Which UK phone recycler pays the most for damaged iPhones?

Nobody pays the most for every damaged iPhone, and that includes us. Which UK phone recycler pays the most for yours depends on four things: the exact model and storage, which grade your phone honestly falls into on each site's own rules, whether it switches on and works as a phone, and the day, because every buyback site in the UK reprices regularly. On the day we last checked, other buyers published higher prices than ReMint for several damaged grades. So this page will not tell you who pays the most. It will tell you how to find out for your phone, in about five minutes.

Start with the grade, because that is where most comparisons go wrong. ReMint uses three. Works fine means no cracks, chips or faults. Not perfect, screen works means the phone switches on and works as a phone with a perfect picture, but has other damage: cracked glass on the front or back, a worn battery, a faulty camera, Face ID or button. Screen broken means the picture itself is wrong, with lines, blots, dead spots or ghost touch, or a non Apple replacement screen; a genuine Apple replacement screen counts as original. Other sites fold some or all of that into one tier with a name like Broken, Faulty or Poor. A price for a tier only means something once you have read what the tier includes.

That is why prices differ so much by grade. A phone with cracked glass over a perfect picture needs a cheap part, so a buyer that separates it from a failed display can pay much more for it. A buyer with one damaged tier has to price every phone in that tier as though the display has failed. On our own price list the gap is large: on 22 October 2026 an iPhone 16 Pro 128 GB was £302 to us with cracked glass and a perfect picture, and £190 with the picture gone. If your glass is cracked but the picture is perfect, a single tier price may be the lower of two numbers you could have had.

Then check the switch on rule, because it decides whether any price applies at all. ReMint buys a damaged iPhone only when it switches on and works as a phone, and we say so on every page. We cannot test a phone that will not power on, or erase your data from it, so any figure would be a guess. Other buyers set their own version of the rule in their tier wording. Envirofone's Faulty tier says the phone "must still switch on", and musicMagpie says it cannot buy a device that "does not power on". Read the rule before you post, not after.

Water damage and very worn batteries are where the rule bites. A phone that has been in water may switch on today and not next month, as corrosion creeps along the board. A battery under 80 percent is no problem on its own, but a phone that dies the moment it is off the charger may not work as a phone by the time it arrives. If either is your situation, sell sooner, charge it full before posting, and expect the buyer to test it on arrival.

Compare the whole offer, not the headline. Across the industry the common complaint is a high quoted price followed by a lower revised offer once the phone arrives. So check four things for every site you are weighing up: does it show its grading rules before you order, does it hold the quote for a fixed number of days, does it post the phone back free if you decline a revised offer, and how and when does it pay. A site a few pounds ahead on the quote and well behind on arrival is not paying the most.

Here is our side of that, so you can hold us to it. You get an instant price by model, storage and grade. The price is fixed for 10 days from the order. The phone travels free by tracked Royal Mail: a QR code at any Post Office, a pickup or a postage pack. It is tested and photographed on our bench in Derbyshire within one working day of arriving, and paid by bank transfer within 48 hours of arriving, Monday to Friday. If it does not match the grade you chose, you get a revised offer with the photos, and if you say no we post it back free.

To run the check yourself: find your exact model and storage in Settings, then General, then About. Decide honestly which grade it is in on each site by reading the wording, not the name. Confirm it switches on and works as a phone: make a call, send a text, check it charges. Open our model page and two or three buyers' own sites in the same sitting, because every price moves. Then weigh the price against the terms. That is the only version of "who pays the most" that holds for your phone, on the day you sell it. And if your iPhone will not switch on at all, no buyback price applies: your council recycling centre or an Apple store will take it free.