There is a common belief that a phone loses value steadily, a bit each month, so the timing of a sale does not much matter. It is wrong, and it is an expensive thing to be wrong about.
iPhone values fall in steps. The steps are large, they cluster around a small number of predictable dates, and knowing where those dates are is worth real money.
The cycle, and what just changed about it
For years the pattern was simple: one launch in September, one repricing event per year. Apple has now split its lineup across two launch windows, with the Pro models and the Air arriving in September and the standard models moving to spring.
That means two repricing events a year instead of one. For anyone holding a phone they intend to sell eventually, the practical effect is that the cost of waiting has roughly doubled.
The three moments that cost you the most
In descending order of how much they hurt:
- The week your model's successor is announced. This is the biggest single drop and it happens overnight, not gradually.
- The week your model becomes two generations old, which is when it stops being 'last year's phone' and starts being 'an old phone'.
- The point Apple drops it from iOS support, which is usually five to six years in and is where a phone stops being a daily device to a buyer.
So when should you actually sell?
Before the announcement, not after it. If you know you will upgrade in September, selling in July or August is worth meaningfully more than selling in October, and the phone spends those weeks doing nothing either way.
The counter-argument is real and worth stating: you need a phone in the meantime. That is a genuine cost, and if the gap means buying a stopgap device, the maths may not favour selling early. For most people the gap is a week or two around a launch, and a spare old phone from the drawer covers it.
The other honest answer is that the best time to sell a phone you are not using is now, whenever now happens to be. A drawer phone loses value every month and provides nothing in return. There is no version of that trade that improves with patience.
What about waiting for prices to recover?
They do not. Second-hand iPhone prices are one of the more reliably one-directional things in consumer electronics.
The exceptions are narrow and worth knowing: the last small phone in a line, such as the iPhone 13 mini, and the occasional discontinued colour or configuration. Those hold up unusually well. Nothing else does.
The short version
Sell before the launch, not after. With Apple now launching twice a year, the cost of holding a phone you intend to sell has gone up. And if it is already in a drawer, the best time was last year and the second best time is today.