About

The reference desk

Watch Trading Toolkit is a free reference desk for people who buy and sell watches — a max buy calculator, a library of plain-English articles, a set of state and city compliance guides with a checker, and a glossary of the terms the trade takes for granted. No account, no paywall. Reach us at hello@watchtradingtoolkit.com.

Who publishes this site

Published by the team behind WristBook, the operating system for watch dealers.

We build software for independent watch dealers, and we built this site because the questions our dealers asked us most — what can I pay, what license do I need, what records do I have to keep, how do I not lose money on a deal — had no good free answer anywhere. Everything here is free and stays free. If you get to the point where you’re running enough inventory that spreadsheets stop working, WristBook is what we’d point you to, and we’d make money if you used it. That’s the whole relationship.

What this site does

It’s built around the work of actually dealing watches, in four parts. None of it requires an account or a subscription.

• The max buy calculator — work every deal backward from the sale price to the most you can pay, in buy or consignment mode, with fees, prep, tax, and carrying cost.
• The learn library — 120 in-depth articles on getting started, buying, pricing and profit, selling, running the business, and the major platforms.
• Compliance guides and the checker — 58 guides to the federal, state, and city rules for buying and reselling watches, plus a checker that builds the list for where you operate.
• The glossary — 153 plain-English definitions of the movement, case, condition, and market terms the trade uses without explaining.

How the calculator works

Start from the expected sale price. Take out the channel fee, payment processing, shipping, and insurance to get net proceeds. From net proceeds, hold back your target profit — set either as a margin on the sale price or a markup on cost. Subtract prep, buy-side tax, shipping in, and any carrying cost. What remains is the most you can pay: your max buy, or in consignment mode, the most you can offer the consignor.

Fee presets are editable estimates, not verified rates. Marketplace fees change and sources disagree, so the calculator asks you to check your current rate and treat every number as a starting point.

How the articles are researched

The learn library is written to be practical, not padded. Every figure that isn’t part of a worked example — a fee, a rule, a deadline — is tied to a named primary source, and the source is listed on the page. Worked examples are labelled as illustrative and are computed with the same calculator the site runs on, so the numbers you read match the numbers the tool produces. Where something isn’t confirmed, the articles say so rather than guess. Like the guides, they are information, not legal, tax, or financial advice.

How guides are verified and dated

Guides are drafted, then checked against primary sources — city and state offices and federal agencies — before they are published for search. Each guide carries a last-verified date and a list of the sources used. Until a guide is verified it is marked as a draft, is not indexed, and its content is placeholder. Guides are information, not legal, tax, or financial advice; confirm anything that matters with a qualified professional.

Editorial policy

The site does not accept payment for placement in guides, articles, or anywhere else, and it does not claim to be independent or neutral. Where a tool, article, or plan hands off to WristBook, the link says so plainly, right next to it. The guides and articles are written from primary sources and stay free of product promotion; their content doesn’t change based on what we sell.