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14-day lock
Offer holds when description matches.
48-hr processing
Two business days from arrival to confirmed offer.
Free shipping
Prepaid USPS label in your inbox.
BBB 4.69
Ten years. Same Phoenix team.
SELL YOUR GALAXY S26
A Galaxy S26 is worth between $80 and $480 right now, with every step between the two printed in the table below. Capacity moves it, the network lock moves it more than most people expect, and the rest is down to how the phone has actually held up since March.
A word about the word, because the Galaxy S26 is new enough that the promotional numbers around it are enormous. Your carrier calls this a trade-in, and what makes those headline figures possible is that they are not paid in money. Credit against a bill costs the company issuing it far less than its face value, because it is only spendable on something they are also selling you, and it only arrives in full if you stay long enough to collect all of it. Cheap to give, so easy to be generous with. A Buyback is settled in dollars, and a dollar costs us a dollar, which is the discipline behind every figure on this page. Ours will look smaller next to a promotion. It is the one you can spend anywhere.
If you have sold an iPhone before, there is one habit to drop right now.
Do not go looking for a battery health percentage. There is no such rule on a Samsung. We do not grade these phones on battery condition at all, there is no 80 percent line to clear, and there is no screen you need to find and photograph. A battery that has faded over a few hundred charges is just a used battery, and it takes nothing off your price.
This comes up most on the Galaxy S26 specifically, because it carries the smallest battery of the three at 4300 mAh and charges the slowest at 25W, against 45W on the Plus and 60W on the Ultra. Owners of this model notice their battery sooner than anybody else in the family and talk themselves into a lower grade over it. Do not.
What we actually grade on is simpler and broader: does everything on the phone still work. If any part of it has stopped doing its job, the phone is Faulty. That includes a battery that has genuinely failed, one that dumps you at 40 percent or cannot last a morning, but it equally includes a mic nobody can hear you through, a button that no longer clicks, a lens that will not focus or a frame that rocks on a table. One of those is enough, and the drop it causes is the widest single step in the table below, so spend five minutes testing before you pick a row.
Two more things land in Faulty whatever else is true. Any crack or chip, screen or back, even on a phone that works perfectly. And screen burn-in, because every Galaxy S has an OLED panel and a ghost of the clock or the keyboard baked into it is permanent. The full self-test for that lives on our Galaxy S26 Plus page and works exactly the same here.
Check you are on the right page while you are at it. The Galaxy S26 is the small one, 6.3 inches and 167 grams against 6.7 inches and 190 grams for the Plus and 6.9 inches and 214 grams for the Ultra. Counting camera lenses will not help you here, because the S26 and the Plus have the same three. Settings, About phone, Model number will: SM-S942U and SM-S942U1 are this phone.
Carrier is the biggest single lever on your price. Unlocked tops every row, at both capacities and all six grades, and the grid below is the unlocked column. AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and anything else all come in under it. If the handset is paid off, getting it released costs you a phone call and about a day.
One last thing worth noticing before you quote. Dropping a grade costs about what dropping a capacity does on this phone, which is to say looking after it pays. If you are deciding where to sell a Galaxy S26, the useful question is not who advertises the biggest number but whose number survives an inspection, and ours does: we check every phone by hand, we tell you what we found, and we hold your price for 14 days. Sell a used Galaxy S26 or sell a broken Galaxy S26 and shipping is free either way. The only one we cannot buy is a phone that will not power on, because it cannot be tested and your data cannot be cleared off it. That one we recycle for nothing.
LIVE PRICES
The used resale value of a Galaxy S26 runs from $80 for a cracked 256GB to $480 for a sealed 512GB. A tidy 512GB that has been in a case all year sits at $425.
Capacity, condition and carrier are what the number is built from. Everything in the grid is read live from our own pricing as this page loads.
| Comparison row | 256GB | 512GB |
|---|---|---|
Brand New | $455 | $480 |
Flawless | $455 | $480 |
Good | $400 | $425 |
Average | $376 | $400 |
Fair | $240 | $255 |
Faulty | $80 | $85 |
HOW A BUYBACK WORKS
Pick 256GB or 512GB, pick the network it is on, pick the grade that matches the wear. Spend five minutes first on the buttons, the speakers, the mic and the cameras, because working is what decides your grade here, not a battery reading. The Buyback price you accept is held for 14 days.
A prepaid USPS label lands in your inbox. Take the Google account off the phone, take the Samsung account off, and only then run the factory reset. Send the handset by itself. Chargers, cases and the box are not part of the quote and are safer at home than in transit.
Somebody here checks it by hand within 48 hours of it arriving, and we tell you what we found. If it matches your description the money goes the same day, as a gift card, PayPal, a bank transfer or a check. Every phone gets a DoD-grade wipe whether we buy it or recycle it.
SPEC SHEET
There is no model number printed on the back of a Samsung. Read yours in Settings, About phone, on the Model number line, or find it on the label of the original box.
| Samsung's name for it | Galaxy S26 |
|---|---|
| Announced | February 25, 2026, on sale March 6 |
| US model numbers | SM-S942U for carrier versions and SM-S942U1 for the unlocked one. Both quote on this page |
| Display | 6.3-inch Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X, 2340 by 1080, 411 ppi, 120Hz, 2600 nits peak |
| Screen glass | Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2, front and back |
| Frame | Aluminum |
| Chip | Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 on US phones |
| Memory | 12GB of RAM |
| Storage we buy | 256GB and 512GB. No memory card slot |
| Rear cameras | Three lenses: 50MP wide, 12MP ultra wide and a 10MP 3x telephoto, the same set as the Galaxy S26 Plus |
| Front camera | 12MP |
| Battery and charging | 4300 mAh, 25W wired, 15W wireless. The smallest battery and the slowest charging of the three, and none of it is graded |
| Battery rule | There is not one. We do not grade Samsung phones on battery health at any percentage |
| S Pen | None, and no slot. That is the Ultra only |
| SIM | Nano-SIM tray on the bottom edge on US phones, and eSIM as well |
| Size and weight | 149.6 by 71.7 by 7.2 mm, 167 grams |
| Water resistance | IP68, 1.5 meters for 30 minutes |
| Colors | Cobalt Violet, Sky Blue, Black, White, Silver Shadow and Pink Gold, none of which changes the price |
GALAXY S26 BUYBACK QUESTIONS
It depends on capacity, wear and network. A 512GB unlocked in Good condition is $425. The same phone in Average is $400. A 256GB with a cracked screen is $80. Run yours through the quote box at the top for the exact number.
No. There is no battery rule on our Samsung grading, so there is nothing to check and no figure to report.
This is the single biggest difference from selling an iPhone, where anything under 80 percent forces Faulty. That line does not exist here. Your Galaxy S26 has the smallest battery Samsung put in the 2026 phones, and after a year of daily charging it will not be what it was. It costs you nothing.
The only route from battery to grade is failure. If the phone shuts down with charge left on the meter, or cannot get through a morning away from a cable, it has stopped working properly and that puts it in Faulty like any other fault would. Working, but tired, is not a fault.
Go by size. The Galaxy S26 is 6.3 inches and 167 grams. The Galaxy S26 Plus is 6.7 inches and 190 grams, and it is a noticeably bigger object in the hand.
The cameras will not tell you anything, because both carry the same 50MP wide, 12MP ultra wide and 10MP 3x telephoto. Neither has an S Pen slot, so that is no help either. If you want certainty in five seconds, open Settings, tap About phone and read Model number.
SM-S942U is the version the carriers sell. SM-S942U1 is the one Samsung sells unlocked. Both are a US Galaxy S26, both are priced on this page, and the letters after the number change nothing about what you are paid. What does change your price is whether the phone is currently tied to a network, which is a separate question from which version you bought.
Yes, at the Faulty price. Any crack or chip, front or back, sends the phone there whether or not it still works, and there is no partial credit for a small one. Unlocked that is $80 at 256GB and $85 at 512GB.
Choose Faulty when you quote and that is exactly what arrives in your account. Repairing it first is almost never worth it at this end of the range.
It does. That is burn-in and it grades Faulty, because the panel is OLED and the wear is permanent rather than something a reset clears. A shadow of the clock, the status bar or the keyboard is the usual pattern. There is a proper two minute self-test written out on the Galaxy S26 Plus page, and it applies identically to this phone.
One reassurance while you are there: an image that fades out after a few minutes of watching something else is temporary retention, not burn-in, and it is not a fault.
Faulty. A port that needs holding is a port that has stopped working, and our Samsung rule does not care how minor it feels: if a part of the phone no longer does its job, the phone is Faulty.
Before you accept that, try a different cable and blow out the port, because lint packs into the bottom of a USB-C socket and mimics a broken port almost perfectly. A wooden toothpick will lift it out. Nothing metal, ever. If a clean port and a known good cable fix it, you are back in the ordinary grades.
That is the one we have to turn down. A phone with no power cannot be tested, and more to the point your data cannot be cleared off it, so neither of us would be safe with a price on it. Give it half an hour on a wall charger with a cable you trust first. If it stays dark, mail it in on a free label and we will recycle it at no charge, DoD-grade wipe included, or post it back to you for nothing if you would rather hang on to it.
Not yet. While there is a balance on the handset, through an installment plan or a lease, it is a device under a financial obligation and we do not purchase those. Almost every Galaxy S26 sold in the US in 2026 went out on a plan, so this is worth checking in your carrier app before you do anything else. Clear it, and the phone quotes normally the same day.
No on all three counts, and each one is final rather than a matter of grade.
A Google account lock, which you will also see called FRP, happens when the phone is reset while your account is still signed into it. Whoever powers it on next gets a screen asking for a password only you have. Remove the Google account before you reset, not after, and the problem never exists.
A blacklisted IMEI, meaning a phone reported lost or stolen or blocked by a carrier, fails our check on arrival and goes back to you. A tripped Knox counter, which is what rooting or flashing custom firmware does, is a hardware fuse that no reset or clean reinstall will reverse. Either of those and we cannot buy the phone at any price.
It matters a lot. Unlocked sits at the top of every grade: an Average 512GB is $400 unlocked, $296 on AT&T, $275 on Verizon and $275 on T-Mobile.
The grid above is the unlocked column, so pick your actual network in the quote box. If you have finished paying for the handset your carrier has to release it on request, and on this phone that request is worth about a hundred dollars for a day of waiting.
It does not. Cobalt Violet, Sky Blue, Black, White, Silver Shadow and Pink Gold all quote at the same figure, so the finish is not something you need to think about.
Because of what you end up holding. A carrier trade-in is bill credit, released to you in small monthly pieces over two or three years, and it is conditional on you taking out a new line at the same time. Leave early and the rest of the credit leaves with you. A Buyback is a purchase and nothing more: we buy the Galaxy S26, you get money, and you are free to go and buy whatever phone you actually want, from anyone.
Accounts first, reset second. Go to Settings, then Accounts and backup, then Manage accounts, and remove your Google account and your Samsung account. Then Settings, then General management, then Reset, then Factory data reset. Reversing those two steps is what leaves a phone demanding an account it can no longer reach, and it is the most common reason a handset gets mailed back unpaid. Our erase your device page has the whole thing laid out.
We run a Department of Defense standard wipe on arrival regardless. Your photos, your messages and your saved passwords are erased and cannot be recovered.
Four options, chosen when you accept the quote. A gift card is emailed and comes out roughly 3 percent ahead of the others because the retailers add a bonus. PayPal is immediate, with PayPal taking their 2.99 percent. A bank transfer clears in 2 to 4 days, a check arrives in 3 to 5. Every one of them is sent on the day your phone passes inspection, and inspection is inside 48 hours of arrival. The exception is a sealed Brand New handset, which we settle through PayPal only.
Two things worth pairing up there. Brand New and Flawless pay exactly the same figure at both capacities on this model, and Brand New is the one grade restricted to PayPal. So a Galaxy S26 that has been out of its box but carries no marks at all is better quoted as Flawless: the money is identical and all four payment routes stay open to you.
Capacity, carrier, condition. About a minute to get a real number, and we hold the Buyback price for 14 days.
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