Read more at:
The time has come to leave your old smartphone behind and make way for a new one. You might be thinking about trading in your phone to score a discount on your purchase or recycle materials and reduce e-waste. There are costs to intake, process, and either refurbish or recycle a device, but it’s convenient since the option is offered at the point of sale and it gets that old phone off your hands immediately. On the flip side, it takes more of your energy to repurpose an old phone or resell it yourself. The risks are greater, but so are the rewards since you’re working off the holistic experience of the phone.
Ultimately, what to do with your old phone is up to you, and your choice should meet your wants and needs in the moment. But it certainly does help to spot an opportunity and take advantage of it when you can. We’ll sample a few trade-in offers, look at some prime promotions that will boost those valuations (and drop in some caveats), and we’ll also take a look at where those numbers are trending overall.
Where can you get the best smartphone trade-in values?
With trade-ins, you’ll typically get the lowest rates in retail settings and higher rates when dealing with carriers or manufacturers. With the manufacturer, you’ll find the best rates on new products or ones that have yet to launch. You might get a free phone from a carrier, but you may need to add a new line or switch from a competitor, and rebates will likely come via monthly credits on a device financing plan.
For a 256 GB Galaxy S24 in good condition (unlocked, display intact, minimal to no wear), Best Buy quoted us $140, while Gazelle offered $227. Samsung would credit $280 toward the purchase of a new phone on its site. Google offered $300 in conjunction with a pre-order for a Pixel 11 Pro, but only $190 when we switched over to a Pixel 10a. Apple, which offered $125 for a Galaxy S22 Ultra, did not offer anything for a newer phone.
Going through the carriers, T-Mobile was willing to cover the full cost of various phones, including the $1,900 Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra with that trade-in. However, we would’ve needed a new line on its GoNext 5G plan. Credits would be applied over a 36-month financing agreement. Otherwise, we’d only get $140, just like Best Buy. AT&T and Mint Mobile offered $160 outside of their active sign-on promos. We were not able to access a quote from Verizon without an eligible IMEI.
In the open marketplace as of writing, Swappa sellers are averaging in the upper $300s range, with the floor coming in at $320. Most eBay listings come from institutional sellers — Cellfeee was selling 256 GB S24 units for $381. We found a couple of listings from individual sellers at $320 and $350.
Where are smartphone trade-in values going?
According to several studies compiled by the research group Environment for Development, net values have declined from the days of feature phones as smartphone makers have miniaturized components, integrated coatings and adhesives, and reduced the amounts of readily accessible rare earth metal incorporated into designs. A 2020 paper out of China compared the cost to recycle a feature phone versus a smartphone and found it had nearly tripled from $2.34 per unit to $6.60. Furthermore, as China has become a dominant importer-exporter of rare earth metals, the country may leverage restrictions on those materials in ongoing trade battles with the Trump administration in the United States, putting further pressure on the overall electronics market.
When put into practice, the economics of trading in a smartphone only make any shred of sense in the competitive environment of carriers and smartphone makers where these companies are able to fix up and sell refurbished units, as well as pay for recyclers to take useless devices into their custody as part of the cost of doing business. Just another thing to think about when you’re considering your options for that pocket relic.
