1) You might find that buyers assume that your Mac is faulty if you price it too low. There are a couple of things to bear in mind here. You might have paid £1,500 for your MacBook Pro three years ago when you bought it but, while Macs can keep their value pretty well, you have to be realistic and look at what Apple sells now with a similar spec – it could be that your potential purchaser could pick up the same spec in a completely new Mac for not a lot more than you think yours is worth.Īlternatively, if you really want to shift it quickly you might think that pricing it for a fast sell is wise. Don’t be unrealistic about what it’s worth though. If you aren’t in a major hurry to sell your Mac you might be happy to price it higher on the off chance that at some point someone will be prepared to pay extra for it. On the other hand, if your Mac has a very high spec model in its time – particularly if it was one that had veracious build to order options added when you bought it, you may be able to get more for it simply because it is rare – and it’s rare because it is pretty much impossible to add components to a Mac at a later date. Base your pricing decision on Macs that are a similar as possible to the one you are selling, and note whether there are a lot of people watching the sale to gage interest.
Maybe they are bundling software with it (which isn’t strictly legal – the Mac should be wiped before you sell it). You’ll also notice that many secondhand Macs will be sold with extras: perhaps its in the original sealed box, i.e. If your Mac isn’t in this list you might find it harder to sell because it won’t run macOS Catalina. This means that Macs that don’t run macOS Catalina are not officially supported by Apple. Apple usually maintains the last three versions of the macOS with bug fixes and important security updates, ensuring that the latest version of Safari will run, and that Apple Services, such as iCloud, are fully supported. It’s also worth bearing in mind that there is a limit to how long Apple supports old Macs for. Either way it seems likely that the effect of the transition to the M1 chip, which has proven to be very successful for Apple, will reduce the resale price of, and demand for, older Macs.
People will either be falling over themselves trying to buy Intel Macs because Apple no longer sells them, or people will not be buying Intel-powered Macs at all. One issue in particular is pertinent right now: the transition from Intel to Apple’s own chips (M1, M1 Pro or M1 Max).
Mac2Sell where you can select the model you are selling and get a quote based on what it’s worth: that same 15in MacBook Pro from 2015 was estimated to be worth £663. If you don’t fancy doing all this research you could take a look at one of the businesses that offers to sell your Mac for you, many of which will calculate a price (although that price is usually what they will give you for it, rather than what they would sell it for). Keep Apple’s refurbished prices in mind when you set a price for the Mac you are selling because you have to accept that a person is probably unlikely to buy your second hand Mac if they can get what is essentially a new one for the same price (including a one year warranty from Apple). In its day that Mac would have cost £1,599 new. It was priced at £430 and has some dents in the base and marks on the screen. Even worse, if you get the specs wrong and claim that it is newer or more powerful than it is the person who buys the Mac won’t be happy and you may have to refund them.Įbay to get a feel for what the competition is like, and how much the various Mac laptops are selling for.Įbay UK we found a refurbished mid 2015 15in MacBook Pro, 2.2GHz i7 processor, 16GB RAM, listed as pre-owned, but “Grade B tested”. The risk otherwise is that you might not make as much money as you could, or you might be unable to sell your Mac because your price is too high. Once you know which model you have you can start to work on getting an idea of what it’s worth. Step 2: Find out how much similar Macs are selling for The first step when it comes to selling your old Mac is finding out which model you have – not just the type of Mac, but the generation and other specs. Be honest about whether your Mac is in reasonable shape and knock pounds off if it isn’t.Check to see if Apple is still selling that Mac? Is it in.Find out what a Mac with a similar spec costs new.Find out what other Macs of the same generation are selling for by checking on eBay and Gumtree.