How the donation values are built

The short version

We collect the valuation guides that charities and thrift operators publish for their donors, match entries that describe the same physical item, take a conservative middle of the ranges they print, and split that span into three condition tiers: Like new, Good and Fair. The method follows IRS Publication 561, which says fair market value for used goods is generally what a willing buyer would pay, and points to thrift store prices as evidence.

• 20 value sources, each a guide published by a charity or thrift operator, plus three IRS documents for method (Publications 561 and 526, and the Form 8283 instructions).
• 1,172 donatable goods across 25 categories. 784 carry a published range; the rest are listed with guidance on how to value them yourself, because no source we can cite prices them.
• No invented numbers. A range with no citation behind it does not ship.

Step 1: only cite what was published

Every source is recorded in a registry with its publisher, title, URL and the date we accessed it. A source is either a value source (it prints prices) or a method source (it says how to value). Some value sources are primary for every category; others only corroborate, or are primary only inside a stated scope.

Two things are never used as a value source, for any purpose: Intuit's ItsDeductible valuation guide, and any other product's compiled valuation database. Their structure can inform how categories are organized. Their numbers cannot inform ours.

Step 2: match like with like

Entries are combined only when their printed labels describe the same physical item at the same level of detail. One guide's “Sofa” and another's “Sofas” merge. A guide's men's “Shirt” and another's “T-shirts” do not; they stay separate items rather than being averaged together. A price per square foot or per bundle is never converted into a per-item value.

Step 3: take a conservative middle

For each item we take the lower median of the low ends the primary sources print, and the lower median of the high ends. The median resists one affiliate's regional outlier; the lower median breaks ties conservatively. An item priced by only one primary source is flagged as single-source. An item no primary source prices falls back to corroborating sources and is flagged as low confidence.

Step 4: split the span into three tiers

The span between that low and high is divided at fixed points: Fair covers the bottom 35%, Good the next 35%, and Like new the top 30%. The figure the app prefills sits inside each band (at 17.5%, 52.5% and 85% of the span). Values are rounded to the nearest $0.25 under $5, the nearest $1 under $50, and the nearest $5 above that. No tier may go above the highest published figure or below the lowest: we never extrapolate past what a source printed.

Why there is no “Poor” tier

Publication 526 says you generally cannot deduct clothing or household items unless they are in good used condition or better. A tier below Fair would invite a deduction the rules generally do not allow, so the dataset will never have one.

What this cannot do

Intuit's old tool licensed a feed of closed eBay auction prices. We cannot buy that, so some of our ranges read more conservative than the figures people remember. We do not inflate them to compensate. A value here is evidence for a figure you choose, not a ruling, and you can override any suggested value in the app (the export flags that you did).

Review cadence

The dataset is refreshed as a versioned edition once a year, ahead of filing season, and sources are re-checked when an edition is built. Corrections between editions are recorded below.

Edition changelog

• Edition 2026.1, 2026-08-05. First edition: 25 categories, 1,172 donatable goods, 784 with a published range, from 20 value sources.

Browse the results in the donation value guide, or look up one item in the value tool.