Sell your iPhone 16 for cash

Storage, carrier and wear set the number. The grid on this page has every combination. The quote tool gives you your exact one in about a minute.

The difference shows up in what you can do with the money the next day. A trade-in is run by a carrier or a retailer. What you get back is credit inside their system, set against a phone you are buying from them, and it usually arrives in monthly slices while you stay with them.

We pay in money. Gift card, PayPal, bank transfer, or check, and none of it depends on a new line or a new handset. Spend it on groceries if you like. Spend it with that same carrier if their new phone is the one you want. That part stops being our business the moment you are paid.

Here, a carrier store, a mall kiosk, or a listing you run yourself.

Whichever you choose, one thing is the same at all of them. Every buyer looks for the same faults: cracks and chips, the battery figure, a button that has stopped working, a screen somebody has replaced. So find those on your own phone once, honestly, before you go collecting numbers. Do it in that order and the offers you gather are actually comparable.

Camera Control is the iPhone 16's own problem, and it's the one thing worth testing before you pick a grade. It sits on the lower right edge. It's two parts in one button. There's a real click underneath, and a pressure-sensitive pad on top that reads a light press and a swipe.

Either part can die on its own. A drop can break the click while the pad still works. Moisture or a bad screen repair can kill the pad while the click still works. Most owners only ever click it, so they never find out that half the button is gone.

Here's the test. Click it once from the locked screen and the camera should open. Click again and it takes a photo. Now rest your finger on the button without clicking. A slider should appear on screen. Slide your finger along the button and the zoom should move with it.

If the slider never appears, check Settings, Accessibility, Camera Control before you decide. The light press can be switched off or set to a heavier force in there. Turn it back on and run the test again. Plenty of phones fail the first pass because of a setting, not a fault.

If the button still does nothing after that, the phone grades Faulty. Any button that has stopped working puts it there, however clean the phone looks. We still buy it. Quoting it as Good is what makes the number change when we check it.

Look at the right edge. The iPhone 16 has two buttons there, the power button and Camera Control below it. The iPhone 15 has only the power button.

The left edge settles it too. The 16 has an Action button where the 15 has a mute switch you can flick up and down. Both phones charge over USB-C, so the port won't tell you anything.

Yes. Any crack or chip grades the phone Faulty, front, back or lens cover. Faulty is a real price here, not a polite no. A worn battery works the same way. It grades Faulty and we still buy the phone.

No. Without power the phone cannot be tested and your data cannot be removed from it, so there is nothing we can put a price against.

Send it in anyway if you want rid of it. We will recycle it free of charge, or ask for it back and we will pay the postage.

That grades the phone Faulty. Check it in Settings, then Battery, then Battery Health and Charging. Anything at 80 percent or above doesn't affect your grade at all.

Sooner than you think. Values fall hardest in the weeks after Apple launches a new iPhone. Waiting for a quiet moment usually costs you money.

A drawer costs you too. The battery ages whether you use the phone or not. Once Maximum Capacity drops under 80 percent, the phone grades Faulty.

Yes. Unlocked, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and other networks are each quoted on their own, so pick the one the phone actually runs on. We checked all ninety prices on this model today and the order held in every one: unlocked first, then AT&T, then Verizon, then T-Mobile, with a smaller network last.

Ours is $390 for a Good 128GB, sent the day we finish checking it.

No. Send the phone on its own and keep the rest. We don't pay extra for a cable or a case, and loose accessories only add weight to the parcel.

Brand New is the one exception. That grade means a sealed box that was never opened, so everything Apple packed stays inside it.

No. We do not purchase devices under financial obligations. A phone still on a carrier installment plan or a lease can't be sold here. Clear the balance and we'll quote it normally.

No. Every grade needs a clean ESN. A phone that's blacklisted, reported lost or stolen, blocked by a carrier, or still signed in to an Apple Account can't be purchased.

Back up first. Then sign out of iCloud so Find My switches off, and erase the phone in Settings. Our Device Erasure Guides walk you through it.

Every phone we buy gets wiped to Department of Defense standards when it reaches us, whatever state it arrives in.

Gift card, PayPal, bank transfer, or check. Gift card averages about 3 percent more, because a lot of brands add a bonus. PayPal is instant and carries PayPal's 2.99 percent fee. Bank transfer takes 2 to 4 days and a check takes 3 to 5.

Money goes out the same day we finish checking your phone.

If you are stuck on which to pick, start from where the money is going rather than from the percentages. Cash that is going straight back out on a bill is simplest as a bank transfer. Cash going toward something from one particular retailer is worth taking as that retailer's gift card. Cash you want in hand today is PayPal, and the fee is what today costs. A check suits anyone who would rather see it arrive in the mail.

One rule before you choose. A phone graded Brand New is paid by PayPal only. The other three are not offered on that grade.