Objective The decision-making problem of closed-loop supply chain in which manufacturers entrust a third party to recycle waste products was studied. Methods The product quality of third-party recycling was considered and the member decisions were analyzed using the Stackelberg game model. Next the closed-loop supply chain was coordinated using a two-part pricing contract and the total profits and the quality levels after and before supply chain coordination were compared. Results The study showed that the total profit of the closed-loop supply chain under centralized decisionmaking was greater than the total profit of the closed-loop supply chain under decentralized decision-making and the twopart pricing contract could effectively coordinate the closed-loop supply chain. When the maximum cost saving from remanufacturing was equal to the maximum transfer price the manufacturer was willing to pay for the recycled product the overall profit of the coordinated closed-loop supply chain was the same as the overall profit of the closed-loop supply chain in the centralized decision case. Meanwhile the two-part pricing contract could improve the quality level of recycled products and effectively remove the double marginalization caused in the case of decentralized decision-making. Conclusion The implications for real enterprise management are as follows. If enterprises choose the third-party recycling mode the quality of the recycled products should be considered. If the external environment is complex and changeable in order to improve production efficiency and consider the quality of recycled products enterprises need to choose thirdparty recycling for various practical reasons such as cost. In this case enterprises make decentralized decisions and the two-part pricing contract can be used to coordinate decentralized decisions.