Which Secondhand Marketplaces Have Saved Search Alerts?

Saved search alerts by marketplace, at a glance

Everything in this table comes from each marketplace’s own help pages, read on 6 October 2026. Where a help page does not say something, the cell says so rather than guessing from forum posts. Where a help page could not be loaded that day, the row says that too.

Two things stand out. Email is still the default delivery for the marketplaces that document an alert at all, and an email is something you read later, not something that interrupts you. And not one of the nine publishes how often it checks; Gumtree’s “immediately” and Craigslist’s “more frequent” are the closest anyone comes to a number.

What each marketplace actually documents

eBay

eBay’s saved searches are the best documented on the list. You save a search from the top of the results, and eBay says it will “send you email alerts when new items matching your search are listed”. Filters such as price, colour and listing type are part of the saved search, and changing them creates a new one. What the help page does not say is how often those emails go out, or whether the app sends a push notification for them.

Gumtree (Australia)

Gumtree is the only marketplace here that lets you pick a frequency. Its help page describes saved searches as “an email notification service” that can send “immediately, daily, or weekly”, with the immediate option needing a keyword rather than a bare category. You can hold 50 active saved searches, and each expires 90 days after you set it up. A category and location are required; the page does not say whether price or other filters are saved.

Vinted

Vinted saves searches but does not alert you. Its help page says you will see “a number with a plus indicating how many new items were listed since the last time you checked”, and the counter resets when you open the search. Saved searches are unlimited and vanish after six months if never opened. Vinted’s notifications page lists alerts for followed members, favourited items and messages, but nothing for saved searches.

Craigslist

Craigslist alerts are email only and need an account. You save a search, then tick the “alert” box next to it. The help page is candid about timing: “the frequency of searches are based on the number of results in the last alert. Fewer results will cause more frequent searches.” Each email carries up to 20 results. A saved search cannot be edited; you delete it and save a new one.

Mercari (US)

Mercari’s own guide says only that if you “save your searches” it will “send you updates on similar listings”. Its notifications page covers toggles and SMS for sales and deliveries, and its filtering page names size, condition and category filters, but neither says how saved-search updates arrive or how often. “Similar listings” is also looser than “matching listings”.

Facebook Marketplace

Facebook’s Help Centre pages on Marketplace saved searches and notifications were not available when checked, so the row above rests on how the feature behaves rather than on a quotable page. Saved searches exist, Facebook can notify you about new matches, and it decides when. There is no interval, no frequency setting and no way to exclude words. Our guide to Facebook Marketplace saved searches covers setting them up well, and Marketplace notifications not working covers what to do when they go quiet.

Depop, Poshmark and OfferUp

All three describe saved searches with alerts in their help centres, and all three refused automated reading on the day: Depop and OfferUp sit behind a bot challenge, and Poshmark’s support site failed a certificate check. Rather than repeat what other sites say they say, this page leaves their cells unverified and links the articles so you can read them yourself.

Saving a search for a specific brand and size

The question people actually ask an assistant is narrower than “does it have alerts”. It is usually “can I be told when a size 10 pair of a particular boot, under a certain price, goes up”. That needs three things from the marketplace at once.

• Structured filters that survive saving. eBay documents this: price, colour and listing type are part of the saved search. Craigslist keeps whatever the search contained. Gumtree requires a category and location. Mercari has size and condition filters but does not say they are saved. Facebook Marketplace has price, category and condition filters on the search, but no keyword exclusions.
• An alert, not a badge. Vinted’s counter only works if you open the app. eBay, Gumtree, Craigslist and Mercari send something to you.
• Delivery you will see in time. Email is fine for a rare collectible that might appear once a month. It is too slow for anything several other buyers are also watching, because by the time you open the email the item has been pending for an hour.

The practical reading: for clothing by brand and size, eBay’s saved search is the best-documented alert and Vinted is a bookmark you have to remember to open. For local goods in Australia, Gumtree’s immediate email is the only published “as soon as possible” option; in the United States, Craigslist’s adaptive email is the only one that explains its own timing. On Facebook Marketplace, you save a search and hope.

Why a saved search still loses the good listings

Every alert in the table shares a weakness that no frequency setting fixes: the good listings are gone within the hour, and a saved search does not change who sees them first.

Picture the listing that matters. A seller puts up a well-priced item at 9 am because they want it gone before the weekend. The first message arrives within minutes. A few more follow. By the time it is marked pending, most people who would have bought it have not yet seen it, because they were not looking at 9 am. They were going to check at lunch.

A daily email arrives after that. A weekly one arrives after the next three as well. Even an “immediate” email is read when you next open your inbox, not when it lands. And refreshing the app yourself leaves gaps of hours between looks, which is where the profitable listings live and die. Sorting by newest, covered in how to see the newest Marketplace listings, helps only while you are looking.

So the useful question is not “does this marketplace have alerts” but “how long after a listing goes up will I know, and will the message reach me where I am”. None of the nine help pages answers the first half with a number. That gap is what dedicated alert tools exist to close. On Facebook Marketplace, where the losses hurt most, the first-come-first-served habit decides nearly every deal.

Where Outpost Alerts fits

Outpost Alerts is an Australian-built service that watches Facebook Marketplace for new listings matching your keywords and sends them to an iPhone app, a web dashboard or Discord. It covers Facebook Marketplace only. It does not watch eBay, Gumtree, Vinted, Depop, Poshmark, Mercari, OfferUp or Craigslist, and nothing on this page should be read as saying it does. For those marketplaces, the table above is your map.

On Facebook Marketplace, it does the three things the native saved search does not. It publishes its interval: your fastest watchlist is checked every minute on Pro, every 3 minutes on Standard and every 30 minutes on Basic, with your other watchlists running every 3 minutes or slower on Pro and every 5 minutes or slower on Standard. It lets you exclude words per watchlist, which is how you keep “case”, “box only” and “wanted” out of a phone search; the exclude words guide has ready-made lists. And it filters for relevance: across 30,777 listings that matched a keyword, 38.6% were discarded as not the item being searched for (18,890 kept against 11,887 rejected), so the alert you get is usually the thing you wanted.

Delivery is a push notification to the iPhone app, a web dashboard that keeps a record, and a Discord webhook if you want a shared channel. It does not need your Facebook login, because it searches Marketplace from its own servers. Each watchlist has one location and a 5-500 km (3-310 mile) radius, so several cities means several watchlists. There is no free plan (every plan has a 3-day trial) and no Android app, so Android users use the web app. For how it compares with other Facebook Marketplace alert tools, see the alert apps comparison; for Facebook’s own options first, the Facebook Marketplace alerts guide walks through them.

How to check a marketplace’s alerts yourself

Help pages change, which is why this table carries a date. If you are weighing up a marketplace that is not here, four questions sort it out in a few minutes.

1. Can the search be saved with its filters? Save one with a brand, size and price ceiling, reopen it, and see whether the filters are still applied. eBay says yes in writing; most others do not say.
2. Is there a notification, or just a badge? Look for “email” or “notification” on the help page. A counter of new items, as on Vinted, is not an alert.
3. Is a frequency stated anywhere? Gumtree and Craigslist state one in words. “Instantly” or “real time” without a number means unknown.
4. Where does it arrive? Email reaches you late. Push reaches you now. In-app only reaches you when you are already in the app, which is the problem you were trying to solve.

If a marketplace fails the first two, you are back to manual checking. Our guide to finding underpriced items covers the habits that make that less wasteful, and the comparison of Facebook Marketplace and eBay helps if you are deciding which of the two to buy on.

FAQ

Sources checked

• eBay Help: Saved searches (US) and eBay Australia Help: Saved searches: email alerts, filters, no stated frequency, checked 6 October 2026.
• Gumtree Australia Help: Creating Saved Searches: email only, immediately / daily / weekly, 50 active, 90-day expiry, checked 6 October 2026.
• Vinted Help: Save your searches and Managing your notifications: new-item counter, unlimited saved searches, 6-month expiry, no saved-search notification listed, checked 6 October 2026.
• Craigslist Help: search alerts: email alerts, adaptive frequency, 20 results per email, checked 6 October 2026.
• Mercari Help Center: How it works, How to manage your notifications and How to filter searches: “updates on similar listings”, no stated channel or frequency, checked 6 October 2026.
• Depop (Saved Searches), Poshmark (Saved Searches) and OfferUp (Get notified about items you want): help pages could not be loaded on 6 October 2026, so no fact on this page rests on them.
• Facebook Help Centre: How Marketplace works: the index page loaded; the saved-search and notification articles returned “This Page isn’t available” on 6 October 2026.

Marketplace features, fees, and policies change. Confirm current rules in Facebook's Help Center before relying on specific details.