A lot of people have asked if pawn shops buy broken iPhones. I’ve decided that it is time to answer this question once and for all.
When it comes to all of the various things that pawn shops accept, one of the most popular it seems are iPhones.
There are a lot of iPhones out there, being one of the best selling consumer electronics devices of all time.
Just like anything else that has a lot of units out in the public’s hands, iPhone do break from time to time.
Sometimes they get dropped and the screen cracked.
In other cases they are password locked, the the home button stops working for whatever reason.
In some cases the headphone jacks quit on people, the volume and power buttons stop working, you get the picture.
So what do people do with broken iPhones?
Some people get them fixed and keep using them. Others just upgrade to the newest iPhone and throw the old one in a dresser drawer.
But what if you could turn an old, broken iPhone into cash?
I’ve been asked from time to time, “Can you pawn a broken iPhone,” and the answer largely depends on the pawn shop that you are dealing with.
That makes it very difficult to give you a one-size-fits-all answer to this sort of question but in a lot of cases, there are pawn shops who will still look at your broken iPhones.
A lot of people have asked me if you can pawn a broken iPhone and the answer almost always depends on the pawn shop that they are planning on working with. There are some pawn shops out there that would buy or loan on a broken iPhone, while others will not unfortunately.
Why Would Pawn Shops Buy Broken iPhones
The next question that some people might ask themselves is “Why would a pawn shop buy a broken iPhone?”
Well, there are some pawn shops out there that offer a wide range of services, one of those being cell phone repair.
In these cases, it makes sense for them to buy broken iPhones since they will be able to repair and resell them.
If the pawn shop in question doesn’t repair cell phones themselves, they may have a partnership with a local business that does offer such a service and can get it done at a discount.
The third reason that I’ve seen pawn shops buy broken iPhones is because you can still sell broken iPhones to professional iPhone recyclers who take them apart and reuse the parts in other iPhones during the repair process.
In all of these scenarios, a broken iPhone is just another piece of merchandise like any other – it’s just not as worth nearly as much as if it as in 100% perfect working condition.
How Much Do Pawn Shops Pay For Broken iPhones
Again, this is a tough question to answer with just one answer that covers all aspects here.
A lot of this will depend on how exactly the pawn shop that you are working with uses the iPhones.
If the pawn shop repairs and resells the phones themselves, then they will likely be able to pay more for them depending on what is wrong with yours.
If however the pawn shop simply resells them to iPhone recyclers, then there is a much tighter margin for them to work in and therefore they won’t be able to pay you as much for yours.
Additionally, you’ve got to take into account what exactly is broken on your iPhone to begin with.
If it is simple like just a cracked screen, that’s normally pretty easy for the pawn shop to repair or have repaired and they can give you a pretty decent amount of money for yours.
On the other hand, if there is more significant damage, such as water damage for instance, then they won’t be able to pay you nearly as much for yours since there is much more work that needs to be done to get it back into good, working condition.
Typically speaking, you could be looking at anywhere from $10 to $200 for a broken iPhone depending on how old it is and what all needs to be done to it.
Mandy Dormain started working for Pawn Nerd in 2020. Mandy grew up in a small town in northern Tennessee. But moved to New York for university. Before joining Pawn Nerd, Mandy briefly worked as a freelance journalist for several radio stations. She covers politics and economy stories.
