Every phone falls,
eventually.

Our three grades, explained properly

Every buyback site grades phones, and most make it complicated on purpose: five or six vague tiers, so whatever arrives can be argued down a level. We use three, and the line between them is drawn in one place: the display.

Working is exactly what it sounds like. Everything functions, there are no chips or cracks anywhere, and battery health is 80 percent or above. Signs of normal use are fine; we are buying a used phone, not a museum piece. Working gets the top price on the calculator. A working phone with a battery under 80 percent is the one case in between: the calculator asks about the battery before you pick a grade, and if yours is under 80 it prices the phone as Working, battery under 80 percent, which is our screen fine price. You choose it up front, so there is nothing to revise when the phone arrives.

Faulty or damaged, screen fine covers a phone with problems that do not touch the picture. Cracked glass on the front or the back, a dent, a broken camera or speaker, Face ID or a button that has stopped working: all of that lives here, as long as the display itself is original and shows a perfect image. A tired battery on an otherwise perfect phone is priced at this line too, under the terms, though the calculator calls it what it is. This grade pays around 90 percent of the working price, which surprises people who have been offered pennies elsewhere for the same phone.

Faulty or damaged, screen bad is for phones where the display itself has problems: bleeding, lines, dead spots, ghost touches, or a non original replacement screen. The display is the most expensive part of the phone, which is why this grade sits lowest, and why it still pays real money, because the rest of the phone keeps its value.

Two honest notes. First, grade what you see, not what you hope: our bench checks every phone against the grade you chose, and if it does not match we send a revised price you can accept or decline, with a free return either way. Second, a phone that will not power on at all cannot be graded or wiped, so we return those rather than guess. If yours will not switch on, our guide on selling a phone that will not turn on covers your options.

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How to check your iPhone battery health

Battery health is the one condition question people most often get wrong, and not because they are guessing badly: the phone feels fine, so the number must be fine. It is worth thirty seconds to look, because 80 per cent is the line that matters to the price and the phone does not tell you which side of it you are on until you ask.

Open Settings, then Battery, then Battery Health and Charging. On older versions of iOS the last screen is called just Battery Health. The line you want is Maximum Capacity, shown as a percentage. That is the number the calculator asks for. 80 per cent or above is fine; under 80 is where the price changes.

What happens under 80: the phone moves from our Working grade to the middle grade, the one we call screen fine because the picture is fine, and it earns that price instead. The calculator shows you the difference for your model before you order, so there is no surprise later.

If the screen says Service, or there is a message about the battery being significantly degraded, that is Apple saying the same thing: the number is under 80. If it shows Unknown Part or no percentage at all, the battery has been replaced with one that is not an Apple part, or the phone cannot read it. Answer under 80 in that case and tell us in the notes. We measure every battery on the bench with our own equipment, so the number you give us is a starting point, not a promise you are held to.

One thing that catches people out: the percentage on the Battery screen is charge, how full the battery is right now. That is not battery health. A phone at 100 per cent charge can have a battery at 78 per cent health. Only the Maximum Capacity line on the Battery Health screen is the number we mean.

If the phone will not turn on, there is no way to read it, and that is fine. Pick the answer you believe and we will read the real figure when it arrives. We price the phone we actually receive, and an honest guess costs you nothing.

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