales of less than $5,000 are subject to an 18% commission. The commission rate drops to 14% for sales above $5,000 to $15,000; to 12% for those above $15,000 to $30,000 and to 10% for items selling for prices in excess of $30,000.

Getting paid

The site will pay you either by direct deposit, check or PayPal. (However, PayPal is not an option for sales over $5,000.) Payments are usually made within a few days of the sale.

Customer reviews

When we last reviewed this site in 2020, Worthy was generating a lot of complaints about removing stones and ruining settings. Site officials told us at the time that it was revamping its policies to address the complaints. That appears to have worked.

Recent (2022 and 2023) reviews are far more positive. (See “What their users say” below)

Recommendations:

Check with a few local jewelers before sending an item to Worthy. Many provide a nearly identical service at roughly the same cost.

If you are selling other types of gemstones and jewelry, Amazon also is worth considering. But spend the time to get an official appraisal for anything valuable, take copious photographs of what you’re selling, and make sure to insure your packages.

What their users say (from SiteJabber)

I had a great initial call with Rachel and quickly rec’d the mailing instructs and package to send my diamond. I was kept apprised every step of the way. Luckily I had read from others to price the ring at auction enough to cover Worthy’s fee and Abby helped me sort out final pricing. We ended up getting a higher bid than expected so everyone was happy. Payment came quickly as well via FedEx.

Overall I am happy with everything. Some things that went really well were: the overall process, the communication, the shipping was very easy and the automated emails and texts let me know what was happening. They GIA grading took longer than expected but they informed me of that. The auction itself was easy to set-up and see where the bids were coming in and how much. But, they should clarify if they want GIA certificates: I had one. I followed the shipping instructions and didn’t send any paperwork. Was later told the GIA would have been helpful to have

Highly recommend

From my trepidation about sending off my valuables to the process of grading, cleaning, and photographs of my necklace — to some much needed money in the bank to use in a way which serves my life going forward. Why keep something you no longer need? Why not grease the wheels of the universe? Letting go allows momentum for my future with the added bonus of cash in hand. I have already highly recommended your service to many. Everyone was totally professional and I am happy someone else will enjoy a necklace that was just sitting in my jewelry box.

I had my doubts of using Worthy to sell a ring and a necklace but after reading about the company and reviews I decided to give it a try…The only thing I certainly regret is that I should have done it before! Rachel and Kendall were a delight to work with and mostly because of them both transactions were a success.

Great communication

From start to finish, the process was straight forward and executed exactly as advertised. I never had concerns or questions because all aspects were explained on the front end. Highly recommend. Takes the cumbersome sorting of how to go about selling unwanted diamonds out of the hands of individuals who don’t know where to begin.

Great communication from the Worthy team all the way through the process. They sent me pre-paid insured postage to mail my ring to them. Kept me in the loop as to when the ring arrived and then kept me informed on every step of the process. From the inspection and evaluation of my ring, to giving me a cost estimate & complete report of the ring’s qualities, to how the auction would go, what bids I got etc. When my ring was sold for the price I wanted, it took less than a week for me to get the money from them.