From the Galaxy S5 to Galaxy S6: how to get top dollar for your smartphone trade-in

With carriers ordering more than 20 million units of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge to sell this April we’re sure there are many looking into their upgrade options. One of the most popular options for upgrading is to subsidize the payment by trading in your old phone to go toward the latest and greatest.

So how do you get the most out of your trade-in? NextWorth’s suggestion is to try and trade your old device in ahead of the arrival of the new one. In the case of the Samsung Galaxy S5, the company suggests the trade-in prices drop by as much as 15% as soon as the newest smartphone in a series is available for purchase.

The obvious answer is to trade your device in before the new one launches, but that’s not the most convenient option for most folks — what the heck are you going to use as a phone until you actually get the new one in your hands?

In the event that you don’t have a backup, NextWorth’s 30-day PriceLock guarantee is actually pretty handy. It allows you to get a quote for your current device right now, and with a comfortable 30-day window to ship your device at the price you originally received you don’t have to worry about cutting it close.

There aren’t many other trade-in services doing this right now. USell has a similar 30-day guarantee, though USell is more like Craigslist than it is a trade-in company — that is, it’s more like a network of sellers and buyers instead of one company setting a standard trade-in price. Gazelle once ran a promotion like this, but it was only for the iPhone 5’s launch (and in case they’re confused, this is our half-hearted plea to consider making it a standard feature of their service).

Some fine alternatives

But the absolute best way to get the most for your trade-in — whether you can trade-in now or have to wait until the device you want is available — is to simply look around and find the best deal.

Most places will give you a quote before asking for your device so it’s worth taking a few extra minutes to see who offers the best prices. Here’s a quick list of good places to trade your devices in if you need to fund a Samsung Galaxy S6 purchase:

• Your carrier — Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and US Cellular all offer convenient trade-in programs. Most carriers even accept devices meant for use on other networks. Note that some carriers will only issue funds as store credit, so don’t go this route unless you plan to spend all of the money with them.


• Amazon.com — they accept a metric crap-ton of stuff, including — you guessed it — smartphones. They get bonus points for allowing their trusted users to receive trade-in credit before shipping the devices off. Like the carriers, Amazon only dishes out store credit.


• Gazelle — without a doubt, one of the best third-party trade-in companies. They specialize in mobile phones so they have a pretty good feel for a device’s worth.


• USell — you’re connected to sellers more than you’re trading devices in through a company, but they’re a very solid middleman for finding people to buy from or sell to. They also have a 30-day guarantee similar to NextWorth.


• Best Buy — because they’re the biggest electronics retailer in the United States and there’s no reason to question their legitimacy. Might as well see if they can get you the best price on your next trade-in.

Of course, the only way you can get the most value out of your current device is to sell it yourself. The eBays and Craigslists in the world make it quite easy to do that unless making a sale listing, having to handle shipping and dealing with potential headaches like missed payments and returns is too much of a hassle for you. Feel free to choose any route that best suits your needs and let us know which one you’ll be taking once April 10th arrives.