Estate planning as a Reverb account holder

Reverb is an online marketplace for buying and selling new and used musical instruments and gear. It was owned by Etsy from 2019 until June 2, 2025, when Etsy completed the sale of Reverb Holdings, Inc.; Reverb now operates as a privately held, independent company backed by Creator Partners and Servco. A musician's Reverb footprint has three parts, and only one of them is a balance. Live listings and unshipped orders commit the shop to ship physical gear it may no longer be able to ship. The instrument collection itself is usually the largest asset — Reverb's Collections tool tracks owned gear against Reverb Price Guide data and exports to CSV. Third is the money: sale proceeds pay out through Reverb Payments to a connected bank account, sit as a Payout Balance when no bank account is on file, or go to a Reverb Wallet for US sellers who opt in. Reverb Credits, which arise from redeemed gift cards and payment balances, cannot be transferred to another account once held.

After a Reverb account holder dies, Reverb.com LLC (Creator Partners and Servco) may transfer balance to a designated recipient, but this is handled case by case. The outcome depends on the documentation provided and is entirely at Reverb.com LLC (Creator Partners and Servco)'s discretion.

What happens at death

Reverb publishes a dedicated deceased-account process. It asks that anyone who knows a Reverb user has died contact Reverb Support with the user's full name and email address. For an estate executor or next of kin, Reverb states that it "takes account privacy very seriously, even after a user has passed away," and that "While we're unable to offer access to a deceased user's account, we can work with you to close the account and, in some cases, provide certain content from the account." To confirm the requester is authorized to act on behalf of the deceased, Reverb asks for "certain documentation, such as a death certificate." Reverb does not publish what "certain content" covers, nor a step-by-step procedure for paying a deceased seller's balance, so both are reviewed case by case. The account itself does not pass to anyone: the Terms of Use provide that "You may not transfer or sell your Reverb account and User ID to another party." The gear is a separate matter from the account — instruments and equipment are tangible personal property that passes through the estate whatever happens to the Reverb shop, and live listings and unshipped orders are obligations the estate may need Reverb's help to unwind.