What happens to Reverb balance when the owner dies

No. Etsy acquired Reverb in 2019 and sold it in 2025. Etsy's annual report states that on June 2, 2025 it completed the sale of Reverb Holdings, Inc., its musical instrument marketplace. Reverb's own announcement says Creator Partners and Servco entered an agreement to purchase Reverb from Etsy and that Reverb would become a privately held, independently operated company. This matters for an estate only in that correspondence and any legal notice go to Reverb, not to Etsy.

Stop the listings. A deceased seller's live listings stay purchasable, and each sale commits the shop to ship an instrument the estate may not have located or may not be able to send. Reverb publishes Vacation Mode, which suspends every live listing at once and can be switched back off; anyone with lawful access to the shop can use it. If nobody can reach the shop, say so in the first line of the request to Reverb Support and ask that the listings be stopped, alongside reporting the death.

The instruments, amplifiers, and equipment are tangible personal property and pass through the estate under the will or the state's intestacy rules, exactly like any other physical possession. Nothing about the Reverb account changes that, and closing the Reverb shop does not affect who owns the gear. For a working musician this is usually the largest part of the estate by value, which is why it is worth inventorying and valuing separately from the online account.

Reverb publishes a Price Guide built from what comparable gear has actually sold for on the platform, which is a route to the date-of-death values a probate inventory calls for. Reverb also publishes Collections, a tool that tracks the gear a user owns against Price Guide data, adds Reverb purchases automatically, and exports to CSV — Reverb notes the export is helpful for insurance purposes. If the musician kept a Collection, that export is close to a ready-made schedule of the estate's instruments.

Ask for them in the same written request to Reverb Support, as a separate item from closing the account. Proceeds already paid out went to the bank account connected to the shop, so trace that account. Proceeds not yet paid sit as a Payout Balance, which Reverb states transfers automatically at the end of the business day once a bank account is on file. Reverb publishes no procedure for paying a deceased seller's balance, so raise it with Reverb Support with proof of death and of your authority, and Reverb reviews the situation individually.

Neither is straightforward cash. Reverb states that Wallet earnings must be spent on Reverb and cannot be withdrawn to a bank account while Reverb Wallet is active, with the exception that a user who stops using Wallet while holding a balance is to contact support to request a balance transfer. Reverb Credits — which arise from redeemed gift cards, payment balances and differences, and customer-service accommodations — follow the gift-card terms: once a gift card is redeemed the associated credit cannot be transferred to a different account, gift cards do not expire, and they are non-refundable and cannot be redeemed for cash. Ask Reverb Support what exists on the account and what can be done with it.

Reverb asks for the deceased user's full name, the email address on the account, and documentation confirming you are authorized to act on behalf of the deceased, "such as a death certificate." Reverb publishes no further checklist, so matters of this kind commonly also involve documentation of your authority over the estate, such as Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration, and photo identification for the requester. Confirm the exact set with Reverb Support rather than assuming.