Selling Tradelines Update: Five Years, $30K Later

When I wrote the first version of this post I had sold 59 tradelines and was somewhere between encouraged and beaten up. eBay had just banned me. Bank of America had just closed my $40,000 card. The direct sales experiment was going nowhere fast. I called it “year three” even though I kept going.

This is the update. It’s been about five years now, 241 tradelines, $30,603 in commissions. The eBay ban still stings when I look at the data. The BoA closure still stings more. But the numbers are growing and I have enough of them now to actually say something interesting — so here we go.

The Cards: Chase Wins, and I Still Don’t Know Why

The table above covers every card I’ve ever sold tradelines with — 18 cards total, from a couple of American Express accounts to the usual Capital One and Wells Fargo suspects. The winner, by a wide margin, is the Chase Explorer: 36 tradelines sold, $6,237 in commissions. Second place isn’t close.

I find this a little funny because I genuinely believe all credit limits are created equal. A $30K Chase card and a $30K Capital One card do identical things to a credit report — same limit contribution, same age contribution, same utilization math. The issuer name is irrelevant once it hits your report. And yet buyers consistently prefer Chase. The brokers confirm it sells faster. (I’ve stopped trying to explain it and just listed more Chase.)

The surprise in second place is the Citicard AAdvantage — 16 tradelines, $4,576 in commissions. That’s almost as impressive as Chase on a per-sale basis, especially given Citi’s reputation for inconsistent authorized user posting. More on that in the issues section. The BankAmericard row is highlighted in red because that one’s gone — the BoA shutdown I wrote about in the original post. Six sales, $1,345, and then closed overnight. Expensive reminder that not all issuers play nice with tradeline selling.

The Brokers: Who Works With What

I currently work with five brokers: Tradeline Supply Company, Boost Credit 101, Improve My Credit Fitness, Coast Tradelines, and TScore. The green highlights in the table show what I’m actually listing with each one — not every broker takes every issuer, which is a bigger constraint than it sounds when you’re trying to keep all your cards active and earning.

TSC remains the biggest operation in the space and the one that’s generated the most volume for me by far. Boost101 was my first broker and I still sell with them. IMCF and Coast I added specifically because they accepted cards that nobody else would take. TScore is the newest addition. I added brokers when I had cards that weren’t being listed anywhere, not because I had a grand strategy.

Revenue by Year: The Trend Is Good

A note on how I log sales: I record them when the sale happens, not when the money arrives. I’m not an accountant and I know this may not be textbook-correct — a tradeline sold in November will usually show in that tax year even though the commission doesn’t land until the following month. I’ve been doing it this way from the start and I’m not switching systems now, so that’s how it is.

The trend is clear. 2021 ($945) and early 2022 were the slow early years. Then eBay inflated 2022 to $4,558 before the ban hit. 2023 was the quiet year — $1,741 — me licking wounds and waiting for younger cards to age. Then 2024 jumped to $6,541, 2025 hit $9,684, and 2026 is already at $7,135 as of mid-year. TSC alone has paid out $15,797 over the life of this business, which is a number I wouldn’t have believed when I started.

The KOL row (kindoflost.com — my own direct sales) shows $1,689. That number is both encouraging and humbling. Encouraging because it exists at all. Humbling because eBay produced $4,060 in far less time with zero SEO effort, and eBay is gone. The “SEO keyword lottery” is still very much in progress.

Price Per Tradeline: eBay Was the Champ

This is the table that still makes me a little sad every time I look at it. The overall average commission per tradeline is $129. eBay’s average was $338 — more than 2.5x the per-sale value of any broker. And that’s the blended average. At its peak, the Citicard AAdvantage on eBay averaged $575 per tradeline, the highest single card-broker combination in my entire history. No middleman taking 70–75% will ever get you numbers like that.

When eBay banned me I decided direct sales were the answer. Theoretically they should be: same prices, no cut, no platform risk. In practice, building an audience from scratch is a completely different problem. My direct sales average $153 — close to what brokers pay — which means I’m not capturing the full no-middleman premium. That premium requires buyers, and buyers require traffic, and traffic is what I’m still working on. (Anyone who tells you direct tradeline sales are easy probably hasn’t tried them. I have.)

Monthly Sales: It’s Growing

The bar chart shows sales per month from August 2021 through mid-2026. The first two years are thin — one or two tradelines a month, some months nothing. The post-eBay dip in 2022–2023 is visible. Then things start climbing. October 2025 hit 14 in a single month, the highest I’ve had. March and April 2026 were 13 and 10 respectively.

The acceleration comes from two places: more cards in rotation, and more of those cards hitting the two-year seasoning mark that most brokers require. A card you open today won’t generate tradeline income for two years — it’s a slow-build business, which is part of why the early bars look so small. I wasn’t slacking; I was waiting.

Issues: The DNPs Are Increasing

DNP means “did not post” — the authorized user was added to the card but the tradeline never appeared on the buyer’s credit report, so the sale paid out $0. I had 3 in 2024, 2 in 2025, and already 5 in 2026. That’s not just increasing — the 2026 numbers are concentrated in two specific combos: Coast with Wells Fargo (three separate DNPs) and IMCF with American Express (two). When the same combination fails repeatedly, that’s a pattern worth acting on.

One of these was entirely my fault. The Citicard AAdvantage DNP in 2025 happened because I added the authorized user to the wrong Citicard — I have two, grabbed the wrong one. No one to blame but me. The Wells Fargo and Amex issues are harder to explain and currently on my watch list. If they keep failing I’ll pull those cards from those brokers.

A DNP doesn’t just mean I don’t get paid. It means a buyer had a bad experience. That’s the part that bothers me most, and it’s why I log every one of these carefully.

Where This Goes From Here

Five years in, 241 tradelines, $30,603. The trend is going the right direction. The two things I’d change if I could: I’d have kept every card I ever opened instead of closing them when the intro bonuses ran out (the opportunity cost on those closed cards is genuinely painful in hindsight), and I’d have built a buyer base before eBay cut me off instead of scrambling to figure out direct sales afterward.

What’s next is more of the same — more cards aging into the seasoning window, watching the DNP situation closely, and continuing the direct sales experiment on this site. If you want to see what I currently have available, the tradelines for sale page has the live listings. If you’re thinking about selling yourself, the seller information page is a good starting point. Questions are welcome below.

Resources

The following is a list of resources to start learning about tradelines. We have a list of tradelines for sale, and a tradelines FAQ. Also various posts about tradelines, and a chart of tradeline prices from competitor sites. Finally, a contact form to ask further questions.

Please feel welcome to ask any questions below.

Finally, some of the tradelines I have for sale on this blog:

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