Viewpoints Explained: How Nuuly Cracked The Clothing Rental Business

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For many years, clothing rental has been pitched as the future of fashion. But for a long time, the business model struggled to make sense financially. High costs, difficult logistics and customers who didn’t always stick around led to a lot of uncertainty.

That’s why one company’s recent success is getting attention. Nuuly launched in 2019 as a subscription clothing rental service offering six items a month for ninety-eight dollars.

On the surface, it looks similar to earlier platforms like rent the runway, but the business model is more efficient. Unlike rent the runway, which relies heavily on outside designers, Nuuly sources roughly half of its inventory from its parent company, urban outfitters. This covers brands like anthropologie, free people, and urban outfitters itself. This setup lowers inventory costs and simplifies logistics by keeping order fulfillment largely in-house.

The customer experience matters more too. Nuuly focuses less on niche luxury items and more on wearable fashion that’s still premium quality like soft sweaters, trendy athleisure and flattering work wear pieces. And the numbers show this strategy is working. Retail industry reporting shows that nuuly now has almost 380,000 active subscribers, which is more than double rent the runway’s current base. Urban outfitters has also reported that Nuuly turned a profit in 2024. Something few rental platforms have been able to do.

What happens next depends on the customer. Whether Nuuly can hold onto subscribers as styles shift and budgets tighten will decide if it’s just a short-term trend or a lasting change in how Americans shop.

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