As promised, I’ve got my annual Nuuly review all ready for you. I decided to chart out as much information as I could think of for this to see how much data I could get out of it. (You can see my data set here. ) I’m sure I could have broken things down into more subsets but this is what I came up with so far. I didn’t realize it at the time but each of my monthly nuuly reviews were full of information that was quite fun to gather and compare. You can look at the spreadsheet I listed above or I compiled it into a nice little infographic below as well.

Let me do a quick recap: Nuuly is a rental service from Anthro / Urban Outfitters’ parent brand. You pay $98/month for 6 items. You can add up to 2 bonus items for $20 each. They ship it to you within a few days of placing your rental order (for example, I placed mine February 3 and should get it February 6). You have exactly one month from when you placed your order to have your box back to UPS and scanned. Nothing happens if you’re late but you can’t rent your next box until you return it and they’ll go ahead and charge you for the next month, even if you don’t return it on time.

Back in 2023, I tried Nuuly for the first time and really liked it. Last January, I was thinking about content and Nuuly came to mind. I decided to try it for every month last year with a review of my rentals every month. Well, I didn’t quite make it a year but I gave it my best 8 out of 12 months, so we will call it a success. (You can find my rental reviews here.) With all of that data, I culled it into a nice little report below and I’m breaking down my thoughts on it all.

This is a long post, so thanks for sticking around!

The Good, The Bad, The Borrowed

In all I spent a total of $794 with Nuuly last year. (excluding tax) And honestly… that total hurts me, seeing it written out in triple digits. I don’t typically keep up with my purchases in such a fiscally responsible way but after seeing that number, I think maybe I should. I was shocked that it was almost $800 last year. Look I understand the math of it all…but when I do something by the month, I don’t ever think to calculate it by the year. What am I? A responsible adult? So I am considering if this cost is worth it or not, but I’ve carried on already this year so I suppose in some way it is. I used $50 in referrals from you guys and I have $60 more to use this year. So THANKS GUYS!  That’s really nice of you to use my code when signing up. (You can follow this link here, hint hint, nudge nudge.) 

While compiling the data, the thought of “should I have just used the $800 towards items I can actually keep?” ran across my mind. Don’t judge me, but this is the first time I’ve considered this. It really puts it in perspective once I see the final number. I do think that I would have preferred to own $800 of new clothes, versus temporary items I sent back into rotation. I mean $800 could have bought 4 pairs of designer denim, or 7 cashmere sweaters from Quince. (Not that I need those things, those were just the first examples that came to mind.) Which makes me think about the sustainability or the need for this service. On one hand it’s nice that we can all in some way share the same piece of clothing or rent clothing for a temporary period of time without just buying more clothes to put out into the world. On the other, as a monthly service, I don’t know if I’m using it $800 worth. Especially as a non-blogging individual, I don’t know if my experience is $800 worth. Since my job IS content and clothing, this service does make sense in a lot of ways. But as a non-creator, I think I’d probably just use the service for special events or travel. And January. It’s really nice to have it in January. (If you use it, let me know your experience and thoughts on this!)

The Good

So let’s break down the good parts: I realized that I really like renting expensive denim from Nuuly. Or actually anything expensive. I think it’s fun to rent brands that I know are a little out of my reach and I know that they’ll be high quality. My favorite richy rich brands are Citizens of Humanity jeans, Agolde, and Mother Denim for designer denim. I love renting Alex Mill because they have such great, high quality pieces but again, they’re pricey and I’m a short term commitment kind of gal. I rented a Barbour coat I liked last year and honestly I might do more pricier pieces this year. I mean why not? The flat fee is $98 might as well live it up.

Speaking of brands, they’ve recently added Madewell,  as well as Hill House, Reformation, Varley. These are high Millenial brands and I appreciate it, to be honest. It’s not all just Anthropologie, if you’re afraid of that.

I also love that there is new inventory incoming all the time. It’s not a stagnant inventory at all; every month when I rent again I find pages of brand new pieces. Now are they all my style? No, no. But it’s fun to dip my toe into styles that I don’t typically want to buy and keep forever.

They’re fast in shipping and the customer service is quick and helpful. I was wrongly charged one month and they immediately corrected it via chat. I’ve had zero issues with their customer service, in fact, I’ve only had great experiences so far.

The Bad

Farm Rio can get lost. I think it’s funny that I hated everything Farm Rio because they have been a ‘favorite’ brand of mine for years. I gave Farm Rio one last chance in January, but it just doesn’t work for me. I get lost in the beauty of Farm Rio more than the function of the actual pieces. I love a big, bold print in theory but it never works out on me the way I want it, too. It’s a bit too loud for my quiet life. So I’ve made a necessary rule for 2026: Unless I’m going to Cabo, I’m staying away from renting large floral prints this year. (Narrator: she in fact is NOT going to Cabo this year.)

Sometimes things come damaged or are just straight up tired. Since it’s a rental service, it is, inherently, a gamble. Sometimes things are misshaped or shrunken, or perhaps the fabric has been washed incorrectly, or a belt is missing from a dress or jacket and yes, even damaged. You can always reach out to their customer service about this but I usually just chalk it up to oh well, that one is dud. (But I have a hack for this down below!)

Sizing is tough. Fortunately for myself,  I have a crazy amount of knowledge when it comes to how different brands sizing and fit because a) I’ve tried them all on and b) I understand retail sizing since I used to own a boutique. Even still, I get the wrong size sometimes. This is actually more annoying to me than getting a piece in bad condition. If only it had been a size bigger or smaller, then it would have worked. Again, I chalk this up to ‘damn’ and I make note on the brand when it comes to sizing and move along.

Nuuly doens’t list materials or really much details about the products. This drives me insane. I understand they probably do this to expedite their product listings, but I’d love to know what fabrics I’m renting. Plus it would help me understand my sizing a bit better; like does it have stretch? is it polyester? wool? I usually peruse the reviews or the photos to figure it out OR I’ll find the actual product listing online somewhere else. And sure, that’s fine, I have the time but it does feel like they could just list the fabrics and care like all other sites.

The Missing Month: November

If you notice in my round up from last year, November is completely missing from the blog. I can’t decide if this was intentional or a mistake or I just missed it because it was November, as I did actually rent items from Nuuly that month. But in the end I hated all but two jackets and I think I wore those items 3 times total. The post wouldn’t have been very fun to read, anyways. But here is what I rented if you’re interested! (I’m a nosy one so I figured you might be, too.)

Here’s a quick review: The Fleece Lady Jacket and the Fleece Floral jacket were my two favorites, but both too big to get any serious wear out of. The Tobie pants were hilariously bad. They were at once tight and loose at the crotch. But also weirdly long. The Alex Mill Cardigan had been washed in what I can only imagine was the hottest of waters and it was on its last leg. Bless it. Oh and same with the sheer blouse. It was so so small but from shrinkage. It looked like doll clothes. The Modern Citizen shirt was just okay. It was too big and because it had a tie in the front it didn’t work out. Shirts like that have to fit just right and it just didn’t. So yeah. It was a bad box, so it just didn’t get reviewed.

This happens, though. I know that I am in charge of my selections so technically there is no one to blame for a bad box, per se. But sometimes the fit is bad, or the condition is not great or you just picked the wrong things for the wrong time.

Tips from What I’ve Learned

If you are amazed by the ‘New with Tags’ count, don’t be. It’s because I know how to shop, my friends and I’m here to tell you the hack. When I go to ‘shop’ their site, I don’t do it by style or occasion or edits or any other categories they’ve created. Instead I go to all styles and sort by ‘Newest’. I do this EVERY time and about 60% of my items were new with tags. Another 20% were in excellent, like new condition. So I can say that this ‘hack’ or whatever you want to call it, works. The ones that were in good condition or damaged I typically found by getting lost into the sub-categories, forgetting my typical go-to of sorting by new. Sometimes I just wanted a specific style, so I’d go on a hunt looking for that. But overall, if you sort by new, you’ll get new or pretty close to it if you stay within the first few pages.

Another way to tell if something is NWT or in excellent condition is by the number of reviews.  If something has zero reviews, it’s brand new. Risky, but new. If something has 400 reviews, baby, it’s been WORN. And it will come to you worn out. If I like something that has a decent amount of reviews, I’ll scroll through the reviews to see how many people rented the size I’m looking for and sometimes if there are more smalls reviews, the medium / larges come in good condition. But overall if there is a very popular piece, I can tell you right now it’s going to be very worn. Does this automatically discount it? Absolutely not. But it does alter the fit and the condition of the fabric because someone else has washed it or cared for it. Read the reviews carefully and you’ll be good.

Honestly, don’t order bonus items on the regular. You really can make do with 6. Plus an extra $20 really adds up. If you can’t make up your mind in the moment, walk away for a day and come back to your rental cart. Something will have inevitably been rented so decision made! or you’ll look at your cart again and see the outlier to delete. I’d only pay for extra if I had a trip I was going on and wanted 7-8 new things.

It’s amazing for vacation or special events. I think if I were doing a really special event I might try Rent the Runway, but Nuuly does have a nice selection of dresses, too. (BHLDN is on there I believe!) If I were going on a vacation this month, I would have prioritized my whole Nuuly for that trip. It makes it exciting and fun because you can get clothes you wouldn’t necessarily want to keep forever but want to wear on a trip. I absolutely recommend this use for nuuly.

Personally, I like learning what brands I really like and I guess hate now. Farm Rio took a beating from me in this post, so I’ll leave her alone but also I think the brand Maeve isn’t for me, as well. I like some of of it — maybe I’ll even look to see how many Maeve things got 4 or 5 stars, but overall I don’t know if I’m a true Anthro girl. I think I like some of the quieter pieces and of course, I love renting the denim. Oh and like how I rented the hell out of some Colette pants last year?  Well this year I’m not that into them (yet). Did I spend money figuring this out? I did! But I also saved money by not buying all 5 Collette pants and then realizing they aren’t a forever for me.

Seasonally winter and spring were my favorite. I fell off in summer and fall but that makes a lot of sense to me. Summer is hard style wise and fall is so busy with style / sponsored posts / gifting so I usually have an influx of clothing during this time.

Overall, if you want to try a new style on and don’t mind a little game of trial and error, this is a great process and resource. If you guys still like the Nuuly posts, I think I’ll keep doing them through spring at least. Thanks for reading and I hope this was in some way helpful or at least interesting!

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One last thing! I went ahead and looked up my top 5 star ranked items and these are my top 10! Some (or maybe all of them) I wish I would have kept. And no surprise, it’s denim and sweaters. My two love languages.