Frequently asked questions

Every watch sold on Calibre ships from the seller to our authentication centre first, where it is inspected against the listing — reference, condition grades, box and papers — before it continues on to you. Authentication is carried out by a third-party partner under a 72-hour commitment from arrival to verdict, and if it runs long you hear from your Calibre contact before you have to ask. Read more about authentication.

The price you see on the listing, plus shipping calculated for your address and any sales tax. Paying by card adds a processing cost of 2.9% + $0.30, which is exactly what it costs us to accept the card and never more; paying by wire adds nothing. Every line is shown in the order summary before you confirm, and there is no buyer premium.

Credit cards, everywhere. Prepaid cards are never accepted. Debit cards are accepted only in the states where the discount presentation applies — Connecticut and Massachusetts — where the listed price is the card price and paying by wire receives a discount off it. The total is identical in every state; only the presentation differs. The card form tells you which cards it takes while you can still choose wire, not after you have submitted.

Yes, and wire is available at any price. Choose “Wire transfer” at checkout and we show the exact bank details and reference to use. The watch is held for 24 to 48 hours while the transfer arrives, the order advances automatically when it lands, and if the funds do not arrive in time the hold releases on its own. Wire has no processing cost at all.

Every order has a live tracker under Orders: shipped to authentication, at authentication, authentication complete, shipped to you, delivered — with the carrier tracking number once the watch is moving. Expect an extra stop compared with a normal online order; that stop is the authentication check.

It depends on what the authenticator found, and the two outcomes are genuinely different. If the watch is counterfeit, the authentication costs you nothing, you are refunded in full including the card processing cost, and the watch is destroyed rather than sent anywhere — it cannot lawfully go back to the seller either. If the watch is genuine but does not match its listing — the wrong reference, a condition grade that does not hold up, missing box or papers — it stops at the authentication centre and a person at Calibre takes it up with you and the seller. That can end in a partial refund with the watch continuing on to you: we try to find something that works for both of you. If we can’t, you’re refunded in full and the watch goes back to the seller. Either way it never ships to you unreviewed, and you never negotiate with the seller yourself.

Yes — tap “Save for Later” on any listing. Saved watches live under Saved in your account and also appear beneath your cart. Saving does not reserve the watch; it can still sell to someone else.

It depends on the seller, and you always know before you buy. Each seller chooses at listing time whether they accept returns and whether the window runs 24, 48, or 72 hours. Those terms appear on the listing, again at checkout, and on your order. The window starts when you sign for the watch, or two business days after the first delivery attempt, whichever comes first. Starting one needs a reason and photographs of the watch at the same six angles the listing was photographed at, so the watch coming back can be laid beside the watch that went out. Read the returns policy.

The watch price and the sales tax in full, less a 7% return fee with a $250 minimum calculated on the watch price alone, less the original outbound shipping label, and less the return label we generate. On a $10,000 card purchase with a $150 outbound label and a return label of about $150, that is $10,000 plus tax, less $700, less $150 and less $150 — $9,000 plus tax back to you. The roughly $294 card processing cost is not refunded on top of that. On a $2,000 purchase the return fee is $250 rather than the $140 seven percent would give, and both labels still come off. You never have to work this out yourself: the exact figure for your order is shown before you confirm anything.

No, and we tell you that at checkout before you buy rather than afterwards. If you paid by wire you had no card processing cost, so an equivalent processing cost is withheld from the refund instead, which keeps the two outcomes comparable.

Starting a return stops the clock. You then have 48 business hours to ship, with an “I shipped it” button that grants a short grace period for the carrier's first scan. We generate the label — direct signature required, insured for the full sale price — and its cost is deducted from your refund. The watch goes back to the authentication centre and is verified as the same watch, in the same condition, still genuine, before anything is refunded.

The seller pays nothing towards the return, receives the watch back, and chooses whether to relist it or take it off the market. A watch lost or damaged on the return leg is ours to claim and settle on both sides — neither customer deals with a carrier.

On any listing choose “Make Offer” and name your price. To keep offers serious, we authorize a refundable $250 hold on your credit card when you submit — an authorization, not a charge. The seller has 24 hours to accept, decline, or counter, and offers expire after 24 hours.

Almost never. The hold is released automatically when your offer is declined, expires, is cancelled, or when you complete payment on an accepted offer. It is charged only if a seller accepts your offer and you then back out or miss the payment deadline, and that is disclosed before you submit.

You have 12 hours from the failure to resolve it, and we show you the exact amount at stake while that window is open. If it is not resolved in time, the $250 hold is forfeited and split evenly between the seller and Calibre, $125 each, and the sale is cancelled.

Yes. Sellers can counter with a new price, and you can accept it, decline it, or counter back — the negotiation continues until one side accepts, declines, or a 24-hour response window lapses. The full history of every round is visible to both sides on the offer.

An accepted offer is a sale, on the same fees and the same return terms as any other purchase. You have 24 hours to complete checkout at that price, by card or by wire, and the watch is reserved for you during that window. Your hold is released the moment payment goes through.

Nothing up front — no subscription and no listing fee. When your watch sells, Calibre's commission is 6% for private sellers and 4% for verified dealers, calculated on the final agreed watch price, which for an accepted offer is the agreed amount. Every sale carries a minimum commission of $250. There is no buyer premium. See the full commission breakdown.

Yes, at listing time, along with whether the window is 24, 48, or 72 hours. It is worth thinking about, because it decides when you get paid: a listing without returns pays out when authentication passes, and a listing with returns pays out when the return window closes. Changing the terms on a listing that has not sold sends it back through review.

Payouts run through Stripe, our payments partner, which verifies every seller's identity before money can move — the same requirement banks have. Your SSN goes to Stripe over an encrypted connection; Calibre never stores it, only a one-way fingerprint used to keep previously banned sellers off the marketplace.

Sellers finish onboarding with a credit card on file. It must be a credit card — debit and prepaid cards are not accepted for this — and we tell you before it expires. It is not charged to list or to sell; it exists for the situations set out in the terms, such as a watch that turns out to be counterfeit (5% of the sale price) or a genuine watch materially misrepresented that has to be returned (5% plus the return shipping).

Every listing is reviewed by our team before going live so buyers can trust what they see. If yours is rejected, the reason appears on the listing in your seller dashboard and by email. Fix the issue — usually photos or details that do not match the reference — and resubmit; review normally takes less than a day.

Front, caseback, left profile, right profile, clasp, and the full set. Our authenticators compare the delivered watch against these exact angles, and buyers spending thousands expect to see them. Listings cannot enter review without all six.

You ship one leg only: to our authentication centre, with a prepaid label you buy in the fulfillment flow, quoted from your box size and weight before you pay. The buyer pays for the authenticated leg to their door. Every label on every leg requires a direct signature and is insured for the full sale price.

It depends on your return terms. If your listing does not accept returns, your payout is released when the watch passes authentication, before the buyer even has it. If it does accept returns, your payout is released when the return window closes. You always see which rule applies and why, along with two dates: when the payout was released, and when it should reach your bank account, about two business days later. A new seller's first payout may be held for 7 to 14 days whichever rule applies, and that is shown in the date we give you.

A dealer on Calibre is a verified business. You apply by completing a second verification step with your business legal name and EIN, verified through Stripe, and when verification clears you are a dealer automatically — there is no approval queue and nobody to wait on. Dealer status brings exactly three things: the 4% commission rate, a dealer badge buyers can see, and bulk import with volume tools. It does not expire and is not tied to how much you have listed, though it can be revoked for cause, in which case the badge, tools, and rate revert while your listings stay live. How the dealer program works.

No, if you are a verified dealer: bulk import is a dealer tool. It accepts the CSV or Excel export from whatever inventory system you use, matches your columns to ours once, and turns complete rows into listings. Incomplete rows are saved as drafts you can finish any time. See how bulk uploads work.

No. All payments are processed by Stripe, the payments provider behind millions of businesses. Card details are entered in Stripe's secure form and never touch Calibre's servers.

Yes. Your payment is held by the platform, and if anything goes wrong before the watch reaches you, the money comes back to you rather than going to the seller.

Yes — submit a watch request with the brand, reference, and your budget. Our dealer network sees open requests, and you are notified the moment a matching watch goes live.

Every Calibre customer has one named contact, and replies come personally from that person. Use the chat bubble in the corner of any page, or write to support@buycalibre.com — it is the same conversation either way, with the same person answering.