What’s the Best Price to Pay for a Used iPhone?

If you’re in the market for a used iPhone, you need to know what a fair price is for one so that you don’t get ripped off.

Buying a brand-new iPhone is the easiest way to go, but many users don’t want to go that right route, mostly because a new iPhone can cost a lot of money, especially if you buy it unlocked. This is why many shoppers prefer buying used, as they can save a lot of money while still getting a working iPhone.

I’m a big fan of buying used, but one thing that many consumers don’t know when they start shopping for a used iPhone is how much they should and shouldn’t pay for one. Buyers get ripped off all the time because they simply don’t know what the best price to pay for a used iPhone is, and will spend $100 or more for an iPhone than what it’s truly worth.

Read: How Much Is my iPhone 6 Worth?

By knowing how much you should pay for a used iPhone, you can save yourself a lot of money and a lot of hassle, but how do you know what a good price to pay for a used iPhone is?

Here are some tips to keep in mind when shopping for a used iPhone so that you don’t get ripped off and end up paying more than you need to.

Do Your Research

The first thing you’ll want to do before you go searching for a used iPhone is doing some research and determine how much used iPhones are going for. The price depends on the model of the iPhone, the storage capacity, and the condition that the iPhone is in.

The older the iPhone model, the smaller the storage capacity, and the worse condition it’s in, the less you’ll end paying. That seems pretty obvious, but it’s still worth noting here.

The quickest way to see how much you’ll roughly spend on a used iPhone is to go onto eBay and see how much they’ve been selling for.

For instance, if you’re looking for a 16GB iPhone 6 on Verizon, type in “iPhone 6” in the search bar at the top of the eBay home page. The next page will display listings for iPhone 6 models that are up for sale. You can narrow down the models to the specific one you want by going to the left-hand sidebar and simply filtering by the specific iPhone 6 model you’re after.

Then, go back to sidebar and scroll down until you see an option called Sold Listings. Place a checkmark next to this and it will only display listings that have sold. This will give you a better idea of how much you can expect to pay for a used iPhone. It’s certainly not a hard-and-fast rule to go by, but it gives you an idea.

Negotiate the Price

Granted, if you plan on buying a used iPhone on eBay, you can’t really negotiate, and you’re even competing with other bidders, so you actually might end up paying a bit more than you need to. However, if you plan to buy a used iPhone somewhere else, like on Craigslist, then you have some room to negotiate a better price.

If you use Craigslist or some other used marketplace (even a website like Swappa will work), you shouldn’t pay the asking price right away. Sellers know that buyers will try to haggle, so see if you can get a lower price on a used iPhone by offering just slightly less. I try to shoot for 10%-15% off the asking price, and sometimes even 20% if I feel lucky. You don’t want to low-ball your offer, but you also have to expect them to counter-offer with a slightly higher price that’s still lower than the original asking price.

To do this, I usually don’t like to ask for a lower price, but rather tell them that I can pay this much right now. So instead of asking, “Will you take $380?,” I usually like to say something along the lines of, “I’ll give you $380 for it right now.” It tells the seller you mean business and it also tells them that they can get paid right that second, even if it means losing a bit of cash.

Of course, the best price for a used iPhone is ideally no price at all, but sellers don’t want to get ripped off either, so you and the seller have to find a happy medium that you’re both okay with, as you want an iPhone for as cheap as possible and the seller wants as much money as he/she can get from the sale.