'The ultimate girl math': Meet the women who make thousands a month renting their clothes
Lane Creatore realized she was sitting on an untapped gold mine: her closet.
Her closet was full of viral pieces, many of them hardly worn and taking up space in her tiny New York City apartment. Instead of letting those clothes collect dust, Creatore turned to renting them out online.
The 31-year-old fashion blogger is one of the thousands of women who rent their clothes on the app Pickle to the city's fashionably desperate — maybe they need a dress for a wedding, or are just itching to wear an item but don't want to pay the full price. In good months, Creatore can make five figures.
"Pickle is honestly the ultimate girl math," Creatore told Business Insider. "Instead of thinking in terms of wears, I think, 'I'm going to make this investment in terms of rentals.'"
Pickle was founded by former Blackstone employees Brian McMahon and Julia O'Mara. After launching its app in 2022, Pickle tapped New York City influencers for growth. In 2023, it opened its first brick-and-mortar store in New York and has since expanded to markets like Los Angeles and Miami. The startup has also raised $20 million to date.
Pickle's top 10 "lenders" earned an average of $3,200 a month in 2024, according to the company, which takes a 20% cut of transactions in the app (and 35% of transactions from their in-person shop).
BI spoke with five women about how much money they've made renting out their clothes on Pickle, how they've built bustling side-hustles, and their strategies for getting the most out of their unworn clothes.
Some are earning thousands
Creatore started renting on Pickle in July and listed only a few items. Less than a year later, she made $12,797 in April alone. She now typically earns between $7,000 and $12,000 each busy month.
BI verified Creatore's and the four other Pickle lenders' earnings with documentation.
Isabella De Murguia, 26 and based in New York City, works in consulting and devotes around four hours a week to her Pickle side-hustle, not including laundry. She opened her closet in 2023 after seeing ads for the app on TikTok, and now makes between $3,000 and $4,000 a month during peak rental seasons.
Jess Work, 26, works full-time in fashion while balancing a part-time job as a content creator. On average, she earns between $3,000 and $4,000 from her rentals. Some months, like around the holidays, she can make about $6,000 from the app, Work told BI.
Work has a total of 229 listings on Pickle, which range from $15 to $215 — the most expensive item being a limited edition silver dress from an H&M collaboration. Work said the dress has been rented a handful of times since she listed it six months ago, dubbing it the "sisterhood of the sparkly dress."
Even those who aren't hitting four and five figures can earn a sizable chunk of change. Andrea Duffield, a 31-year-old entrepreneur in Miami, makes between $600 and $800 each month, which is helpful "especially in this economy."
In Los Angeles, photographer and bartender Kana Kozlowski, 26, has been renting for around a year. She earns between $200 and $500 most months, but saw a bump during Coachella. Across the platform, Pickle has had spikes in rentals around holidays like Halloween, or seasonal categories like skiing gear.
Pickle also helps its lenders price their rentals, which are typically listed at 10% to 20% of the original retail price, McMahon said.
Rentals are paying the bills
For some, Pickle earnings go toward everyday expenses and bills. De Murguia said the app helps her hit savings goals and afford social outings.
"It's really tough to get joy from being a full-time creative when you're worried about money," Creatore said. "This has really given me that peace of mind again to fall back in love with blogging and photography."
Duffield recently founded her own company and said everything she makes from Pickle goes back into the business.
Keeping up a Pickle closet takes work
Unlike most New Yorkers, De Murguia has a lot of storage space — four closets go to herself and her Pickle inventory, and one goes to her boyfriend.
Pickle has changed the way lenders shop. Four of the women BI spoke said they now buy items with the intent of renting them out.
"I can buy something maybe that I wouldn't have bought previously," Work said. "I know that I'll be able to hopefully make more or at least cover the cost of the item."
Creatore said she has a spreadsheet to map out purchase, rental, and maintenance costs, and De Murguia returns anything that doesn't rent within a week.
Keeping inventory flowing also comes at a cost. Work estimated that she spends between $1,000 and $2,000 each month on new items.
Certain items are pretty much guaranteed to do well, the lenders told BI: pieces that are sold out, were seen on a celebrity, or come from certain brands, like Rat & Boa and Frankies Bikinis. Part of being successful is about knowing what's likely to go viral, they said.
"If something starts to get really popular in a particular market or on social media, it's typically on Pickle right away," McMahon said.
As De Murguia put it, the potential success for those with closet savvy is huge: "You could probably call it an enterprise."
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