Donation value calculator

Read each guide on its own terms

The calculator above is the tool. Pick a type, or type an item and what you paid. Each charity stays on its own line, and that line names the types the guide does not list. Guides are not averaged into one figure, and the higher end is not picked for you.

A number on this site is one of four things. A guide range is one list's low and high for one item type, with the row label kept as that list printed it. A rule estimate is a percent of a price you type, labeled as that rule. An observation set is matched government surplus lots. Those bids are not on this page. surplus auction prices is where they go once a matched set qualifies. A fact is any other sourced sentence, mostly from the IRS. These are the evidence types used by this donation calculator. Photo estimates elsewhere on the site use a separately labelled AI method.

Why the ranges differ

The Salvation Army national list puts no date on the ranges. Retrieved 2026-11-12. A sofa there is $36–$207¹. The same type on the list published at tchabitat.org is $25–$150². Goodwill Industries International, dated January 12, 2011, prints $30–$150³. The list published at ccmaine.org, dated July 19, 2012, prints $30–$150⁴. The spread is why both ends from each list stay visible.

Goodwill Northern New England is dated February 3, 2025. That date is the last modification of the page fetched on 2026-11-12, not a claim that the rows were written that day. The rows are not copied. The privacy page on that site says reproduction of material there needs prior permission. The one sentence cited from that guide is the unlisted-item rule: 30%⁵ of the original price. You get that line when you type an item that is not one of the item types. Picking a listed type that one guide lacks does not fill the hole with the percent. The missing name stays on that guide's line.

Condition and your tax records

Condition still changes what a buyer would pay, and the guides publish one span anyway. A sofa with worn arms is a different gift from a sofa someone just stopped using. An appliance missing a part is a different gift from a complete working one. Publication 561 says You cannot take an income tax charitable contribution deduction for household items unless they are in good used condition or better.⁶ Clothing is a separate sentence: You cannot take an income tax charitable contribution deduction for an item of clothing unless it is in good used condition or better.⁷ The below-good switch on the calculator follows those two classes. It does not zero a row this site classes as other, which is how building materials and tools are filed.

Form 8283 comes in when the year's noncash total is over $500⁸. The quotes and the checklist are on IRS rules for donated household items. Someone who does not itemize does not deduct donated goods. Only qualifying cash contributions are eligible for this deduction. Noncash contributions do not qualify.⁹ Publication 561 leaves antiques, art, jewelry, gems and collections out of household goods. Household items do not include paintings, antiques, objects of art, jewelry, gems, and collections like stamp and coin collections.¹⁰ The Salvation Army list still prints a picture and painting row. Picking that type does not add its span to a total. Jewelry, gems and collections are not item types in this donation calculator.

Find the right category

The tables live on the hubs. Start at Furniture or Appliances. Then Electronics and computers, Kitchen and housewares and Bedding and linens. Clothing is split into Men's clothing, Women's clothing and Children's clothing and gear, because the guides that split by gender do not print one price for a shirt. Toys, sports and outdoors, Books and media and Building materials cover the rest. Building-material rows in this catalog come from the tchabitat.org list. A generator is an item type with no guide row at all.

donation value guides compared is where the lists are compared, including the empty one. methodology is the rule for which numbers are allowed. sources has the retrieval date and the terms note on every guide and every fact.

A note on other donation trackers

People used to track this in ItsDeductible. A TurboTax community post, from a user and not from Intuit staff, gives a shutdown date of 2025-10-21¹¹. That post is a secondary source. Deductible Duck, a paid tracker, says Our item list uses eBay auctions and thrift store prices.¹² After a free cap of $1,000¹³ it costs $29.99¹⁴ a year. This site uses neither list. The ranges here are the charity guides named above.

Nothing here is a deduction on a particular return. The disclaimer under this text names fair market value as Publication 561 uses that term. A donor still decides condition, and a donor who itemizes still follows the form. This site stops at the cited figure.