Does Best Buy Offer Good Trade-In Value? Here's What We Found

Some people may not be aware that Best Buy has a trade-in program, offering store credit in exchange for your used electronics. The retailer doesn't go out of its way to make the program known, but it will give you store credit or a gift card in exchange for your devices. However, there are plenty of similar programs out there. Manufacturers like Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft offer their own trade-in deals, and owners also have the option of making an independent sale on a platform like eBay, Craigslist, or Facebook Marketplace, to name just a few. So, just how competitive are Best Buy's trade-in offers?

To put Best Buy's generosity to the test, we surveyed a range of products from different categories: smartphones, laptops, smartwatches, gaming consoles, and miscellaneous gadgets and accessories. For each product, we compared Best Buy's trade-in offer to those from comparative programs, as well as to its value on the secondhand market. To keep things simple, we looked at the topline models for each product category and assumed the item to be in good condition.

Let's cut to the chase: Best Buy's trade-in offers are rarely compelling, at least at the time of this writing. While some products (most notably Apple devices) command a somewhat reasonable value, most products from other brands do not. It can be worth checking to see whether Best Buy will give you a good deal on your used hardware, but you should prepare for disappointment. So, here's how Best Buy's trade-in program stacks up against other avenues owners can take to reclaim some value for their used devices.

Putting Best Buy's trade-in program to the test, we found it lacking in value almost across the board, though Apple products are given better offers in many cases. Headphones and earbuds are an illustrative example. The big box store values a pair of AirPods 3rd Generation at $45. Given that Apple itself will only recycle your AirPods, that seems better than nothing, and it's about what you could expect to sell them for on eBay, assuming you managed to keep them relatively pristine. However, when we look at the Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones, Best Buy offers an insulting $30. These headphones consistently ranked among the best noise canceling headphones of their generation, and they still sell secondhand on eBay for between roughly $140 and $175.

Trading in your MacBook at Best Buy is a lot more reasonable, though nothing to write home about. For Apple's beastly M4 Pro MacBook Pro with 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, the trade-in offer is $1,200. You can absolutely get more for that device on eBay, where used models of the same configuration hover around $1,700. For Macs, Apple's trade-in program requires serial numbers, so we couldn't check our hypothetical product's value. However, the website claims you'll get up to $875, which makes Best Buy's offer a good choice for anyone who doesn't want to deal with private sales. Now, Windows laptop owners should look elsewhere. An 11th Generation Surface Pro with 1TB of storage will get you $440 at Best Buy, but $635 direct from Microsoft, and around $1,000 if you sell it on eBay.

Two types of products you should probably avoid trading in at Best Buy are smartphones and gaming consoles, for which the chain offers pittances. For an iPhone 16 Pro Max with 1 TB of storage in good condition, Best Buy offered $375. Meanwhile, Apple itself offers almost twice that with $700 toward a new iPhone or Apple gift card. A quick search on Facebook Marketplace reveals that most people expect $800-$1,500, even when lower storage models are included. 

Even more egregious, a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra with 512 GB of storage (the maximum for carrier variants of that device) in good condition was given a $350 Best Buy trade-in offer. Samsung's own offer? A cool grand toward the new Galaxy Z Fold 7. Even if you tell Samsung the screen is cracked, you'll get $800. However, Samsung's offers are contingent on the product you're trading toward. Trading in the same, well-kept S25 Ultra for a Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra would save you a maximum of $800.

A base model PlayStation 5 in good condition with a controller will get you $200 from Best Buy. That's $75 less than you'd get by trading it in to GameStop, and Sony's trade-in partner, Back Market, will give you $297. With both of those alternatives offering hard cash, Best Buy's offer isn't very competitive. But if you own an Xbox, things are slightly better. For a 1 TB Xbox Series X in good condition, Best Buy's valuation is $150. That sounds low, but Microsoft's own trade-in program offers just $135. Selling your consoles yourself is a better bet, with both Sony and Microsoft's top models selling secondhand for roughly $350 and $400 respectively.

To evaluate Best Buy's trade-in offers, we chose popular products from multiple product categories and compared Best Buy's offers to those from trade-in programs affiliated with product manufacturers. We additionally compared those values to the secondhand market rates at the time of this writing. Products were assumed in good condition, and specs were matched across offers. When a trade-in offer was for cash, we also considered that against other offers for brand or store credit.