Replacing an appliance? Trade-ins, resale, rebates, and what to do with the old one

Replacing a major appliance raises two money questions: what to do with the old one, and how to spend less on the new one. The marketing pushes “trade-in,” but that’s just one lever — and a rarely available one.

We checked the major appliance brands and big-box stores. Only two run a real appliance trade-in program. The good news: you have several other ways to recover value from your old unit and trim the cost of its replacement. Here’s the honest rundown.

Trade-in: only LG and Samsung

A true trade-in gives you credit toward a new appliance in exchange for your old one. (Haul-away, by contrast, just removes it.) We checked the major brands and stores, and only two offer it:

Haul-away terms shift with promotions and location, so confirm at checkout. Whirlpool and Maytag currently offer it free on qualifying purchases when you’re signed in; Samsung’s varies by offer (sometimes a fee, sometimes free); Costco includes it free on most appliances where available. “Via retailer” means the brand sells mainly through stores, so haul-away comes from the retailer you buy from — like Home Depot or Lowe’s — not the brand itself.

Here’s how the two real programs work:

• LG Trade-In: Open only to U.S. customers who already own a qualifying LG appliance and buy a new one from LG.com. LG sets the trade-in value at its discretion and can revise it after inspecting your unit.
• Samsung Trade-In: Offers an appliance trade-in / recycling credit (recently advertised as up to $100 instant credit) toward an eligible new Samsung refrigerator, washer, dryer, range, dishwasher, or microwave. Haul-away terms vary by offer and are confirmed at checkout.

Both lock you to the brand, so a trade-in only makes sense if you’d already decided to buy LG or Samsung.

Sell it yourself

If your old appliance still works, selling it almost always beats a trade-in credit on dollars.

What it fetches is highly local and variable, though. On eBay and Facebook Marketplace, a clean, working unit might bring anywhere from a quarter to half of its original price — and older or higher-mileage appliances often sell for much less. The numbers swing with local supply and demand, the season, and how many similar units are listed nearby.

So skip the rules of thumb and check the only figure that matters: recent sold listings for your exact model in your area.

Want it gone faster? Many local used-appliance stores will buy a working unit outright for cash on the spot. You’ll get less than a private sale, but more than the nothing a haul-away leaves you.

Recycle it for cash

Even a tired appliance can pay you to retire it. Many electric utilities run appliance-recycling programs that haul away an old working refrigerator or freezer for free and pay you a rebate — commonly around $50 per unit, sometimes with a bonus for a second small appliance.

The fine print: you usually must be the utility’s customer, and the unit typically has to be empty, working, and roughly 10–30 cubic feet. See what’s offered where you live with the ENERGY STAR Rebate Finder.

Donate it

A working appliance you’d rather not sell can go to a charity like Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore. Many will pick it up, and the donation may be tax-deductible if you itemize — keep the receipt and note the fair-market value.

Just want it gone? Haul-away

If selling, donating, and recycling all sound like too much work, haul-away is the easy button. As the table above shows, most brands and big-box stores will take your old unit when they deliver the new one — Whirlpool and Maytag do it free; Home Depot, Lowe’s, Best Buy, and Samsung charge a small fee. You recover no cash, but the old unit is gone the day the new one arrives.

Save on the new one: rebates and credits

Don’t forget the other side of the ledger — the replacement.

Utility rebates: Many utilities offer instant or mail-in rebates on ENERGY STAR–certified appliances. Find yours with the ENERGY STAR Rebate Finder.

Federal programs: Standard refrigerators and washers generally don’t qualify for federal tax credits. But efficient electric appliances — like heat-pump clothes dryers and induction stoves, cooktops, or ranges — can qualify for IRA Home Energy Rebates of up to $840. These are state-administered (not federal tax credits) and based on household income. Check what your state offers at energy.gov.

Millions of tons get landfilled

Not everything that breaks is worth saving — but a lot of reusable material gets thrown away anyway. The EPA estimates Americans generated about 5.3 million tons of major appliances as waste in 2018; most of that metal is recovered for scrap, but roughly 2.1 million tons of major-appliance material were landfilled rather than recycled or reused (EPA). Some of those units were genuinely dead; plenty of working ones get scrapped too. Every appliance sold, donated, or recycled instead is money kept and waste avoided.

Where OwnWise comes in

Every lever here depends on one number you probably don’t have: what your old appliance is actually worth — and whether it still works as it should.

That’s what OwnWise tells you. It reads your appliance’s model, age, and condition, flags the cheap fix if something’s wrong, and gauges its real resale value, so you can pick the option that pays the most.

Sometimes that’s a private sale; sometimes a $40 repair turns a “recycle it” unit into one worth real money. Either way, you decide with real numbers instead of a salesperson’s pitch.

Before you commit

Trade-in terms, haul-away fees, utility rebates, and tax programs all change often, and many are regional, income-based, or first-come, first-served. Confirm the current details before you count on any of them.