You don’t have to post to your Facebook friends that you’re selling a phone and you don’t even have to trade it in to your carrier. That’ll probably get you less money than it’s worth anyway. Three websites in particular are pretty good with offering money for your old smartphone at competitive rates. I’ve used two of them and can vouch for the value and customer service.
1. BuyBackWorld
In my experience, BuyBackWorld tends to offer the most money for an old smartphone. Trading in my 64GB iPhone 6 for a new iPhone, I was able to get $342. That was more than any offer I found on the Internet and certainly more than any friend would be willing to pay for it. The site accepts just about every phone you can think of — although if you’re trying to get rid of a basic feature phone, you’d be lucky to get anything at all for them. But for popular smartphones like iPhone and Samsung Galaxy devices, you can get quite a bit. BuyBackWorld also interestingly accepts gift cards too, if you’re looking to sell those. When you sell your phone, you’ll have to choose the current condition: poor, average, excellent or new. Unless it’s broken and won’t function, yours is likely average or excellent. You’ll get a box in the mail to place your device in and ship back free of charge. After inspection, you’ll get your payment via check or PayPal — your choice.
2. Gazelle
Gazelle is probably the company you’ve heard about the most as it’s often in television commercials. Gazelle’s process is perhaps the most streamlined. It works just like BuyBackWorld: select your phone, carrier, storage, then whether it’s in broken, good or flawless condition. You’ll get an offer that you can accept or decline and your free shipping package will be on its way. It also takes tablets, Macs and iPods too. However, Gazelle typically offers less money than BuyBackWorld. When trying to sell my 64GB iPhone 6 (yes, I got tired of 16GB too) Gazelle only offered me $311 compared to the $342 from BuyBackWorld. But the quick process and secure packaging is reassuring. Note: Keep in mind that due to the nature of the marketplace, offers for various phones are subject to rise and fall, so be sure to check frequently for better or worse prices.
3. uSell
uSell works a little bit differently from the first two services. In some cases, you can get an extremely high offer even higher than BuyBackWorld. The downside is that often, you’ll have to ship directly to the buyer. It’s still free as uSell will provide the shipping kit and label, but reliability could vary. Fortunately to remedy this issue, uSell has taken it upon itself to start offering “Managed by uSell” offers which means you ship your phone to uSell and they’ll take care of the rest. If you get a Managed by uSell offer, take advantage of it as they’re often pretty generous too. uSell also takes everything from iPods to game consoles to textbooks. It pays with PayPal or check.
