iPhone trade-in programs: Where to sell your old smart phone

Which iPhone trade-in program is best? We’ve broken down the big players in the game to find out how to get the most buck for your phone.

Amazon

Mark Lennihan/AP/File
The Amazon logo.

Many shoppers look to Amazon for deals on textbooks, clothing, and electronics, and the online retailer was one of the first to offer a trade-in program. You can trade in everything from books to video games to iPhones and receive Amazon gift cards in return, which is nice as Amazon sells pretty much anything you could need. You search the going price of your item, mail in your device (or devices – you can trade in multiple items at a time) to Amazon with a prepaid label, and you'll get an estimated price two days after it has been delivered. It also keeps track of items you have bought, so you can see their current worth.  However, the payback price isn't as high as other retailers, and goes down significantly as the condition of your phone lessens. The difference between a "Like New" iPhone and a "Good" iPhone is currently $12, but the difference jumps by $40 if it is only "Acceptable".

Level of ease: Easy to medium, depending on how many items you want to ship.

Estimated trade-in value: Varies by demand. Current estimated price for a 16GB iPhone 5 with AT&T is $363.75.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

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If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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