Sell Your Old Phone: The Buyback Price Calendar
4 min read
Ten days. That's how narrow the window is where your phone loses the most money. Not from scratches, not from a tired battery. Just from the date.
When you sell your old phone, you think about the where first: rebuy, ZOXS, MediaMarkt, a private listing. We put six buyback portals head-to-head. The when is usually worth more.
Sell your old phone: the best time in the yearly calendar
Roughly, the year looks like this.
| Period | What happens to buyback offers |
|---|---|
| January | Slump, market flooded with freshly gifted devices |
| February to July | Quiet, steady depreciation, a decent window |
| August to early September | Last chance before the keynote |
| Mid-September to October | The drop |
| November, December | Demand firms up: platforms restock refurbished inventory for Christmas |
The January dip has two independent supports. E-commerce expert Julia Miosga told techbook.de she advises against selling straight after Christmas, because the secondhand market is saturated by then. And borncity.com watched retailers clear iPhone 16 stock in January 2026, dragging used values down with it.
The expensive mistake
If you're planning to sell your iPhone, this is the mistake that costs the most: the price falls before the new phone is even in stores.
A SellCell analysis from August 2026, reported by MacRumors, found buyback offers fell for 75% of tracked iPhone models in the ten days between announcement and release. The 128GB iPhone 15 Plus dropped 20.2%, from $440 to $351. Nothing about the phone itself had changed. How that plays out on the refurbished buying side shows up in the current iPhone 17 discount.
Tim Bauer of Handyverkauf.net sums it up: buyback prices sink noticeably harder once a manufacturer ships something new. Waiting for a recovery rarely pays off.
Your battery isn't waiting either
Every month you hold costs you twice.
According to SellCell's rolling depreciation report, an iPhone loses somewhere between 12% and nearly 29% of its value in the first month after a successor launches. Battery health slides at the same time. What that battery percentage actually means when you resell is worth a closer look. Whether the two really compound on your specific device, honestly, depends a lot on the model.
Sell your old phone through Refurbito? Not quite.
Refurbito doesn't buy phones. We're a straightforward phone buyback comparison: we only compare what refurbished sellers charge, and that's exactly why we're free to tell you to hold off this month, especially if you're about to sell your used phone.
And if you need a device again after the sale: more models are in our 2026 refurbished iPhone buying guide, and on the Android side it's worth a look at what to check before buying Samsung refurbished. Compare quickly, then buy.
Bottom line
If you're going to sell your old phone, keep the calendar above in mind. Timing decides double-digit percentage points on the buyback price.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should I sell my iPhone?
Before the keynote, not after it. Apple usually announces new models in early September, and offers on the outgoing generation slide between the announcement and the release date. August tends to be the last genuinely good month.
Is January really that bad?
It is, and the reason is dull. After Christmas a lot of people try to offload the same old handsets at once because they just unwrapped a new one. More supply against flat demand means lower offers.
Is it worth waiting for better prices?
Probably not. A specific model's buyback price almost never climbs back to its old level once a successor ships. If you missed the good month, selling soon usually beats hoping for a turnaround.
Does condition matter more than timing?
Both matter, differently. Model, storage and condition set how big your offer is. Timing decides how much of that survives.
