Exchange offer or sell outright: which pays more?
The two numbers are not comparable until you take the bonus apart. Here is how to do that in two minutes.
Every sale season, the same question: the shopping app is offering more for my old phone than a buy-back service is. Is it?
Usually the two numbers are not comparable, and taking the offer apart takes two minutes.
What an exchange quote is made of
Almost always two things:
- A base value for your phone, calculated from its model and condition much as anyone else calculates it.
- An exchange bonus, which is extra money that exists only if you buy a particular new phone at a particular time.
The bonus is real. It is also a discount on the new phone dressed as a price for the old one — it comes out of the marketing budget for the thing you are buying, not out of what your handset is worth.
How to compare properly
Put the bonus in the new phone's column, where it belongs, and compare the base value with what you can get outright. Then ask two more questions:
- Am I definitely buying that phone, from that seller, now? If not, the bonus is worth nothing to you.
- What happens if the pickup grades it lower? With an exchange, a downgrade at the door can unravel the purchase you have already committed to.
What outright selling gives you
Money that is not attached to a purchase. You can buy the new phone anywhere, wait for a better deal on it, or not buy one at all. And the two events are separate, so a problem with one does not affect the other.
What exchange gives you
One transaction instead of two, and sometimes a genuinely larger total once the bonus is counted — particularly on a phone that is old enough that its base value is small, where the bonus can be most of the money.
The honest summary
If you are certainly buying a specific new phone during a sale, and the bonus is large, exchange can win. If you are not certain, or your phone is recent enough to have real value of its own, the base value is the only number that matters — and that is the one to compare with what we would pay for it.
Either way, answer the condition questions honestly. Both routes check the device at handover.
Get a price for your device
A price in about a minute, free doorstep pickup in a two-hour slot, and paid — cash or bank transfer — before our agent leaves.
Questions people ask
- Is an exchange offer better than selling my phone?
- It depends what the offer is made of. Split it into the base value for your phone and the extra bonus that only applies if you buy the new phone. Compare the base value with an outright price; treat the bonus as a discount on the purchase.
- Why is the exchange bonus so large during sales?
- Because it is a marketing spend on selling the new phone rather than a valuation of the old one. It is real money, but you only get it if you buy that phone at that time.
- Can the exchange value drop at the doorstep?
- It can, with any buyer, if the device does not match what was declared. That is why the condition answers matter whichever route you take.