Price a pre-owned watch from what comparable examples have actually sold for in the last 60 to 90 days - auction hammer prices, marketplace sold data, your own sales - and then adjust for condition, box and papers, service history and the fees of the channel you will sell through. Asking prices on Chrono24 or eBay tell you where the competition is sitting, not where the money changed hands, and on slow references the gap between the two is where dealers lose money. The sources below each publish a different slice of that picture; the cheapest useful combination for a UK dealer is Chrono24's free tools for supply, one paid sold-price database for demand, and your own stock book for what you actually achieve.

Which data sources publish what, and what do they cost?

Prices as of August 2026 from each vendor's own site; most bill in US dollars. None of these publish sterling-specific UK figures as a distinct product - you convert.

Source What it actually is What it publishes Cost
Chrono24 listings The largest marketplace; asking prices from dealers and private sellers worldwide Live asking prices, condition, papers, location, how long a listing has been up Free to browse
Chrono24 Watch Collection Free app-based portfolio tool with more than 1.3 million users tracking 3.7 million watches A per-reference value estimate and trend, derived from Chrono24's own data Free
ChronoPulse Chrono24's market index, launched 2023 Index of 14 brands and 140 models weighted by transaction volume, updated daily, built on more than 600,000 transactions; brand and model sub-indices Free
WatchCharts Aggregated listing and sales data across marketplaces and dealers; app and website Modelled "market price" per reference, price history (1 year on Basic, full 15+ years on Professional), regional prices, days-on-market and sales-volume history on Professional only, CSV export on Professional Basic free; Enthusiast $39 a month or $228 a year; Insider $119 a month or $708 a year; Professional $199 a month or $1,188 a year
WatchCharts API REST API for your own system; internal-use licence by default Watch lookup, current market price, limited history (Level 1); retail prices, appraisals, historical listings (Level 2) Pay-as-you-go with a Professional membership from $200 per 2,500 credits; Professional + Level 1 API from $600 a month or $5,000 a year; Level 2 from $1,000 a month or $8,000 a year
Subdial London pre-owned dealer and trading platform The Bloomberg Subdial Watch Index (the 50 most-traded references by transaction value) and its own brand indices, free to read; instant estimates when you upload a watch to its platform Free to read; no separate data subscription published
EveryWatch Auction-results and listings aggregator: 7.3 million listings from more than 1,950 dealers and auction houses, results back to 1989 Sold prices including auction hammer results, live listings, price charts, valuations Free (two years of sold data, four live listings); Titanium $18 a month or $180 a year; Gold $49 a month or $420 a year (unlimited sold data, listings and auction results); Platinum $1,000 a month
WatchAnalytics Former subscription analytics site; the website and app are being retired The seven-year dataset (20 million-plus listings, 330,000-plus auction results) is now sold as a one-off export Price on request
Retailed Scraping API marketplace Chrono24 product and search endpoints and a prices database, for your own tooling From $49 a month standard, $499 enterprise
Auction houses directly Fellows, Bonhams, Sotheby's, Phillips, Christie's results pages Hammer and premium-inclusive prices, lot descriptions, condition reports Free
eBay sold listings Filter "sold items" on eBay UK Achieved prices including Authenticity Guarantee sales at £1,500 and over Free

The distinction that matters is between asking and sold. Chrono24 listings, Watch Collection and WatchCharts' headline figure are built mostly from asking prices, modelled with varying sophistication. ChronoPulse, the Bloomberg Subdial index, EveryWatch's auction results and eBay's sold filter are built from transactions. Use the first group to see supply and the second to see demand.

How do I actually price one watch?

A repeatable method, which is what a dealer needs more than a clever one.

1. Identify the reference precisely. Reference number, dial variant, bracelet, production year from the serial, whether the movement and case are correct for each other. A Submariner 16610 with a tritium dial prices differently from one with Luminova; a Speedmaster with the wrong bracelet is worth the watch minus the cost of the right one.

2. Pull sold comparables. Auction hammer prices from the last quarter (add the buyer's premium to see what the buyer paid, subtract the seller's commission to see what the seller received), eBay sold listings, and any sales data source you pay for. You want five to ten results for the same reference and condition band. If you cannot find five, the reference is illiquid and your price is an opinion - widen the margin and shorten the hold.

3. Pull asking comparables. Chrono24 filtered to the same reference, condition and papers status, sorted by price, with the country filter set to the UK and then to everywhere. Note how many are listed, how long the cheapest have been up, and the gap between the cheapest and the median.

4. Adjust. Full set (box, papers, all links, service records) versus head only is a material percentage on modern Rolex, Omega, Tudor and Cartier, and more on vintage, where papers can be most of the premium. A recent service with a brand receipt adds some of its cost back; an unserviced watch with a movement that has not been opened in a decade subtracts the cost of the service you will have to fund or the buyer will price in. Polishing, replacement dials and aftermarket parts subtract. Where those percentages sit for your references comes from your own comparables, not a rule of thumb.

5. Net back through the channel. A £9,000 sale on eBay as a business seller costs about £344 in final value fee (12.9% on the first £750 and 3% on the remaining £8,250) plus £0.40 per order and a 0.35% regulatory fee; on Chrono24 it costs a share of a monthly dealer package plus an unpublished commission; to a dealer, nothing but margin. The same asking price returns different money on each, so the asking price should differ by channel. Details in best place to sell a watch in the UK and what Chrono24 costs a dealer.

6. Write it down. The comparables you used, the date, the adjustments. When the watch sells, or does not, that note is your own sales data source - the only one that reflects your buyers, your photographs and your reputation.

What are market day's supply and price-to-market?

Two numbers borrowed from the used-car trade, where they have been standard for twenty years. Together they tell you whether a watch is priced to sell, without needing a forecast.

Market day's supply (MDS) for a reference is the number of comparable examples currently for sale divided by the number sold per day over a recent window:

MDS = active comparable listings ÷ (comparable sales in last 90 days ÷ 90)

Forty examples listed, twenty sold in the last 90 days: supply is 40 ÷ (20 ÷ 90) = 180 days. At the current sales rate the market needs six months to clear what is already listed, and you are about to add one more. A reference with an MDS of 30 days is liquid; you can price at market and expect a sale inside a month. A reference at 180 days is not; you either price under the pack or accept a long hold, and if you bought it at a price that assumed a quick sale, you overpaid.

Price-to-market (PTM) is your asking price divided by the market's current price for the same thing:

PTM = your asking price ÷ median comparable asking price (same condition, papers, channel)

A PTM of 1.08 means you are 8% over the pack. That is fine on a reference with 25 days of supply and a clean full set; it is a watch that will sit for a year on one with 180 days of supply.

Put together they give a grading any dealer can run on a spreadsheet: low MDS and PTM near or under 1.0, leave it; high MDS and PTM over 1.0, reprice now; low MDS and PTM well under 1.0, you are giving margin away; high MDS and PTM under 1.0, you bought something slow and priced it honestly, so sit tight and do not buy another. Re-run it every couple of weeks. Supply moves; an MDS of 40 in March can be 120 by July after a brand raises retail or a reference is discontinued.

Where to get the inputs: active listings from Chrono24 filtered to the reference; sales per day from whichever sold-data source you pay for, or, on a smaller scale, from watching the Chrono24 count go down and eBay sold listings go up. WatchCharts' Professional tier publishes days-on-market and sales-volume history per reference, which is the closest thing to MDS off the shelf. None of the sources publish MDS or PTM by those names - you compute them.

Should I trust the "market price" figures?

As a starting point, not as a price. Each modelled figure is an average across conditions, locations and seller types, and each vendor weights those differently. Checks worth running:

  • Compare the figure to three actual recent sales. If it sits above all three, the model is leaning on asking prices.
  • Check the regional gap. UK prices for the same reference are commonly below US and above some EU asking prices once currency and import VAT are accounted for; a global median is not a UK price.
  • Check the condition assumption. Most models assume "very good, with papers" unless told otherwise.
  • Check the date. A 90-day rolling figure lags a falling market by about six weeks.

A dealer who prices off one vendor's market price, in either direction, is outsourcing the only judgement the business is paid for.

How often should I reprice stock?

Every two weeks as a minimum, and immediately after any of: a brand price rise, a reference being discontinued, a large auction result, a marketplace changing its fees, or the watch passing 60 days in stock. The discipline is cheaper than the alternative. A watch that sat at the wrong price for four months cost you the capital's use for four months and probably a worse price at the end, because the listing's age is visible to anyone who looks.

What we could not verify

  • WatchCharts' monthly-billed prices. The subscribe page shows $39 / $119 / $199 as monthly and $228 / $708 / $1,188 as annual totals; it also displays $19 / $59 / $99 per month as the annual-equivalent. We have quoted both readings.
  • Whether Subdial sells its data separately. Its index is published free; no data subscription was found on its site.
  • WatchAnalytics dataset pricing and whether the retirement has completed. The site says the website and app "are being retired" and offers the export on request; no date or price.
  • EveryWatch's currency. Plans are shown in dollars; the page does not state the billing currency explicitly.
  • Retailed's credit allocations per watch endpoint. Starting prices are published; per-call costs are not broken out on the public page.

Sources

This is general information, not valuation advice, and it is not a quotation. Market data vendors change their plans and methods without notice, and a modelled price is not a sale. Verify every figure against the vendor's page and against actual recent sales before you buy or price a watch on the strength of it.

Milleso runs the two numbers above on every piece in stock - market day's supply and price-to-market, graded A to D - so the watches that need repricing are flagged before they go stale, and the cost, days in stock and channel fees sit on the same record as the price.