Commission models and contracts for estate sales

How you get paid is the most important number in the business, and the contract that pins it down is the document that protects both you and the family. Estate sale companies work on commission: you run the whole sale and keep a percentage of everything that sells, and the family receives the rest. Get the rate right and the terms clear, and settlement day is a handshake. Get them vague and it’s an argument.

This page covers the commission structures you’ll choose between, when to add a minimum or a flat fee, and what a client contract must actually cover. The calculator below splits any estimated gross into your take and the family’s payout — including the case where a small, labor-heavy job leaves you underwater.

What commission to charge

The average commission runs about 35 to 45% of the gross, with roughly 35% cited as a common midpoint (per Brown Button and SmartAsset 2025). It moves with the work:

• High-value, easy-to-sell estates can pull rates down toward 25 to 35%. A house full of quality furniture and clean, desirable goods sells itself and needs less of your labor.
• Small, low-value, or labor-heavy jobs push rates to 45 to 50% or higher (per DIYAuctions 2025). A cluttered house that takes days to sort and staff, and grosses little, has to pay a higher rate to be worth running.

The percentage isn’t a number you copy from a competitor — it’s a reflection of how much sorting, research, and staffing a specific sale demands. Walk the house, estimate the work and the likely gross, and quote a rate that pays for the crew and time the job actually needs.

Minimums and flat fees

A percentage of a tiny estate won’t cover a full crew for two days. That’s why many companies add a minimum commission or a flat fee for small jobs, cleanouts, or appraisal-only work (per DIYAuctions 2025). A common structure is a percentage commission with a stated dollar minimum, so a light sale still pays for the labor.

Decide your floor before you quote. Walking away from a job you’d lose money on is a beginner’s mistake to avoid, and a clear minimum lets you take a small job without eating the cost of it. Some operators also charge separately for a cleanout as a flat or hourly add-on (see cleanouts and consignment).

What the contract must cover

The written agreement is where clear terms up front prevent the fight on settlement day. At a minimum, your contract should spell out:

• The commission rate and any minimum — the core deal, in plain numbers.
• Who pays for what — advertising, staffing, and supplies. Say whether those come out of the gross, are billed separately, or are covered by your commission.
• Sale dates and setup access — when the sale runs, when you get in to set up, and how you get keys or entry.
• Pricing authority and discounts — who decides on markdowns and offers, and your published discount schedule.
• Leftovers and cleanout — how unsold items, donations, and haul-away are handled, and what an empty house costs.
• When and how the family is paid — the settlement window and the written statement they’ll receive.
• A liability and insurance clause — your coverage and the limits of your responsibility.

Have a local attorney review the template you’ll reuse on every job. You don’t need a lawyer to draft each contract, but you want one to check the version you’ll rely on. None of this is legal advice.

How the money moves

You collect the sale proceeds, take your contracted commission and expenses, and pay the family the balance. So the money runs through you — which is exactly why the accounting has to be spotless. The trust of the whole trade lives here.

Handle it cleanly:

• Keep client funds separate from your own operating money.
• Record every dollar that comes in and every deduction that goes out.
• Deduct only what the contract allows — no surprise fees.
• Settle within a set window after the sale, often one to two weeks, with a written statement showing gross sales, your commission, itemized expenses, and the net owed.

A family that can read their settlement line by line is a family that refers you. A vague total scrawled on a receipt is how you lose the next three jobs.

Where records earn their keep

This is the part of the business that rewards good tooling. Tracking a whole sale by hand — every item, every price, every deduction — is where errors creep in and trust erodes. TagLot records the money without ever taking a cut of it: your Square or cash stays yours, and it produces a settlement statement off the same figures you already captured, so the family gets a document that reads like a bank statement instead of a shoebox total. It keeps the boundary between the client’s money and yours clean by design.

Run the numbers before you sign anything. The calculator below shows exactly how a sale splits — and where a rate that looked fine turns into a job that costs you money. Next, the craft that determines the gross itself: pricing the contents.