The honest answer is that it depends on four things, and only one of them is the model. People tend to assume the generation is the whole story, then get surprised when a well-kept iPhone 13 is worth more than a battered 14.
This guide covers what genuinely moves the number in the South African market, in rough order of how much each one matters. No prices are quoted, deliberately, and there is a reason for that further down.
1. Which generation, and how close it is to the current one
This is the biggest single factor, but it does not work the way most people expect. Value does not decline smoothly with age. It falls in steps, and the steps happen at Apple's launch events.
The largest single drop for any iPhone is the week its successor is announced. The second largest is the week it becomes two generations old. Between those events, prices drift down gently. This is why timing a sale matters more than people think, and why the worst possible plan is to wait until you have bought the new phone before selling the old one.
Apple has now split its launches across the year, with the iPhone 18 Pro and the second-generation Air arriving in September 2026 and the standard iPhone 18 following in spring 2027. That means two repricing events a year instead of one, which makes holding on to a phone you intend to sell more expensive than it used to be.
2. Pro or not, which matters more second-hand than new
The gap between a standard iPhone and its Pro sibling widens over time. New, the Pro costs perhaps thirty percent more. Three years later it can be worth nearly double.
The reason is that the Pro's advantages, mainly the cameras and the display, are the things people shopping for a used phone actually compare. Nobody buys a four-year-old phone for its processor. They buy it because it takes decent photos.
3. Battery health, and the 80% cliff
Check yours under Settings, Battery, Battery Health and Charging. The number matters, and it matters in a specific, non-linear way.
Between 100% and roughly 85%, the effect on value is small. Below 80%, it becomes significant, because that is where Apple itself flags the battery as degraded and where a buyer starts assuming they will have to pay for a replacement. The difference between 81% and 79% is worth far more than the difference between 95% and 85%.
Should you replace the battery before selling? Almost never. An official replacement costs more than it adds. An unofficial one can lower the price further, because the phone reports an unknown part in its service history and buyers treat that as a red flag.
4. Condition, honestly assessed
Most people overrate their own phone's condition, not out of dishonesty but because you stop seeing wear on something you look at forty times a day.
Take the case off, clean the screen, and look at it under a bright light at an angle. Then look at the four corners specifically, because that is where damage concentrates and where the first thing anybody assessing it will look.
- Screen: scratches visible at an angle, and any crack however small
- Corners: chips and dents, especially on flat-edged models from the 12 onward
- Back glass: cracks here are as expensive to fix as the front on recent models
- Camera lenses: hairline scratches show up in every photo as flare
- Charging port: lint, corrosion, or a cable that will not sit firmly
Why we do not publish a price list
You will notice there are no rand figures anywhere in this article or on this site. That is deliberate, and there are two reasons.
The first is commercial: a published price table is a catalogue our competitors can scrape in a single request, and several of them do exactly that. The second is more useful to you: a table can only show a best case, and the best case is almost never the phone you actually have. A number attached to your specific model, storage and condition is worth more than a number attached to an idealised version of it.
So the calculator is where the number comes from. It takes about a minute, there is no account to create, and nobody phones you afterwards.
Why online asking prices mislead
If you have looked at what iPhones are listed for on classifieds and marketplaces, adjust downward before you use it as a benchmark. Those are asking prices, not selling prices, and the gap between the two is wide.
A listing that has sat there for six weeks is evidence of what a phone is not worth. And a private sale price is not directly comparable to a buyback price anyway: a buyback includes a free courier, immediate certainty, and not meeting a stranger. Those have value, and they are the difference between the two numbers.
The short version
Generation and Pro status set the range. Battery health and condition decide where in that range your phone sits. Everything else is a rounding error. And whatever the number is today, it is higher today than it will be after the next launch event, which is the one part of this that is not a judgement call.