Marktplaats vs storay: head-to-head

Marktplaats is the default place to sell secondhand in the Netherlands, with massive reach and free basic listings; storay is a newer, Amsterdam-built alternative that gives you a personal shop page instead of adverts in a crowd. The short version: Marktplaats wins on raw audience, storay wins on presentation, zero fees, and selling many items at once via WhatsApp. For a one-off bike sale, use Marktplaats. For clearing out a home, wardrobe, or moving sale, an own-shop page is the calmer option.

What Marktplaats does well

Credit where due: nearly everyone in the Netherlands checks Marktplaats. If you list a decent bike, a sofa, or a pram at a fair price, you will get messages — sometimes within the hour. Basic listings in most categories are free, local pickup culture is strong, and buyers are used to negotiating and paying with a Tikkie on the doorstep.

Where it gets tiring

• •Visibility is for sale. Free adverts sink fast under newer listings. Featured placement and bump-ups cost money, and some categories carry listing fees — check the current pricing page for yours.
• •Every advert stands alone. Selling 30 items means managing 30 separate adverts, 30 message threads, and 30 rounds of "is het nog beschikbaar?"
• •Lowballing is a sport. When buyers compare you against every similar advert in the country, opening offers at half your asking price are routine.
• •It looks like 2005. Functional, yes. But if you care how your stuff is presented — vintage, design pieces, a curated cleanout — an advert grid doesn't do it justice.

How storay approaches the same problem

storay — built by two people in Amsterdam — starts from your inventory, not from adverts. Photograph your stuff and AI turns the photos into a catalogued collection. Group items into themed shelves ("verhuizing", "kinderkamer", "winter coats") and each shelf becomes a clean, shareable page. Your whole shop lives at one link you can drop in a WhatsApp group, a buurt app, or your Instagram bio.

Buyers need no account — they tap an item and message you on WhatsApp, with the item details pre-filled. They can propose a different price per item, and the offer lands in that same message. Payment and handover stay exactly as Dutch as you like: Tikkie, cash, ophalen. storay never sits in the middle and never takes a cut.

Head-to-head

• •Reach: Marktplaats — the biggest secondhand audience in the Netherlands. storay — no built-in audience; you share your link where your buyers already are.
• •Cost: Marktplaats — free basic adverts, paid visibility, fees in some categories. storay — zero listing fees and zero commission on every plan.
• •Selling many items: Marktplaats — one advert per item, managed separately. storay — one shelf link covers everything; AI catalogues items from photos.
• •Contact: Marktplaats — in-platform messaging. storay — direct WhatsApp; no account needed for buyers.
• •Presentation: Marktplaats — classified-ad layout. storay — designed shelf pages that look like a small personal shop.
• •Extras: Marktplaats — none beyond selling. storay — doubles as a home inventory (insurance records, moving lists) and includes Otto, an AI assistant that suggests prices from live market data.

The honest verdict

Choose Marktplaats when

You're selling one or two mainstream items — a bike, a washing machine, an IKEA wardrobe — and you want strangers to find them this week. Raw reach matters most for commodity items, and nothing in the Netherlands beats Marktplaats there.

Choose storay when

You're selling volume or selling beautifully: a whole wardrobe, furniture before a move, a curated vintage collection, or a moving-out sale you want to share with friends, colleagues, and the neighbourhood group in one link. You keep 100% of every sale and skip the advert-management grind entirely.

Or use both

Plenty of sellers catalogue everything in storay first — it takes minutes with photo AI — then cross-post the two or three high-demand commodity items to Marktplaats. When a buyer turns up on either channel, mark it sold in storay and your inventory stays accurate.

Try it with one box

The free plan (25 items, one public shelf, WhatsApp checkout) is enough to test the model with one box of stuff. Sign up at storay.app, photograph the box, set prices with help from our secondhand pricing guide, and share the shelf in one group chat. You'll know within a week which model suits you.