iPhone launch impact on trade-in prices (2023-2026): the year offers went up
After the iPhone 18 Pro launch, iPhone 17 trade-in offers rose almost 6%. In 2023-2025 the outgoing model slid 12-17% by late November. Four launches, weekly data.
Key takeaways
2026 broke the pattern. iPhone 17 trade-in offers rose almost 6% after the launch. Apple released only the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, so the standard iPhone 17 had no direct successor.
2023–2025 were slides, not crashes. Offers for the outgoing iPhone slipped around the keynote, then kept falling for months, ending 12–17% below early August by late November.
The timing moves. In 2024 the drop came the week before the keynote, in 2023 it came in keynote week, and in 2025 the steepest fall was in November.
Does a new iPhone always push trade-in prices down?
Every September, recommerce teams brace for the launch. The working assumption is that the outgoing model's trade-in value drops as soon as Apple announces its replacement, so offers get cut ahead of the keynote. We tested that assumption against four launch cycles, from the iPhone 15 in 2023 to the iPhone 18 Pro in 2026, measuring the outgoing model's launch impact on trade-in price each time.
For three years the assumption held, but not in the way it is usually told: the launch started a slide that lasted months, rather than a one-day shock. In 2026 it did not hold at all.
Four launches, year by year
Outgoing iPhone trade-in offers rose after a launch, a first in four launches
With no standard iPhone 18, iPhone 17 offers climbed 5.7% by early October 2026. In 2023–2025 the outgoing model fell 12–17% by late November.
Trade-in price index for the outgoing standard iPhone, early August = 100
Source: RecommerceIQ trade-in price monitoring. Grade A offers for the outgoing standard iPhone in base storage (2023: iPhone 14, 2024: iPhone 15, 2025: iPhone 16, 2026: iPhone 17) from European trade-in vendors. 2026 through late October. Lines smoothed over two weeks.
| Year | Launch | Around the launch |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | iPhone 17 → iPhone 18 Pro | +7.4% |
| 2025 | iPhone 16 → iPhone 17 | −5.2% |
| 2024 | iPhone 15 → iPhone 16 | −7.0% |
| 2023 | iPhone 14 → iPhone 15 | −3.7% |
Change in trade-in offers from two weeks before to two weeks after the launch week. Launch week is the keynote week; for 2026, the week the iPhone 18 Pro first appeared in trade-in quotes (17 September).
2026: offers went up. In September 2026 Apple launched only the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max; the first trade-in quotes for them appeared on 17 September. There was no standard iPhone 18. iPhone 17 trade-in offers, flat until then, rose 4.4% in launch week and peaked 5.7% above their early-August level at the start of October. They have eased since, but in the third week of October were still 2.0% higher than in August. With no new standard model to replace it, the iPhone 17 remained Apple's current standard iPhone, the most likely reason its trade-in value held up.
2025: a steady decline. iPhone 16 offers slipped about 3% through August, were 4.5% down in the week of the 9 September keynote, and 8% down by early October. The steepest part came later: offers fell another 10 points through November, reaching a low 18.6% below early August in mid-November and ending the window 16.5% down.
2024: the drop came early. iPhone 15 offers fell about 5% in the week before the 9 September keynote, a sign that trade-in desks were pricing in the announcement ahead of time. They then held around 8% below early August through October, before sliding again in November to finish 12% down.
2023: a keynote-week dip, then a late drop. iPhone 14 offers fell about 4% in the week of the 12 September keynote, then held roughly flat, around 2% below early August, until mid-November. The bigger move came in the last week of November, leaving offers 12.5% below their starting level.
What this means for recommerce operators
- 1Plan for a slide, not a single cut. In 2023–2025 most of the decline came weeks or months after the keynote. A single price cut on launch day leaves offers too high by November, and stock bought in October at September prices loses value while it waits to be resold.
- 2Check what launches, not just when. In 2026 the standard iPhone had no successor, and its trade-in value rose. Cutting iPhone 17 offers ahead of the keynote, as in previous years, would have meant offering less than the market.
- 3Live monitoring beats a fixed playbook. The timing and size of the move changed every year, and in 2026 so did its direction. A static "cut offers by X% at launch" rule would have been wrong every year. Competitor price monitoring that shows what is happening this cycle, week by week, is how you see it in time.
Frequently asked questions
Do trade-in prices always fall after a new iPhone launches?
No. In 2023, 2024 and 2025, trade-in offers for the outgoing standard iPhone fell, by 12-17% by late November. In 2026 they rose: iPhone 17 offers climbed almost 6% within three weeks of the September launch. That year Apple launched only the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, so the standard iPhone 17 had no direct successor. What launches matters as much as when.
What happened to iPhone 17 trade-in prices when the iPhone 18 launched?
They went up. iPhone 17 trade-in offers were flat from early August to the launch week, then rose to 5.7% above their early-August level by the start of October 2026. By the third week of October they were still 2% higher. Apple launched only the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max that September, with no standard iPhone 18 to replace the iPhone 17.
What happened to iPhone 16 trade-in prices when the iPhone 17 launched?
They declined steadily rather than crashing. iPhone 16 trade-in offers slipped 4.5% by the week of Apple's September 2025 keynote, were 8% lower by early October, and kept falling into November, reaching a low 18.6% below their early-August level in mid-November and ending the window 16.5% down.
What happened to iPhone 15 trade-in prices when the iPhone 16 launched?
The drop came before the keynote. iPhone 15 trade-in offers fell about 5% in the week before Apple's September 2024 keynote, held around 8% below their early-August level through October, then slid further to finish the window 12% down in late November.
What happened to iPhone 14 trade-in prices when the iPhone 15 launched?
iPhone 14 trade-in offers fell about 4% in the week of Apple's September 2023 keynote, then held roughly flat, about 2% below their early-August level, until mid-November. A sharper drop came at the end of November, leaving offers 12.5% below where they started.
How much do iPhones drop in trade-in value after a new release?
In our data for 2023-2025, the outgoing standard iPhone lost 12-17% of its trade-in value between early August and late November, with most of the decline coming gradually in the weeks and months after the launch rather than on keynote day. 2026 broke the pattern: with no standard iPhone 18 launched, iPhone 17 offers rose instead.
Methodology
Device. The outgoing standard iPhone in its base storage, Grade A condition: iPhone 14 128GB (2023), iPhone 15 128GB (2024), iPhone 16 128GB (2025) and iPhone 17 256GB (2026). Pro, Pro Max, Plus, Air and mini models are excluded.
Data. Every trade-in offer quoted by European trade-in vendors and collected daily by RecommerceIQ, across Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, the UK, Greece and Romania.
Terms. We use "trade-in" because it's the term most readers search for, but what we track is the cash offer a specialist recommerce platform or retailer quotes for buying a device outright, not the credit issued at a carrier or OEM trade-in counter. In our glossary, this is what we define as buyback.
Window. 17 weeks from 1 August to late November each year. Week 1 is 1–7 August. 2026 runs through week 12 (17–23 October).
Index. Each vendor's offers are averaged by week. Each week, every vendor's price is compared with its own price the week before, and the weekly change is the geometric mean of those ratios, with each vendor weighted equally. The changes are chained into an index where week 1 = 100. Because every vendor is only compared with itself, vendors joining or leaving during the window do not move the index, and no currency conversion is needed.
Chart. Lines use a two-week moving average for readability. All figures in the text use the unsmoothed index.
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